Artbeats Blog

Licensing 101: Your guide to licensing royalty-free stock footage

June 28, 2012 by Marcee Miller 2 Comments

Ever read the license agreement for a product and then thought, “Okay, so what does this mean? And how can I use the product?” We’ve taken the mystery out of the Artbeats license agreement for you. Following are seven of the most common questions about licensing our royalty-free stock footage, with plain, easy to understand answers.

1. What does royalty-free mean?

A. Let us start by saying royalty-free does not mean FREE. You will have to pay an up front fee to license our stock footage. However, once you pay that fee, you can use the footage in just about any broadcast or non-broadcast production, worldwide. Plus, you can use it over and over again, either in the same project or in a different project later without ever having to pay any other fees or royalties. (You’ll find this question covered in section “1. Definitions” of the Artbeats license agreement).

JFT-FH040-53 — Artbeats.com image from Johner Motion

Want an example? You can buy a clip to use in a commercial spot that will be broadcast on television in Paris for one month. A year from now, you can use the same clip in a movie trailer that’s going to be broadcast on television and in theaters all over the world. You don’t have to tell Artbeats you’re using the clip again, and you don’t have to pay any additional fees. However, if you’d like to share your project with us, we’d enjoy seeing it.

2. How can I use the footage?

A. You can use Artbeats royalty-free footage in just about any broadcast or non-broadcast production including commercials, television shows, feature films, live events, music videos, corporate presentations, and so much more. You can change the color, crop the length, layer it with other footage and images, put it inside text, use it as a lower third, create a transition. Be creative! (Check out section “2. Grant of License” for more info on this topic).

Want an example? Just check out the cool video tutorials featured on our website.

3. You said I can use the footage in just about any production? What CAN’T I use the footage in?

A. Artbeats footage cannot be used in any production that is pornographic, defamatory, libelous, or illegal. (Section “4. Unauthorized Uses and Limitations, Paragraph 3″ covers this topic in depth).

Want an example? If you’re making a movie, commercial, YouTube video or any other production that is going to make fun of or ridicule someone’s race or religion, don’t use stock footage to do it. Most stock footage companies are very strict about this.

4. Are there any limitations to how much footage I can use in my project?

A. That depends on your project. If you’re making a commercial or corporate presentation, there are no limits. However, if your final production is going to be sold, and you, your company, or your client is going to make money on it, then the Artbeats footage cannot comprise more than 25% of the total imagery used. (You’ll find more about this in section “4. Unauthorized Uses and Limitations, Paragraph 2″). A side note: In some cases, the Artbeats license agreement can be amended. Check out question #6 below for more info.

HUH? You need an example, right? You’re making a music video for your client that is 100 seconds long. The video is going to be sold on DVD, Blu-ray or as a digital download; only 25 seconds of that video can be Artbeats footage. The other 75 seconds must be footage or images from other sources.

5. Once I pay for the footage, do I own it? Can I sell it or let someone else use it?

A. What you’re paying for is the license to use the footage. You don’t own the rights to the footage. You can use the footage in your projects or your client’s projects, but you can’t sell it, give it away, auction it off on eBay, or share it with anyone else in any way. (Sections “3. Ownership” and “4. Unauthorized Uses and Limitations, Paragraph 1″ will tell you all you need to know about this subject).

6. Can the Artbeats license agreement be changed or can I get special licensing?

A. In some cases, our royalty-free license can be amended to fit your company’s requirements. Not all sections can be changed, so you’ll need to contact our licensing department to discuss it. Please be aware that there is a fee for amending our license agreement, which will be charged in addition to the price of the footage. (Contact licensing@artbeats.com if you’d like to learn more about changing our license or getting special licensing).

7. Can my colleagues and I all have access to the same footage on multiple workstations?

A. Artbeats clips can only be used by one person at a time. If you want multiple people to have access to use the clip at the same time, you’ll need to purchase a multi-seat site license for the clip. The cost of this will vary depending on the number of site licenses you need. (See section “2. Grant of License, Single User License” for more info on this).

Have a question we didn’t answer? Still not clear on something we said? We’d like to hear from you. Post your questions/comments here on the blog, or email us direct at licensing@artbeats.com.

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Filed under Footage Information Tagged with licensing, royatly-free

Free After Effects Video Tutorial by Eran Stern “Sunset Model”

June 14, 2012 by Bob Hayes Leave a Comment

By Eran Stern, sternfx.com

Eran creates a teaser for an upcoming reality show using footage from the Rubberball, Glamour Key and Aqua Geo Graphic libraries on artbeats.com. He has incorporated plug ins from Mettle, GenArts and Red Giant Software, with some tricks in After Effects, to create this fun, fresh piece.

