How to Film & Sell Successful Stock Video

Thousands of filmmakers upload video clips to stock video sites, such as Adobe Stock, Pond5, FilmSupply and more, every day. Stock video is a growing market, especially for social media video producers. Since it is such a large and saturated market, the question and struggle of most filmmakers is this:  how do you make your video stand out so people buy it? There is not one answer, but here are 5 tips to help you get some sales!

1. Your video clips must tell stories. Don't just film a static subject. Deploy some type of action in the scene to grab the viewers attention. Perhaps direct a subject walk across the frame to add movement. If you are filming someone biking in the city, maybe start it off with them unlocking their bike and then jumping on. 

2. Add movement to your video clips.

• Pan & Tilt. If you are filming a bridge or a cityscape, adding a simple pan and tilt to your shot with your tripod is an easy way to make your shot more interesting. Make sure you have a fluid video head tripod to perform successful pan and tilts. 
• Jib. You can place your camera on a basic single-arm jib to create even more more interesting top to down and side-to-side movement. Small single arm jibs are fairly inexpensive, you can find some foras low as $150 on BHPhotoAndVideo, such as the 3-foot CobraCrane.
• Gimbal or Stabilizer. No one wants a shaky shot, unless it is for achieving a particular point of view effect, such as a perspective of someone who is fainting. Thus, if you want to achieve a walking shot try using a gimbal or a stabilizer. I recommend the handheld ikan EC1 Beholder 3-Axis Handheld Gimbal Stabilizer for cameras between 2-4.5 lbs or the Glidecam XR-Pro Handheld Camera Stabilizer for cameras up to 10lbs. 
• Slider. Try attaching a slider to your tripod to create interesting side-to-side movement to your shot. There are a variety of lengths of sliders, check them out here.
• Aerial shots.  Aerial landscape shots are extremely popular and can be used for establishing shots in videos. The newest DJI Spark is super compact and great for beginners. You can also read more about your first drone here. 
• Timelapse. You can also film for a long period to create a time-lapse. I'd recommend purchasing a Turnspro Time Lapse Camera Mount which you place your camera on and then can program to rotate as your camera is actively producing a time-lapse. But I find stock video is saturated with time-lapse and it might be better to make your video stand out using alternative methods to the ever popular time-lapse.  

3. Make your video clips universally useful. If you are filming your own video, think about how you canfilm a couple extra shots that might be useful to other people. For example, if you are filming a feature length, documentary or TV show out in the country side, film a couple extra shots of the wildlife in the area. People are always looking for animal shots, especially for social media video! 

4. Film multiple angles with the same subject. Video editors want to build a story, so if you only have one clip of a subject, it's hard to build a montage with emotion. If you have the time, film an extreme close-up, close-up, medium, over the shoulder, and a wide-angle shot of your subject and put them all up for sale on a stock video site. 

5. Edit your video clips before upload. Don't just upload your raw video clip. If you need to stabilize your shot using Premiere Pro's Warp Stabilizer, do that! Also, grade and color your video for a consistent look. A very popular look is called the "Orange and Teal" look. Video editors and producers may be looking for video shots that have this look. Watch my tutorial on my YouTube channel to learn how to use the Lumetri Color Panel to achieve the Orange and Teal look in Adobe Premiere Pro. 

Overall, the key to creating and selling successful stock video is to create clips that tell stories and that incorporate some type of visual movement as I mentioned above. I encourage you to think about how can begin making shots more interesting. You can read more about how filmmakers film and craft their stock video in this post on the Adobe Creative Cloud blog.

So how can you upload and sell your videos with Adobe Stock? 

• Go to contributor.stock.adobe.com and create or use your Adobe ID to upload your videos.  
• You can also publish your video directly to Adobe Stock from Adobe Premiere Pro's Media export settings. This is great as it gets rid of the extra step of going to the website and uploading. 
• If your video includes video of people, make sure to upload a signed model release as well.

How much money do you make? 

1. For videos, you get a 35% commission for videos. Once you reach $50 in royalties on your account you will be paid by either Paypal or Skrill. 
2. Read more about Adobe Stock benefits here.

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