Latest / Bulletproof Screenwriting™ Podcast / BPS 400: How I Made $100K+ Selling Stock Footage with James Forsher

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BPS 400: How I Made $100K+ Selling Stock Footage with James Forsher · Bulletproof Screenwriting™ Podcast

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Speaker 2: Welcome to the Bulletproof Screenwriting Podcast, Episode number four hundred.
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Speaker 2: Hack your past with forgiveness, Hack your present with mindfulness,
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Speaker 3: And here's your host, Alex Ferrari.
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Speaker 2: Welcome, Welcome to another episode of the Bulletproof Screenwriting Podcast.
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Speaker 3: I am your Humble host Alex Ferrari.
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Speaker 2: Now, today's show is sponsored by Bulletproof Script Coverage.
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1:38
Speaker 2: Today on the show, we have author and filmmaker James
1:41
Speaker 2: for Sure, and he is the author of a new
1:44
Speaker 2: book called stock Footage Everything under the Sun Using archival
1:48
Speaker 2: material to make your good film great.
1:51
Speaker 4: Now.
1:52
Speaker 2: I've talked a little bit about stock footage in the
1:54
Speaker 2: past on the show and it is a very powerful,
1:56
Speaker 2: powerful tool that you could put in your toolbox when
2:00
Speaker 2: making your films, your web series, your content in general.
2:04
Speaker 2: And it is a lot of misinformation out there about
2:07
Speaker 2: what can you use, what's fair use, where can you
2:10
Speaker 2: get good stock footage for an affordable price, and all
2:14
Speaker 2: these kind of things, and then the rights to each
2:16
Speaker 2: one and where you can do them, and also how
2:18
Speaker 2: you can generate a passive revenue stream by creating your
2:21
Speaker 2: own stock footage and selling it. Like our sponsor Black
2:24
Speaker 2: Box helps us out do so well. So there's so
2:27
Speaker 2: many things about stock footage, especially for young filmmakers and
2:30
Speaker 2: filmmakers just starting out to understand where stock footage is,
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Speaker 2: and basically anybody in the film business to understand where
2:36
Speaker 2: stock footage is. And James and I go deep into
2:39
Speaker 2: what stock footage is, how can we use it, and
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Speaker 2: how we can make our films better. So, without any
2:45
Speaker 2: further ado, please enjoy my conversation with James for Sure.
2:49
Speaker 2: I'd like to welcome to the show, James for Sure, man,
2:52
Speaker 2: how you doing?
2:53
Speaker 4: Were good?
2:54
Speaker 3: Thank you so much for doing the show. I really
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Speaker 3: appreciate it.
2:57
Speaker 4: Well, my pleasure. I'm glad to talk about all things
3:00
Speaker 4: archival material.
3:01
Speaker 2: Well, there is a ton I want to know about
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Speaker 2: stock footage and about archival and all that kind of stuff.
3:06
Speaker 2: But before we get into it, first, can you tell
3:08
Speaker 2: me a little bit about how you got into the business.
3:12
Speaker 4: I got in the business a couple of different ways.
3:15
Speaker 4: One is, my mom was Elvis Presley secretary from nineteen
3:20
Speaker 4: fifty six to sixty one, and then she that's awesome.
3:23
Speaker 4: I met a man they made at Zuker the second
3:26
Speaker 4: who was the grandson of the founder of Paramount and
3:28
Speaker 4: so they produced shows together. So I was kind of
3:30
Speaker 4: born to this whole environment, which was a plus and
3:34
Speaker 4: a minus because I saw the greatest things about the
3:36
Speaker 4: industry and I saw the worst things about the industry.
3:39
Speaker 4: In college, they gave me a couple of interviews they
3:43
Speaker 4: had done with people that had just gone south and
3:47
Speaker 4: they didn't want to deal with it. But for me,
3:50
Speaker 4: I thought, as a career builder, if I wanted to
3:51
Speaker 4: get in this business, they were great. So one was
3:53
Speaker 4: an interview with Conrad Hilton, and so I finished at
3:57
Speaker 4: my senior year the University of California, Santa and it
4:00
Speaker 4: aired on TV. So that was my first credit and
4:02
Speaker 4: I hadn't even graduated yet. And then the second was
4:05
Speaker 4: an interview with Zuker, who started Paramount Studios and the
4:09
Speaker 4: kind of life, the history of the film industry. That
4:12
Speaker 4: actually was my first film. I spent about a year,
4:14
Speaker 4: year and a half kind of learning how to make
4:16
Speaker 4: a film making that, and that's what introduced me to
4:18
Speaker 4: archival material.
