Licensing

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…)

Archive Valley, Licensing

Archive Industry Insight from the 2017 DMLA Conference in New York

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Archive Industry Insight from the 2017 DMLA Conference in New York

At the Digital Media Licensing Association conference we got to take the pulse of the licensing business and hear from footage research and licensing professionals about the specific challenges we face in our industry and some tips for effective licensing. Though professional archive researchers for the film and TV industry have connections with footage libraries they’ve built over the years, directors are relying more and more on YouTube links, and not all productions have access to professional researchers. A panel discussion led by FOCAL International‘s Mary Egan gave some industry pros a chance to share their thoughts.  (more…)

The Right Footage

A “Long Strange Trip” with Archival Producers Annie Salsich & Jim McDonnell

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A “Long Strange Trip” with Archival Producers Annie Salsich & Jim McDonnell
Bob Weir and Jerry Garcia recording an early album in 1966. Photo courtesy of Roberto Rabanne.

The summer of 2017 marks the 50th anniversary of “The Summer of Love,” when over 100,000 people, largely consisting of post-beat-generation youth who came to be known as “hippies,” converged on San Francisco’s Haight-Ashbury Neighborhood. The summer came to be defined by experimental rhetoric against the government, experimental drugs consumed by fans and musicians alike, and experimental music, performed at festivals like the now-legendary Monterey Pop Festival by groups like The Who, The Grateful Dead, The Animals, Janis Joplin, and Jimi Hendrix. The 50th Anniversary of the Summer of Love also coincides with the Anniversary of the Grateful Dead’s exponential rise to fame, as masterfully portrayed in Amir Bar-Lev’s six-part documentary on the band, “Long Strange Trip,” executive produced by Martin Scorsese and released in January 2017.  (more…)