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Messages - thepokergod

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76
General - Stock Video / Re: 4K at Motion Elements
« on: February 04, 2016, 08:50 »
Does anyone actually make any meaningful income at Motion Elements to make the effort of uploading worth it?1

77
I think a major challenge these days for new comers is to muscle their way into a marketplace which is now home to millions of clips - and getting noticed. Shoot around topics you love and find fascinating and be prepared to put in at least 12 - 18 months of hard work before seeing any meaningful results sales wise.

At places like Pond5 (which is a big player for video) it usually takes a year before my clips start gaining traction and selling, why I have no idea but that's how it is for me. And anyone seriously starting out in video should be shooting in 4K.

78
And those "trend" shots are high cost shots.  You may never recover the expense for getting those shots.

Yup - and that's why all of my high cost shots (some similar to those in that trends video) will never end up on Shutterstock, otherwise I'd be running at a serious loss!

So, where do you sell your high cost videos?  Do you sell them as stock video somewhere or for an exclusive client?

I sell entirely non-exclusively - Pond5 works very well for me setting my own prices. I also license directly to producers. I also work with a few smaller / boutique agencies like Nature Footage and Framepool. I think in this day and age if you want to make money from nature footage it has to be unique or difficult to produce.

79
And those "trend" shots are high cost shots.  You may never recover the expense for getting those shots.

Yup - and that's why all of my high cost shots (some similar to those in that trends video) will never end up on Shutterstock, otherwise I'd be running at a serious loss!

80
General - Stock Video / Re: Thoughts on 360 videos?
« on: January 24, 2016, 23:22 »
No idea how commercially viable it will become but I've invested in a rig and software mostly for Youtube and "marketing" purposes. Looking forward to having some fun with it.

81
Sorry to hear you've been inundated with these sales too jjneff, were they Wochit too or other companies? Last month's report was a bonanza of high priced and a nice pre-Christmas bonus - this month polar opposite. Even many of the non-Wochit sales were in the $10 - $20 range which I'd just rather not bother with.

82
I've got quite a few Rights Ready clips on Getty which were migrated over when they took over Photo Library a few years back. Generally I'm pretty happy with them since decent high priced sales come along often enough to cancel out the annoying low priced Premium Access sales. Well this month my report came through and I started salivating when I saw it was 6 pages long, almost too good to be true - well it was. I had a large number or Rights Ready sales amounting to mere pennies - $0.04, $0.10 etc which came from an outfit called Wochit.

I went to their website and it seems to be some sort of online video creation / syndication portal. I'm not exactly sure how it works but needless to say I'm not enthralled by the idea of people having access to my footage and my compensation amounting to pennies. Anyone else familiar with Wochit or had their footage used on their portal? Would be interested to find out.

Cheers - James

83
VideoBlocks / Re: We need to help videoblocks to grow
« on: December 16, 2015, 20:28 »
Is the other content wholly owned or is like their other sites where they paid the copyright holders some paltry sum (much less than an EL) to be able to sell the content in perpetuity without any further compensation?

I have just had a thought. Who thinks they will soon be approaching the best selling people on the PPD side with an offer to licence their portfolios in the same way as graphicstock (their other site)?

I think they are just using the set up to be able to chose only the people that sell to license to the sub site, so the quality of their subs offering will increase and PPD decrease until the opposite of the current situation is the case, best stuff on the subs side with no further compensation to contributors.

Yes I wouldn't be surprised at all if VB management start approaching sellers in their marketplace and make an offer for their content.

The Getty Premium Access program is quite frustrating but it balances out overall and is worth it for me anyway to stick with them - for every $1-10 sales there are enough $300 - 1000 sales to make it worthwhile.

84
VideoBlocks / Re: We need to help videoblocks to grow
« on: December 15, 2015, 22:38 »
I'm treading pretty carefully with VB - uploaded 1000 of my most standard B-roll clips. There's no way I'll ever upload my premium clips which are priced at $199 - $299 over on Pond5.

