Best Stock Footage Resources? (Preferably Royalty Free)

[BA1385]

Hi there,

I am currently looking to integrate a fairly wide range of stock footage (although mostly nature, wildlife, aerials and American landscapes) into a documentary I am working on and was wondering what are the best resources for this?

I will mainly have to use royalty free material due to monetary constraints though would like to keep my options open.

I am aware of the Prelinger Archive which has been of some use but I am looking to expand beyond this.

Any suggestions are greatly appreciated!

 

[AcousticAl]

Have you tried pond5.com?

 

[Beatlesfan1225]

I've had really nice luck with Videoblocks - The subscription is normally crazy expensive, but they run nice deals every so often, so my account is on a plan that's about $100 a year, which is nothing for how frequently I use files.

However, their customer support is absolutely the worst - literally, the worst I've ever had by a long shot, and every so often, Youtube decides one of their clips is in violation of copyright, despite you having the rights via your subscription. (Fortunately, all that will do is disable monetization, which has still frustrated me, but it could be worse.)

If their catalog of stuff is worth it to you, and you don't foresee yourself being stopped up by terrible support, I'd suggest them. The content is great, the company sucks. But hey, it's a pretty decent deal.

This time around, I'm going to try to preemptively download a lot of stuff to make a library, and cancel my subscription when it's up for renewal. The only problem I foresee with that, though, is that most of the stuff I download from them is last minute or spur of the moment, wherever my editing takes me.

 

[altarvic]

Here's the list of popular stock footage websites.