Same story, different channel, different angle...

As a follow-up to yesterday's blog, the tragic story about the teen driving crash while under the influence was covered by yet another news reporter that I got to meet. This time it is Tucson's local channel Fox 11 & channel KVOA4 (NBC).

Now some may be asking, "why promote yourself like this?" - Well, in all reality, that is not the intent. The real intent in this case is to get a message out. It just so happened that as a stock shooter, I happened on the right place at the right time. And there is a lesson to be learned and a question to be answered:

Fellow artists are always pondering the question; "What makes good stock footage?" or; "what can I shoot that hasn't been shot before?", and finally "what will sell?" - I personally stopped asking these questions a while ago and simply just shoot.

The simplest reason is, you never know what you will get. The other concept is, we can not determine what sells and what doesn't. And is it always about selling?

I think not! In this case, my intent was to film a drive up a mountain, maybe do a time lapse with it and then enjoy an afternoon with the kids in the campground while putting some marshmallows over a fire.

Well, things don't always work out the way one might think, and sometimes you get sucked into an ordeal you never would have thought about in a million years.

The important thing to learn from this experience is to always have the camera at your side and be ready to shoot because opportunity may only present itself once in a life time. That is what stock photography and stock videography is all about.

And finally, if an opportunity such as this arises, do it for the public to help send a PSA out. Who knows, something like this may at some point actually save a life. And that is what this videographer really hopes for.

Widgets and Gadgets for selling stock footage...

In the world of stock footage or should I say royalty free stock footage there are numerous sites available to get some. VideoMaker magazine just did an article on exactly that in their last issue (June 2008).

Now comes along Pond5.com that didn't get into that particular article because, and sadly to say VideoMaker wasn't aware of them, yet. This of course is for a simple reason. Pond5 is pretty new and as in my last "frog" (OK, silly, I know, it's a "frame" with "blog" or or as it says "blog frames" in the title of this blog, but "blames" isn't as cute even though sometimes it may be appropriate) I introduced them by doing a simple comparison to another such site. They do have a certain appeal that others don't. But I won't get into that at this point.

So simply put, Pond5 now is starting to focus on marketing. In my humble opinion, perhaps not being in an article with everyone else may actually benefit them. They are not just another former stock photo site that is trying to force their software to fit the video model. They do only stock video at this time. That is their focus and they do it damn well. Being a submitter, ease of use is always a question. Efficiency is also a big deal. They seem to have that pretty much handled.

Now back to marketing. These guys have created some pretty innovative tools for that purpose. And these tools can be used nicely by submitters of such footage. But most important of all, it gives us, the submitter a chance to get focus. Now I am not talking about camera focus. I am talking about using these tools to send potential clients or buyers to the Pond5 site vie a pretty nifty "widget" and all while keeping them focused on the particular photag, (me for example) and his or her footage. This is cool. This is extremely cool. This, for the first time, actually gives me a shot at control should I decide to drive traffic to their site! It lets me drive traffic, show my goodies and if they buy anything, whether mine or not, still get that famous referral fee. Super cool.

This is a great way to do community marketing. These guys are ahead of their time. Now that may sound really cliché, but it is true for several reasons;

1. A photag may be known for a specialty - shouldn't that be just as important and shouldn't a client that sought out such a specialized photag be presented with his or her specialty only for starters? Of course! This is focused marketing - some even call it SEO and SEM. Duh.
2. If a photag goes through the trouble of uploading, clipping, describing, editing, etc, etc... should he or she have rights to the first shot of a sale?
3. And finally if a photag is really known for their specialty and quality and drives traffic to such a site, from a really cool site that they took the time to build (hint, hint), shouldn't they be well rewarded in any case? After all, the entire community of any such site benefits from such driven traffic.

So here's my widget, cool huh?: