Hey, my name is Matt Johnson, and today I'm going to be telling you how to easily
edit and export stock footage that you can then upload to different stock
footage licensing sites and start selling to make passive income.
If you want to know how to film stock footage, I have good news.
I already have a video detailing all the steps and settings
that you should use with your camera to start filming stock footage,
and I will link to that video up in the corner
and down in the video description as well as to my playlist of videos
that are all about helping you film stock footage and make money.
I would also love
you would consider subscribing because I'm planning on making more videos
that will help you make more money as a filmmaker in the future.
Also, if you want to save time, I've put together a free stock footage
jump Start guide
that's going to show you everything that you need to know
to get your first stock footage clips uploaded online
and you making money ideally in your first 30 days.
So if you want to take a huge shortcut to making passive income,
you've got to check out this jump Start guide, which I will link to down to below.
Now, with this video, I'm going to assume that you already have some footage
that you've either specifically filmed to sell is stock footage,
or maybe you're a wedding filmmaker like me
and you have a ton of B-roll that you filmed at various weddings
over the years and you're wondering how you should edit and format
that footage to have it ready to upload to different stock footage sites.
Regardless, this video should be super helpful to you starting off.
Then when it comes time for you to edit and export your stock footage,
the first thing that I recommend
is that you edit and export in 4K resolution or higher.
If you can.
Meaning that if you filmed in 4K, I recommend exporting in 4K
or if you filmed in a higher resolution such as six K
or AK, I recommend exporting at that resolution as well.
If you only filmed your footage in 1084, that's okay as well, but
I definitely would not recommend upscaling that footage to 4K
as that can result in your footage getting rejected
because it doesn't look high resolution enough.
Just export your HD footage in HD and you should be good.
The reason that you want to export in the same resolution that you filmed
is that the higher the resolution of your footage,
the more that many stock footage sites
are going to charge people to download your clips.
So if you filmed in 4K six K or AK, you can make more money
than if you had just filmed in HD, for example.
Next, you're probably wondering whether you need to color
grade your footage or not. And the answer is yes.
Every single stock footage licensing site out there is going to want you
to upload footage that has already been color graded,
so do not upload raw log clip straight from your camera.
They aren't going to like that if you filmed in a non log picture profile
that is already contrasty and saturated.
On the other hand, I would still apply some color corrections to the clip
so it looks its best.
Likewise, if you filmed in a log, I would color grade and color correct your clip.
So it looks like a standard rec seven or nine image that is not flat
or unsaturated regardless of whether you filmed in log or not.
Though I would not go overboard with your color grade.
Remember, people are going to be wanting to download
these clips to incorporate them into their own videos.
And if you're uploading clips, they're already heavily
stylized with the custom lot and colors that are over the top.
The odds are that less people are going to want to purchase
your clip because it's too stylized by sticking to basic color corrections
that look good,
the odds are that more people are going to want to buy your footage.
Lastly, in regards to log,
I would do want you to be aware that there are some sites like Art Grid
that are going to want you to upload log footage in addition to standard footage.
This way they can offer users both a graded and ungraded version of your clip,
and the odds are that more
people are going to want to download your footage,
which then results in you making more money.
So in some situations
you may be needing to export both a log and non-league version of your clips.
And don't worry, later on in this video,
I'm going to show you a super quick way to do that.
That's going to save you a ton of time.
Next, what about audio?
Do your stock footage clips need to have audio?
No, they do not.
The vast majority of stock footage
licensing sites wants you to upload your video clips with the audio muted.
So unless the audio is very critical to the clips you're uploading,
it's going to be in your best interest to mute the audio
talking frame rates here for a second.
Now, if you filmed at 24 or 30 frames per second,
I would keep your footage at that frame rate.
But if you filmed at six apps or 120 or 240, etc.,
I would always recommend slowing that footage down to 24 apps before you export.
This is going to make your footage slow motion.
But keep in mind that anyone who wants their clip to be sped up,
they can then download it and speed up that clip themselves
by exporting slow motion.
You're also increasing the odds for your clip to be selected
because slow motion is going to help remove any camera shake
you may have introduced when filming and stock footage sites
prefer smoother shots, so keeping things smooth will be helpful to you.