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Speaker 3: Very cool.
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Speaker 2: Now, your book is called stock Footage Everything under the Sun,
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Speaker 2: Using archival material to make a good film.
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Speaker 3: Great.
4:29
Speaker 2: It's a lengthy title, but a great one.
4:32
Speaker 4: I trank. I didn't come up with it.
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Speaker 5: The publisher coci did I mean, and I think it
4:38
Speaker 5: really covers it. I mean pretty much started stock footage,
4:42
Speaker 5: but there's twenty five other chapters about every other type
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Speaker 5: of archival material that actually does go possibly into your
4:48
Speaker 5: film or create a project.
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Speaker 2: Well, let's talk about stock footage. Can you explain to
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Speaker 2: the audience what stock footage is in general?
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Speaker 4: Yeah, anything from the very first film shot like eighteen
5:00
Speaker 4: ninety three, eighteen of two, something that was shot this
5:04
Speaker 4: morning and is now in the closet, because what do
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Speaker 4: you do with it? It covers everything that exists. And
5:11
Speaker 4: so when you're looking for material for a shot and
5:16
Speaker 4: you don't have a camera and you can't go run
5:18
Speaker 4: outside it and go shoot it, you got to find
5:20
Speaker 4: it from someplace. And that falls under what we call
5:22
Speaker 4: archival material houses stockhouses. So you're always looking for material.
5:28
Speaker 4: It's always past tense. It gets a little philosophical, but
5:31
Speaker 4: that's kind of what really is.
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Speaker 3: Going on here now.
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Speaker 2: And is there a big difference between the term archival
5:37
Speaker 2: footage because when I think archival footage, I'm thinking old
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Speaker 2: black and white, you know, old school stuff. You're not
5:43
Speaker 2: thinking of things that were just shot a day ago.
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Speaker 4: Exactly. And that's one of the misconceptions and one of
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Speaker 4: the reasons I wrote the book because I had produced
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Speaker 4: for you know, I mean for almost forty years, and
5:53
Speaker 4: I had spent twenty years teaching too, and most of
5:56
Speaker 4: my students, ninety five percent, when I mentioned archival stock,
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Speaker 4: they would go, well, that's greedy old stuff, that's public domain.
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Speaker 4: And that's about as far as it went. And it's
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Speaker 4: that's like one quarter of one percent of one percent.
6:11
Speaker 4: The majority of it is everything else gone with the wind. Well,
6:15
Speaker 4: if you need a shot of flying monkeys, good place
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Speaker 4: to go. And you know, man on the moon, that's
6:22
Speaker 4: another piece of stock footage. It's all under stock footage.
6:27
Speaker 4: The broader term is archival footage. It's the same thing,
6:30
Speaker 4: but archival material encompasses the whole wide world of existing
6:34
Speaker 4: creative stuff graphics, music, sound effects, still photos, newsreels.
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Speaker 2: You know, it's massive. It's a massive amount of.
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Speaker 4: Massive And so the whole point of the book was
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Speaker 4: a real primer introduction to this massive world in bite
6:51
Speaker 4: sized pieces, so the filmmakers could look at this and go,
6:55
Speaker 4: oh god, okay, I can do this, I can get this,
6:58
Speaker 4: I can grab this, and I think projects become a
7:01
Speaker 4: lot more interesting because you can put a lot more
7:03
Speaker 4: stuff in it to tell your story.
7:04
Speaker 2: So you you mentioned Gone with the Wind, which I
7:06
Speaker 2: think you meant Wizard of Oz because I don't remember
7:08
Speaker 2: Flying Monkeys and Gone with the Wind.
7:11
Speaker 4: I mess you've Gone with the Wind is another film
7:12
Speaker 4: out Flying Monkeys, and you know, yeah you want.
7:15
Speaker 3: To So how would you?
7:17
Speaker 2: So then, how would you go about you know, calling
7:21
Speaker 2: them gm up and going hey, I would like to
7:23
Speaker 2: get a scene from Gone with the Wind for my
7:26
Speaker 2: doc or for my narrative feature that I wanted playing
7:29
Speaker 2: in the background or something along this line.
7:31
Speaker 3: How would you go about?
7:32
Speaker 2: Because I we'll talk a little bit about more of
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Speaker 2: the standard stock footage, like go into a stock footage
7:37
Speaker 2: house and things like that. But for films, I'm really
7:39
Speaker 2: curious about, especially famous ones.
