Film

Licensing, The Right Footage

The Ups and Downs of Finding Footage from YouTube for Your Productions

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The Ups and Downs of Finding Footage from YouTube for Your Productions

For amateur and professional filmmakers and content producers alike, YouTube has become for many, the first place to go when looking for footage of a range of topics past and present.

The sheer volume of material uploaded to YouTube, as well as the perception ease-of-use offered by the search engine interface, have changed the way we think about finding visual material both for consumption as well as professional productions.

However, for filmmakers seeking to use material found on YouTube in their final cut, here are a few of the ‘ups and downs’ of researching on the world’s most popular video platform. (more…)

Documentary Productions, Licensing, The Right Footage

Fair Use in Documentary: Understanding the Costs

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Fair Use in Documentary: Understanding the Costs

‘Fair use’ is a term used in the media industries in many countries. However in the United States, ‘fair use’ refers to the doctrine in US copyright law allowing the use of short verbatim excerpts of copyrighted material for a range of “transformative” purposes such as criticism, news reporting, teaching, research, and even parody without permission from the copyright holder. Countries such as the UK and France have their own fair use laws with specific language and guidelines, but these are ultimately quite similar in purpose to American fair use doctrine. In countries where fair use is permitted, this legal framework can be a valuable tool for filmmakers, especially fair use in documentary. However, in some cases, claiming fair use on footage used in a project can present editorial and aesthetic constraints, as well as pose a legal and financial burden to a production.

Here are a few things to remember when considering claiming fair use of copyrighted footage in film and television productions. (more…)

Archive Researchers, Rare footage

Thinking the Future of Archive Research with Fabrice Héron

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Thinking the Future of Archive Research with Fabrice Héron

French Archive Researcher Fabrice Héron

For French iconographer and archive researcher Fabrice Héron, the job of archive researchers is “at the crossroads between [that of] historian and journalist.”

Getting his start in archival work during his studies at France’s Institut National Audiovisuel (INA) and while working at the media library at France Televisions, Héron has since built a career spanning over twenty years researching hundreds of subjects for television, feature documentary and feature fiction films from Attentats: Le visage de la terreur for France 3 to Nabil Ayouch’s Razzia, as well as consulting with publishers, museums and galleries. One of his recent projects had him researching and clearing amateur and professional footage from the 2011 protests that sparked the ongoing Syrian civil war. My Favorite Fabric directed by Gaya Jiji and produced by Gloria Films, will be presented in the Official Selection for ‘Un Certain Regard’ at the 2018 Festival de Cannes.

We caught up with Fabrice to learn about his latest work and hear his thoughts on the future of archival research in the television and film industries in France and beyond. (more…)

Licensing, The Right Footage

6 Ways to Optimize your Archive Footage Budget

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6 Ways to Optimize your Archive Footage Budget

Since creating Archive Valley we’ve spoken to hundreds of professional archive researchers as well as producers seeking to either use archive footage in their production for the first time, or to step up their archive research and footage licensing game for a particularly archive-heavy production. Budgeting is a clear concern for anyone seeking to produce unique content featuring archival material and one that can be difficult to navigate, especially for newcomers to this booming genre.

Here are six tips we’ve learned from speaking to archive researchers around the world to help you come in on budget and make it to picture lock with archive footage that brings your story to life. (more…)

Archive Researchers, The Right Footage

‘My Generation’ Brings the 60s Back in High Fidelity

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‘My Generation’ Brings the 60s Back in High Fidelity

The ‘swinging sixties’ are back on the big screen in My Generation, a new documentary produced by Sir Michael Caine and Simon Fuller, and narrated by none other than Caine himself. One of the biggest archive-driven productions of the year, the film sets out to give viewers an immersive journey through the 1960s as lived by Caine – a decade that would revolutionize everything from pop culture to politics as we know them.

We had the chance to catch up with the film’s Archive Producer James Hunt – who is also a member of our international community of professional archive researchers – to learn more about what went into this epic homage to the Sixties. (more…)