I'm not sure how sustainable the VB model is and I'm not expecting these good times there to last long. If and when things start going wrong there (ie price decrease or they start taking a royalty cut) I'll pull my content.

And jjneff - yeah those nickel and dime Getty sales suck, wish there was a way to opt out of Premium Access.

85
General Stock Discussion / Re: Video pricing
« on: November 29, 2015, 20:47 »
Glad to hear your sales are doing well - October to early December is traditional a bumper period for stock footage sales before the holidays kick in.

If you're going to do any price experiments it's worth running them for at least 6 months - comparing data over a week or two is pretty meaningless since the stock footage market is generally a roller coaster for most people. Great one week, quiet the next.

86
Conversion fees to change currency? I have a UK and Hong Kong Paypal account and don't get charged anything changing from USD to GBP or HKD. Yes the Paypal exchange rate is a bit crappy but then I'd be charged by my bank if I paid in a USD cheque or received a foreign exchange bank transfer.

BTW a tip if you're sending or receiving money via Paypal - always mark the payment as a personal payment owed rather than a commercial transaction. The fees are much much lower.

Fees / exchange rates are the reality of doing transactions online.

87
Use Paypal - will save yourself a lot of time and bother. And as others said you don't get charged any fees when you receive a payment from Pond5.

Alternatively just let the payment build up and request a cheque every 3 months or so.

88
General Stock Discussion / Re: Video pricing
« on: November 22, 2015, 23:54 »
Thanks emblem.

I'm primarily a stock footage shooter however I often supply footage to news organisations as and when events unfold. Stock footage commands a far better price than the news market - unless you're shooting UFOs etc!

89
General Stock Discussion / Re: Video pricing
« on: November 22, 2015, 21:12 »
Remember 4K isn't just about what's transmitted to your TV or computer over the internet - it's just as much about the added versatility editors get, even if they're working on HD productions. There's a lot more you can do with a 4K video clip.

My HD sales still far outweigh my 4K sales and I anticipate that to be the case for the next couple of years. But it's been a pleasant surprise to see my 4K material being licensed in larger quantities than originally expected, so soon and at a good price. If and when 4K becomes mainstream my aim will be to have a full stocked portfolio of 4K shots which surpasses the competition.

I'm certainly thankful I didn't jump on the 3D bandwagon and invest in that direction  ;)

90
General Stock Discussion / Re: Video pricing
« on: November 22, 2015, 19:39 »
Very glad I jumped on 4K early on since I'm starting to win business from clients who are producing 4K TV documentary series. I just licensed 68 4K clips to a production - the market is certainly growing.

That's awesome. Congrats.

An anonymous account with 3 posts, I'm going to take that with a grain of salt...

I've been reading the forums for a while and finally decided to sign up and join the discussion. I can tell you, in certain niches 4K is taking off. Now large deals like that I mentioned don't come along every day however this year I've won a lot of business from 4K productions and more inquiries are coming in (they don't always end in a deal of course.)

Edit: thanks Mantis for your reply earlier!

Cheers,

James - "Earth Uncut TV" on Pond5 and Youtube

91
General Stock Discussion / Re: Video pricing
« on: November 22, 2015, 00:13 »
Very glad I jumped on 4K early on since I'm starting to win business from clients who are producing 4K TV documentary series. I just licensed 68 4K clips to a production - the market is certainly growing.

92
I joined VB end of last month and went on an uploading spree with around 1000 clips live so far - consequently have had 10 sales so far which really surprised me. If indeed it's a bump since my content is all fresh I wouldn't be surprised to see a much quieter December. We'll see.

93
General Stock Discussion / Re: Video pricing
« on: November 11, 2015, 23:40 »
Rare footage of hurricane eyewalls, tornadoes, volcanic eruption, car crashes in blizzards etc can easily fetch $50 USD or more per second for broadcast. In Pond5 pricing I find $299 is the sweet pricing spot since that equates fairly roughly to $50/s given buyers rarely use a shot for longer than 6 seconds.

Anyone can shoot campus life and general environment footage so that won't command nearly as high a price - too much competition.

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