Closely related to frame rate.
Now we also have the length of the video clips that you should edit, and the vast
majority of stock footage sites are going to want you to
upload clips that are between 5 seconds and 60 seconds in length.
There's some stock footage sites that accept shorter clips
and some that accept longer clips up to 90 seconds.
But the majority of sites are going to want clips that are 60 seconds long, Max.
So be very careful whatever you're editing and make sure that your clips
fall into that range.
Likewise, whenever you're editing, most of these stock footage
sites are going to want you to include edit handles on your clips,
which is a fancy way of saying
leave some footage of the beginning and the end of the clip.
So for example, if you're filming someone casting a fishing pole into a pond,
make sure that you don't start
your first frame right as the person is casting the fishing pole.
Instead, start your first frame a few seconds
before they start casting the rod.
That way,
if someone's editing, they can more easily incorporate the footage into their edit.
Now, what about exporting your clips?
The first rule that you need to be aware of is that most stock footage
licensing sites have a file size limit of four gigabytes,
meaning that if you upload
any video clips larger than four gigs, they're going to be rejected.
Also, some sites have smaller file size requirements and some have larger.
So it's really going to depend on where you're uploading to.
So to make sure that your stock footage is compatible with the widest
variety of websites, I recommend exporting a master file of each video clip.
This is an incredibly high quality video file that you can use
to upload directly to stock footage sites if they accept unlimited file sizes
or if this file size is too large, you can easily convert your file
into a smaller video file for other sites.
If you're on a mac editing with Final Cut Premiere Pro or DaVinci Resolve,
I would recommend exporting in Prores 4 to 2 HQ, which is going to give you
a very high quality video file without being too obnoxiously large.
They still get pretty big though.
You can also export process 4 to 2 if you're editing in Premiere
Pro on Windows because Premiere Pro supports Pro as on Windows.
Unfortunately though, DaVinci Resolve on Windows does not support Pro as yet.
So as a workaround, you're going to want to export in the d annex h.r hq x codec
which is very similar video quality to process 4 to 2 HQ.
Once you have exported a video clip as a master file
in one of these high quality video formats.
In the event that your file size is too large
to be uploaded, you can always then use something
like Adobe Media Encoder or Apple Compressor to decrease the file size
by exporting in process 4 to 2 instead of process 4 to 2 HQ, for example.
Now do you want to save time?
Of course you do.
Whenever you are editing stock footage,
the odds are that you're going to end up with a ton of video clips from a shoot.
For example, here I have footage that I filmed in Hawaii last year,
and as you can see, there are just a ton of video clips here.
Now, if you're editing in Premiere Pro, I'm sorry,
but you're going to have to select each of these clips individually,
set in and out, points around each clip, and then export each clip
individually using the export dialog box, which can take some time.
Alternatively, though,
if you are using Da Vinci resolve, there is a much faster way.
Simply edit all of your clips on the timeline like you would normally,
and then whenever you go to export your video,
make sure that the export as individual clips box is selected,
which is going to export all of your video clips as it says individually, meaning
you're going to end up with video files for every single one of your video clips.
And this is fantastic.
And as a bonus, if you want to export log versions of your clips
without the color grades,
you can go down here to the Enable Flat Pass menu and enable this setting
which is going to export all of your video clips without any color
grades or effects supplied. It's pretty awesome.
And at this point you have now edited all of your stock video clips
and they are now the proper size and format and are ready
to be uploaded to any of the stock footage licensing sites out there.
I'm sure you're wondering now, though, Matt, what do I do next?
What sites should I upload to, how do I title and tag my videos, etc.?
Don't worry, I'm here to help and I'm working on videos
answering all of those questions.
So please subscribe
if you want to see them to give you a shortcut to
I Will was linked down below to my free stock footage. Jump Start Guide.
This guide is not only going to tell you what to film,
but also what to edit like we covered in this video as well as where
to upload, how to title your video clips, tag them, etc.
So if you want to save time and you don't want to wait
for me to upload other videos about this stuff,
I would love if you would check out this guide.
It's completely free.
You can download it link down to the video description.
Thanks so much for watching and have a great day.