7:42
Speaker 4: Famous films are a funny little story onto themselves. Because
7:46
Speaker 4: you'd think the studios would be happy to be able
7:50
Speaker 4: to license and make a million, two million, three million
7:52
Speaker 4: a year. Some studios are Some studios love to have
7:55
Speaker 4: a few million. Some studios, oh, they can't be bothered
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Speaker 4: and they will not license it out unless you're a
8:00
Speaker 4: friend of a friend of a friend. So for example,
8:02
Speaker 4: when I got started back in the early eighties, we
8:05
Speaker 4: needed material from Warner Brothers. And I called the contact
8:10
Speaker 4: I had, who was very grouchy and who does I
8:12
Speaker 4: don't know if I want to have license you, I
8:14
Speaker 4: don't know want to deal with it. So I called
8:16
Speaker 4: the distributor that I was working with and I said,
8:19
Speaker 4: who do you know there? And he says, I know
8:20
Speaker 4: the president. I said, can you call the president? Well,
8:23
Speaker 4: within a week we had the footage okay, at a
8:26
Speaker 4: rate a third of what I could have bargained it for.
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Speaker 4: So part of it comes down to just calling the studio,
8:34
Speaker 4: which is all you can do, and typically starts with
8:36
Speaker 4: a letter to the legal department. And the other part
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Speaker 4: is if they give you a hard time, if you
8:41
Speaker 4: have a distributor, talk to them and find out who
8:43
Speaker 4: knows whom because that also helps.
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Speaker 3: And then licensing fees vary.
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Speaker 4: I'm assuming yes, And let mean go back to that
8:53
Speaker 4: last point. I can't stress enough to have an expert
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Speaker 4: clip license person do the work for you. It cost
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Speaker 4: a little extra. It may cost you five hundred one
9:05
Speaker 4: thousand dollars for a typical job. But here's the deal.
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Speaker 4: They already have the relationships in place. They already know
9:13
Speaker 4: the people, so you're buying that expertise without having to
9:16
Speaker 4: beg your distributor to do your favor that they may
9:19
Speaker 4: or may not be able to do. So having a
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Speaker 4: clip licensed person and I mentioned some in my book
9:26
Speaker 4: that will help you get through and get the right
9:28
Speaker 4: price because they'll be able to get you the price.
9:31
Speaker 2: They know it's fair, so it's a better price than
9:33
Speaker 2: what you could get probably if you just called up
9:35
Speaker 2: directly and they have no relationship with you.
9:38
Speaker 4: Yeah, this is penny wise kind of pullish. If you
9:39
Speaker 4: really have no money, yeah, do it yourself and keep
9:43
Speaker 4: your fingers crossed. But if you have someone in your budget,
9:47
Speaker 4: you just hire someone to do this part of the job.
9:51
Speaker 2: We'll be right back after a word from our sponsor,
9:57
Speaker 2: and now back to the show.
10:00
Speaker 4: Because it really is a full time job onto itself,
10:03
Speaker 4: and these people who do it have done for years.
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Speaker 4: They have relationships, relationships that go back years, and they
10:10
Speaker 4: know the prices, so they're really a well worked.
10:12
Speaker 2: Acquiring I worked on a film excuse me, a show
10:16
Speaker 2: for Hulu, and I noticed that one of the characters
10:19
Speaker 2: had a image of John Carpenter's The thing. Another thing
10:24
Speaker 2: they live on it and I asked the director and
10:27
Speaker 2: the producers are because I was working with him in post.
10:29
Speaker 2: I'm like, how did you get that? Like you can't,
10:32
Speaker 2: Like how do He's like, we called up the studio
10:34
Speaker 2: and we go, hey, we want to use an image for.
10:35
Speaker 3: A T shirt.
10:37
Speaker 2: And it was fairly affordable, like extremely affordable actually for
10:42
Speaker 2: what they wanted. They're like, yeah, we'll design it, just
10:44
Speaker 2: send us, send it over to us, and we'll approve
10:46
Speaker 2: it and then just pay us and we're good.
10:49
Speaker 3: That's kind of how it works.