Watch the complete Sunset Model Video Tutorial and download the project files!

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Filed under Free Video Tutorials Tagged with After Effects, Eran Stern, video tutorials

A Guide to Permits for Filming in Difficult Locations

May 29, 2012 by Marcee Miller 4 Comments

Over the years, the Artbeats film crews have learned that shooting can prove to be very difficult in many of the cities across the country. In fact, we recently shot in one of the most security-obsessed cities in our nation: Washington, DC. We’ve learned a few pointers along the way and thought we’d share them. Artbeats’ Location Manager, Diane Barrows has compiled this list for you.

1-A. Start early. Some park permits can take six weeks!
1. Research – what is worth shooting in the city/location of choice?

2. More research – where are the subjects located? Are they private or public? Are they going to be part of a street scene or panorama, or will they be the subject of the shot?

3. If your locations are privately owned, begin seeking permission and get releases from the property owners.

4. If they are public places, gather your addresses or cross streets, names of parks, etc. Then do a search for filming in that area and see whether or not permits are necessary.

-If they are, begin working with their film office to see whether your locations are within their jurisdiction.

-If they are not and your location is in a National Forest or Park, State Park, or other entitity such as the Bureau of Land Management, do a search to find out each entity’s requirements. If you shoot without a permit, you can be issued a citation or ticket.

-If you’re going solo, you won’t need parking, traffic directors, or special notification that you’re going to be using a particular area. But be sure to read the specific rules for every area you will be shooting because different rules apply to different situations, times of day, and even particular days. The size of your crew can also affect the cost of your permit.

-Most permit applications require you to list very specific locations as well as the time of day you’ll be in the area.

5. Know the boundaries of the area in which you are allowed to shoot. Sometimes you think you’re getting permission to be on a sidewalk, but you’re actually getting permission to be on the street and NOT the sidewalk (or vice versa). Washington DC is notorious for this. And the same street may have several entities governing shooting. You stand at X and are on area 1, walk a few feet and are on area 2, turn around and are on area 3. It can be very confusing – and they’ve often GOT YOU ON SECURITY CAMERAS. Violation of the rules can terminate/revoke your permit.

6. Permission for a particular day doesn’t carry over to the next day unless you specified that. Keep in mind that the city may be orchestrating multiple events and are trying to keep everything from overlapping in a bad way. We didn’t get permission to be on a particular street one day because there was an activity where thousands were expected to be there. But we DID get it for the next day.

7. Carry your permit with you as instructed on the permit. We have been asked to show our permit, and it’s quite gratifying to prove that you have permission to be where you are.

8. Have fun and happy shooting!

What kinds of experiences have you had trying to obtain filming permits?

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Filed under Film Shoots Tagged with filming

Car on Fire: Filming the unexpected

May 1, 2012 by Bob Hayes 2 Comments

Recently the Artbeats crew was filming establishments on the Las Vegas Strip when something totally unexpected happened. The result was some incredible footage that isn’t like anything we have in our library.

When planning a shoot, you always have certain expectations of the footage you’d like to capture. Just as in our daily lives, you can’t always control your environment and what’s happening around you, especially when shooting “on location”. Sometimes things come up that, while unfortunate to some, become an amazing opportunity for filming. As a shooter, you must be willing to expect the unexpected, and adapt to new situations. You just never know what’s around the next bend!

Please note that no one was injured in this incident, and the driver was able to safely exit the vehicle. Artbeats sends our deepest condolences to the owner of the vehicle for their loss.

This footage will be for sale on artbeats.com in the coming months.

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Filed under Film Shoots Tagged with filming, RED EPIC

Digital Production Buzz/Larry Jordan Interviews Phil Bates

March 30, 2012 by Marcee Miller Leave a Comment

Last nights Digital Production Buzz featured Artbeats’ President Phil Bates. Larry Jordan and Michael Horton chatted with Phil about the recent aerial footage Artbeats filmed in Washington, DC.

Listen Now

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Filed under Film Shoots, Footage Information Tagged with Digital Production Buzz, filming, Interviews, Phil Bates

New Tutorial on the Web: Boris RED Transitions by Eran Stern

March 13, 2012 by Marcee Miller Leave a Comment

We wanted to share this new Boris RED tutorial by Eran Stern, featuring lots of Artbeats stock footage.

Extend your Premiere Pro transitions library by using Boris RED. In this tutorial Eran will show you a fast and easy way to apply those templates and share some valuable tips on using the Library Browser.

Watch Boris RED Transitions Tutorial on SternFX.com

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Filed under Free Video Tutorials Tagged with Boris FX, Boris RED, Eran Stern, Premiere Pro, video tutorials

Artbeats shoots RED EPIC Aerials over Washington, DC

March 1, 2012 by Marcee Miller 3 Comments

By Phil Bates, Artbeats President & Founder

Artbeats recently released Washington, DC aerials. View the demo reel here.

