Stock footage for films, commercials, websites and more can be simple to find and relatively easy to purchase. From clips of kids, news, animals, sports or food, a typical stock footage library contains hundreds of thousands of images that can be yours for the purchasing.

Stock film footage offers variety, can give you historical context or a lead up to a particular scene. They are effective means by which to draw your audience into a movie, a television show or an advertisement. In order to buy movie stock footage, you will want to consider:

1. Making sure that the film stock footage quality is up to the standards of your project. Can you use standard clips, or do you need to use high definition (HD)?

2. You are finding a stock film footage clip or clips that fall within your budget.

3. That you understand and are in agreement with the stock movie footage rights agreement of the company you are purchasing from.

Action Steps
The best contacts and resources to help you get it done

Find millions of stock movie footage clips

You can find stock movie footage from multiple sources with easy to navigate search engines.

I recommend: Check out the wide variety of high quality stock film footage Getty Images, Inc. There you can find royalty-free footage CDs. You can find stock video, photographs and music from Thought Equity Motion. Footage.NET offers you millions of shots available through an online database search engine of stock, archival and news footage collections. Take a look at the contemporary library, historical library and newsreel libraries offered through Buyout Footage.

Go with high definition movie stock footage

Take the next step and advance your stock footage for films using high def clips.

I recommend: Find broadcast quality SD and HD stock footage at pond5. Artbeats offers royalty-free stock footage in Standard Definition (PAL & NTSC) and High Def. Their footage can be purchased by the clip or by the whole collection. Blue Sky Stock Footage also offers HD clips along with their variety of products. They also have 35mm and 16mm footage, as well as time-lapse and real-time imagery. They can also provide you with custom shots for feature films, commercials, music videos and other video projects. Take a look at the HD collections from Royalty Free HD.

Use free stock movie footage sources

Free is always good, and you can find a limited number of free film stock footage sites out there for download.

I recommend: You can find free preview videos from Free Stock Footage. If you like the cut, you can buy stock film footage in either medium or full resolution. Sign up to gain access to the free film footage archives from Stock Footage For Free.

Tips & Tactics

Helpful advice for making the most of this Guide

• •  Make sure that you are purchasing royalty-free film stock footage. This means you can use it as many times as you'd like for profit, without paying royalties. You usually pay a one-time-only fee. The key, though, if you are planning a major ad campaign or project, though, is to make sure that you have the single rights to the clip. You wouldn't want to purchase a clip, start running it in your campaign, and then see it turn up in another advertisement or something worse.