10:51
Speaker 4: It can. I did a Discovery Channel special I needed
10:56
Speaker 4: a minute of Walk the Dinosaur from many years ago,
10:58
Speaker 4: and yeah, we just called it. I think it was
11:00
Speaker 4: Disney at the time, and no, well that was another
11:03
Speaker 4: film poop. I called up the owner and they said, sure,
11:06
Speaker 4: you know, put in it because it's promotion. So a
11:08
Speaker 4: lot of times people are glad to give away things,
11:11
Speaker 4: let alone get money if it falls into promoting their item,
11:14
Speaker 4: if it's available at that time, and is.
11:17
Speaker 2: It benefit you more if you're a bigger project or
11:21
Speaker 2: to get that kind of giveaway stuff as or they'll
11:25
Speaker 2: look at you and go, oh they have money, so
11:26
Speaker 2: they can I can charge them so it's like it's
11:28
Speaker 2: a little double edged sword.
11:29
Speaker 4: Yeah. Well, they go by market. So if you sit
11:31
Speaker 4: there and say one brother is distributing our feature length
11:35
Speaker 4: film worldwide, they'll say dollar dollar dollar. If you say
11:40
Speaker 4: we're doing a show for Hulu, they'll say half a dollar.
11:44
Speaker 4: And they'll know what's fair and what works got you.
11:48
Speaker 2: Now, can you give me a few examples of stock
11:51
Speaker 2: footage being used in successful projects that are, like, let's say,
11:55
Speaker 2: feature films, because we all know Ken Burns, we all
11:57
Speaker 2: know documentaries. That's where archive kind of is known to
12:01
Speaker 2: be to make its bones, if you will. But for
12:04
Speaker 2: feature films, don't I don't know any many of many examples.
12:09
Speaker 4: Yeah, well, a lot of feature films use stock footage.
12:13
Speaker 4: It may simply be the scene where the actors walked
12:15
Speaker 4: into a hotel room and there's a TV on and
12:19
Speaker 4: there's footage on the television, and that comes from somewhere,
12:24
Speaker 4: you know, So that's stock footage. I remember. Usually it
12:27
Speaker 4: was a film called Firestarter, our film division, and we
12:31
Speaker 4: sold them some nineteen twenties footage we had, and it
12:35
Speaker 4: just played in a television scene where she's watching television
12:39
Speaker 4: and going from channel to channel, and I was one
12:40
Speaker 4: of the channels, so you.
12:41
Speaker 2: Know that's and yours, and that was footage that you owned.
12:45
Speaker 4: Licensed And so the deal is what you always have
12:49
Speaker 4: to think of still images, music films. Always think of
12:54
Speaker 4: the nasty lawyer. This will keep you honest, and this
12:58
Speaker 4: will make you sure you do what you've got to do.
13:01
Speaker 4: You're covering your back. You're covering your back from the
13:03
Speaker 4: nasty lawyer. Also, it even goes beyond the nasty lawyer.
13:10
Speaker 4: It can actually be the trade councils of countries. Now,
13:15
Speaker 4: the short story. Years ago, I did a documentary and
13:20
Speaker 4: we used a club from a foreign film, and I
13:27
Speaker 4: did a Library of Congress search, which is what everyone
13:30
Speaker 4: should do if they think they have a public domain
13:32
Speaker 4: piece of footage. Always request the Library of Congress Research
13:36
Speaker 4: Report to put in your errors and Admissions report, which
13:40
Speaker 4: is the insurance package you get the end of the film.
13:44
Speaker 4: And we did it aired on Discovery Channel, and the
13:47
Speaker 4: third year, the final airing, I get a call from
13:51
Speaker 4: a production company from this country, foreign country, and they said,
13:56
Speaker 4: you used our film illegally and it's a copyright blah
13:59
Speaker 4: blah bla. Well, so I said, I think we have
14:01
Speaker 4: a misunderstanding. I sent him my Library of Congress report,
14:05
Speaker 4: which showed that I had done due diligence and didn't matter.
14:09
Speaker 4: I got calls every week from them to manding thousands
14:12
Speaker 4: of dollars that they really wanted, you know, the money,
14:16
Speaker 4: and we broke the lah blah blah blah, and he
14:19
Speaker 4: actually had the trade mission from that country called me
14:22
Speaker 4: in an edit session. I mean, it really was nasty stuff.
14:26
Speaker 4: And so finally, you know, I looked at him and
14:31
Speaker 4: told him on a phone call, you know, I don't
14:33
Speaker 4: know if you can understand this. You can't get blood
14:36
Speaker 4: out of a turn up, and I hung up on him.