After months of work from Artbeats staff, outside consultants and our pilot, the Transportation Security Administration granted us a waiver to spend two days shooting aerials over Washington, DC. The monumental red tape included getting clearance from the military, Secret Service, FBI and TSA. With that work behind us, we still had to get permits, as well as clearance from the tower at Reagan International Airport. Because of their busy weekdays, they asked us to push our daytime flights to Saturday.

Even with the waiver, we were not allowed to fly over the mall or shoot the White House. We were required to have a police officer accompany us in the helicopter during the flight and pre-screen us on the ground. At our airport, two Army Intelligence Officers waited for us to land so they could look over every shot, make sure there were no security violations, and delete any problem clips on the spot. Because of this we did quick cuts while shooting, so anything cut would be short.

Our equipment included the Pictorvision eclipse gyrostabilized gimbal mounted on a TwinStar helicopter. The camera was our new RED Epic-X with an Optimo 24-290 lens. We shot at 30fps, 5K 2:1 with a Redcode setting of 8:1 and 6:1 for the nightime shots. Our media was 256GB SSD cards, which gave us around 60 minutes of shoot time. The lens gave a small amount of vignette at all the way wide. No big deal, an easy crop.

Our first flight started on Friday near sunset from our small airport outside the “Freeze”, a term for the round shaped 7 mile wide restricted area over DC. Along with the pilot, camera operator, and director (me), having a police officer on board plus the weight of the camera gimbal meant a very limited amount of fuel thus only an hour in the air over the capital.

On our route over the Potomac into the “Freeze” we could easily see the Langly CIA building on our right in full view tempting us. Originally we wanted to shoot it, but our DC consultant warned us not even to ask. In contrast to the 1500ft altitude minumum requirements when flying over buildings over NYC, our route into DC along the river limited us to 200ft max above the ground. This is because flights arriving at Reagan are approaching just above our heads. All arriving planes had to keep us in sight at all times. In fact, any airline pilot not able to see us must abort the landing and turn around for another approach. The TSA were also watching our every move, making sure we stayed away from the restricted airspace over the Mall, White House and VP’s home.

Normally, I like to shoot from low altitudes, but this proved to be a problem near the Pentagon where the geometric shape of the building is lost at that level. We needed to fly west away from the arrival lanes in order to get permission to get higher for a better view.

The Capitol building and Washington Monument were the two landmarks that drew the eye and the camera. It was hard to pan away from those amazing structures. The best shots were shooting lengthwise down the Mall from east to west or from the other side west to east. Doing a slow camera dolly move north to south (or vice versa) with the Monument and Dome lining up gave us the best framing. The 12x lens gave us the reach we needed. Along the river we saw missile batteries on a rooftop. The police officer on board said we could shoot it but risk it being deleted. We stayed away. Our shot list also included universities, the Watergate, Arlington, stadiums, other monuments and hospitals. It took us 4 different flights to shoot daytime, night time, and dusk versions.

Back on the ground the Army officers carefully viewed the clips in RedCine. They were very savvy and comfortable using the program by themselves. Since there was no time to download we read the clips directly from the card. Only a few clips were deleted from the first three flights, but eight clips were in violation on our last mission. Of these we were able to save four by trimming the R3D in and out points. All in all, we lost very little to these deletions, since we shot a lot of redundant footage. The officers who were very friendly never told us what they were looking for, just zoomed in now and then to seemingly random areas. They were amazed at the detail we were capturing at 5K, which in this case worked against us! After one officer finished looking at the last clip, he asked us: “How in the world did you get clearance to fly in P56? That’s a huge amount of red tape.” Yes it was. :)

The Epic worked perfectly for the entire shoot (thanks RED!). I am also very thankful to our crew and Artbeats staff who made this shoot possible.

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Filed under Film Shoots Tagged with filming, Phil Bates, RED EPIC

Free Video Tutorial by Eran Stern “Breakout Coffee”

February 20, 2012 by Marcee Miller Leave a Comment

By Eran Stern, sternfx.com

Take a break and learn some valuable tips! This entertaining, yet highly useful tutorial by design guru Eran Stern utilizes Photoshop’s cloning tools and Mocha’s tracking to clone out unwanted text, add green screen footage of people, and replace objects.

Watch all 30 minutes of the Breakout Coffee Tutorial here

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Filed under Free Video Tutorials Tagged with After Effects, Eran Stern, green screen, mocha pro, video tutorials

Shooter’s Diary: Lights, EPIC, Action in San Francisco!

January 19, 2012 by Marcee Miller 2 Comments

By Annette Gaillard, Artbeats DP

As we mentioned in a previous post, Artbeats recently acquired a new RED EPIC camera. We spent a few days doing testing on the Oregon coast, filming lifestyles at a local Coffee House and shooting aerials on the East Coast. Now it was time for me to take it on the road just in time for the holidays.

Over the years we’ve received a lot of requests for holiday related footage. Being from a rural area on the west coast, I wanted to capture the magic of the holiday lights and decorations in the city. For this, I chose the beautiful and eclectic city of San Francisco. Blue skies, a little haze in the air, but otherwise ideal conditions for filming, and a great opportunity for me to work with the EPIC. Before leaving I decided to upgrade the build on our camera, so we finally have playback available on the camera. We’d also recently received our side handle, but had not had the chance to test it.

Looking over the city from the top of Lombard Street.

Over the past three years, I have gotten very used to filming on the RED ONE and am not a big fan of change, however, the EPIC made the transition relatively painless. Many of the menus are very similar to the RED ONE, just more accessible via the touchscreen LCD. I did find myself accidentally hitting buttons on the optional side handle, which caused minor confusion a few times. The playback option worked flawlessly and so did the camera, which was a big relief. As with any software upgrade, you never know if a new glitch will show up while you’re out in the field.

Shooting in San Francisco is not without its challenges. In some cases, parking simply isn’t an option. For these instances, I’d hop out, grab the gear, and have my assistant circle the block, sometimes multiple times, until I had completed the shots I needed. Having a smaller camera like the EPIC, as well as a small tripod to trek around the hills of San Francisco was definitely a benefit. After navigating the streets, I wished that I had told the film office that I needed traffic control, as the best vantage point was often in the middle of the street. The San Francisco Film Office was extremely helpful in the planning of this shoot. Even though we were a very, very small crew, a permit was needed since our end product is for commercial use. My contact was able to provide me with information on areas I was not allowed to film, for various reasons, and also suggested many alternative sites. Unfortunately, they did not know about several of the private events that had been booked, which blocked some of the best holiday locations for the days that I was there. It had been quite some time since I’d been to San Francisco, and I had forgotten about the grid network cable for the trolley cars. If you’re into realistic shots of a city, the cables are no big deal. However, if you want a clear view of things, good luck!

This is part of the 17,000 lights outlining the buildings in the Embarcadero Center.

There is so much to film in San Francisco, and I wasn’t able to get nearly everything I wanted, but in the end this shoot was definitely a success. We captured some spectacular holiday footage, a large number of establishment shots of the city and some unexpected environmental content. You’ll find this footage soon in our royalty-free stock footage library.

Looking back, I have to say that my overall experience with the EPIC was a success. At this point I feel that the only real drawback to the camera are the Redvolt batteries. You get approximately 30 minutes recording time and they take 90 minutes to charge. The chargers available at this time only hold one battery. Depending on how many batteries you have, you are up a lot during the night to get batteries charged for the next day. I personally can’t wait for the RED quad charger to come out. I found that using a mixture of the Redvolts and the Red Bricks was the best way to make it through the day and for charging to be manageable at night.

I learned quite a few things about San Francisco, and will definitely change how I plan to do things on my next film shoot there. Most importantly, I would budget more days. There is so much ground to cover, and so many great places to film. When choosing a hotel in San Francisco I would recommend that you make sure it has parking available and ask what vehicles it can accommodate. The hotel we stayed at for this excursion did have parking available. Unfortunately it was fitted to accommodate sub-compact cars, rather than the SUV we use to haul our gear. It was definitely a challenge, and one morning I was forced to request that other cars be moved.

My parting suggestions to all the other stock shooters: even though it is very important to have a shot list, don’t tie yourself to it. Keep your eyes peeled because there are so many opportunities that pop up. Even though these unexpected shots may derail your plan, they can be completely worth it. Go for the things that take more time to shoot, that are harder to get. Lastly, releases, releases, releases…the shot maybe fantastic, but if it needs a release and you don’t get one, it could be worthless.

View of the financial district at night.

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Filed under Film Shoots Tagged with filming, RED EPIC

FCPUG SuperMeet 2012 in San Francisco

January 5, 2012 by Marcee Miller Leave a Comment

Join the FCPUG Network, including SF Cutters, Lafcpug, BOSFCPUG and other FCPUG and digital video user groups around the Globe in San Francisco, CA on January 27, 2012 for the largest single day gathering of creative and collaborative editors, HDSLR filmmakers, digital content creators and Gurus in San Francisco in 2012! Workshops will be offered all day prior to the SuperMeet Digital Showcase and the actual SuperMeet itself. Artbeats will be at the Supermeet with our wheel of prizes!. Stop by and spin! For more information visit http://supermeet.com/