14:39
Speaker 4: I guess he talked to somebody who translated that to
14:41
Speaker 4: him and they stopped calling me. The thing is, it
14:44
Speaker 4: was weeks worth of very nasty phone calls, and they
14:48
Speaker 4: were right, and I was right. I mean, this was
14:51
Speaker 4: their film, but they hadn't properly copyrighted here, so I
14:56
Speaker 4: was able to use it. But it still didn't stop
14:59
Speaker 4: me from being, uh, you know, harange, I guess you'd.
15:03
Speaker 2: Call it so let me ask you that, because that's
15:05
Speaker 2: that's not something that's very interesting and a lot of
15:07
Speaker 2: people kind of get lost in it. Copyrighting here in
15:11
Speaker 2: the US is one thing, But then there's copyrights in England,
15:14
Speaker 2: there's copyrights in France. There's copyrights all over the place.
15:17
Speaker 2: So if they want so, if a movie is made
15:19
Speaker 2: in the in in Australia, they'll.
15:23
Speaker 3: Copyright in Australia.
15:24
Speaker 2: But if but if they want to protect it in
15:26
Speaker 2: the US, they have to they have to copyright it
15:29
Speaker 2: in the US as well.
15:30
Speaker 3: Correct.
15:31
Speaker 4: Well, nowadays, a copyright if you cover in the US,
15:35
Speaker 4: it's pretty it's pretty much worldwide at this point. But
15:38
Speaker 4: what happened was for many, many years, the majority of
15:43
Speaker 4: time for the feature film history, there were two copyright conventions.
15:49
Speaker 4: So it was the Bird Convention, which was Europe and
15:51
Speaker 4: Asian whatever countries subscribe to it, but the US didn't.
15:55
Speaker 4: The US had its own copyright tribun and so if
15:58
Speaker 4: you copyright here, yes, you have to go and do
16:01
Speaker 4: a Bird Convention copyright and had the two contracts. So
16:05
Speaker 4: what you'll find is there were films that were copread
16:07
Speaker 4: in Europe returned public domain here like Tropolis, and it
16:14
Speaker 4: was a mess. And I think finally in the last
16:16
Speaker 4: decade or so, we signed on and now it's a
16:20
Speaker 4: it really is a worldwide convention.
16:22
Speaker 2: So so let me talk to you a little bit
16:24
Speaker 2: about stock footage or public public domain footage, because I've
16:29
Speaker 2: had so many questions about this, like the Alpha Hitchcock
16:32
Speaker 2: Collection and Metropolis and Nosfordatu and of course famously Night
16:39
Speaker 2: of the Living Dead, which is why it's on every television,
16:42
Speaker 2: of every independent movie ever made because it's public domain.
16:47
Speaker 2: But films like specifically like the Hitchcock Collection, which they
16:50
Speaker 2: there's the British Hitchcock Films, which is early on like
16:53
Speaker 2: the Lodger and Jamaica in and other things like that,
16:56
Speaker 2: then they and then there's the US version. From what
16:59
Speaker 2: I understand stand, using his films, you could arguably use
17:06
Speaker 2: the British films here is public domain because it went
17:10
Speaker 2: public domain here in the States, but you cannot show
17:13
Speaker 2: it in England or anywhere that's accessible to England.
17:17
Speaker 3: Is that correct? Not correct?
17:19
Speaker 4: Well, it's a loaded question, and so you know, half
17:28
Speaker 4: the book really talks about this, but in a nutshell,
17:31
Speaker 4: here's the deal. There's clear public domain. There's murky public domain.
17:40
Speaker 4: Foreign films. I call that murky public domain because it
17:44
Speaker 4: could have been shown here and they could have copyrighted
17:47
Speaker 4: under a different title. So they've been released over season
17:50
Speaker 4: one title, and at least here's another title when it
17:55
Speaker 4: was released as a big issue. So if it was
17:57
Speaker 4: produced seventy five years ago falls under the old copyright lock.
18:01
Speaker 4: It was produced in the last twenty years, it falls
18:03
Speaker 4: under the new one. The old one was twenty eight
18:05
Speaker 4: years with renewal. The new one is seventy five years
18:08
Speaker 4: and eighty five years and you know, five thousand years,
18:11
Speaker 4: and you might as well considerous.
18:12
Speaker 2: We'll never going to see Mickey Mouse is basically we're
18:14
Speaker 2: never going to see steamboat Willie.
18:16
Speaker 3: Public Domaton thinks.
18:17
Speaker 4: These cities are too powerful. So that's one here you
18:20
Speaker 4: really have to be careful about. Is is is it
18:22
Speaker 4: really public domain? Because someone says it is, I always
18:28
Speaker 4: go by the Library of Congress Research Reporting. That's your
18:31
Speaker 4: backup again, think of the nasty attorney. Think of protecting
18:35
Speaker 4: yourself from that lawsuit. And so if someone tells you
18:39
Speaker 4: it's public domain, fine, but go get it for like
18:44
Speaker 4: the it's like ten or twelve dollars per title.
18:46
Speaker 2: Hit it verified now if you but if you if
18:49
Speaker 2: you buy let's say one of these films from a
18:54
Speaker 2: library a stockhouse says hey, here's I got a pristine
18:58
Speaker 2: thirty five millimeter print of the lodger you know which is,
19:02
Speaker 2: and I can and I could get it to you
19:04
Speaker 2: digitally or bait sp or digitbate or whatever. And they
19:08
Speaker 2: tell me, hey, you know, you could play it here
19:09
Speaker 2: in the US, but you can't play it in England.
19:13
Speaker 3: Is that something?
19:15
Speaker 4: It's something? But you know, think about your sales. I mean, nowadays,
19:18
Speaker 4: your sales in the US are not what they were
19:19
Speaker 4: twenty years ago. Right the old days, you had video sales,
19:22
Speaker 4: you had a pay cable, you had basic cable, you
19:27
Speaker 4: had syndication, you had all these possibilities make money. Now
19:30
Speaker 4: you basically streaming, thrown in and streaming, and that hays
19:35
Speaker 4: Bucus and so really the world is more of your
19:38
Speaker 4: market nowadays, and so the dollars have changed. I would
19:44
Speaker 4: check to see if it is available overseas.
19:48
Speaker 2: We'll be right back after a word from our sponsor,
19:54
Speaker 2: and now back to the show.
19:57
Speaker 4: Because the US is so small part of the market.
20:00
Speaker 4: I just finished a film sold all over Europe, but
20:05
Speaker 4: we could make a sale here because of these rights issues,
20:07
Speaker 4: and they were just too expensive here.
20:09
Speaker 3: Really, So there was just footage that you used in
20:11
Speaker 3: the movie that did just music.
20:12
Speaker 4: But yeah, it's too expensive here. Where in Europe they
20:15
Speaker 4: do it completely differently. In Europe, you do a report,
20:19
Speaker 4: you turn it in and it goes to Royalty Reports
20:22
Speaker 4: and it pays it. We're here, you have to license
20:24
Speaker 4: it directly from the music companies.
20:28
Speaker 2: Oh so in other words, so yeah, basically everybody, basically
20:32
Speaker 2: you have all the music available to you in Europe
20:34
Speaker 2: and it just like you just paying the system and
20:36
Speaker 2: the system pays them out.
20:38
Speaker 4: I mean all every filmmaker in the US wishes it
20:40
Speaker 4: were that way here, but it kills it. I could
20:43
Speaker 4: not show the Sill. It's a good film, and I
20:44
Speaker 4: couldn't show the film in the US because the license
20:47
Speaker 4: fees for the music loan were probably three times what
20:50
Speaker 4: the most I could have gotten from a Netflix sale.
20:53
Speaker 4: Really astronomical.
20:55
Speaker 2: Right, So if you wanted a Beatles song or you
20:58
Speaker 2: wanted an Elvis song something like that, you actually lit
21:01
Speaker 2: up to go to who owns the.
21:03
Speaker 4: Yeah, publishing and performance right issues, and that's all us.
21:07
Speaker 4: So I did a film about Star Trek years ago,
21:10
Speaker 4: and not that many years ago, three years ago, and
21:12
Speaker 4: I wanted to use the Alexander Courage team song. They
21:16
Speaker 4: started at ten thousand dollars. What really, there's I mean,
21:23
Speaker 4: I don't know if you guys are tacking, but our
21:25
Speaker 4: documentaries from Netflix ten thousand is kind of not that
21:29
Speaker 4: far from the ballpark I would have barely paid for
21:32
Speaker 4: for my Is that? What is that?
21:34
Speaker 3: What Netflix is paying?
21:35
Speaker 4: Though? Well, if you're lucky, Netflix was taking everything and
21:38
Speaker 4: now they're getting much much to choosier.
21:41
Speaker 2: And then they're just being pickier with and then they're
21:43
Speaker 2: not paying a whole lot anymore.
21:45
Speaker 4: Well, they never did pay that much. Remember a Netflix
21:47
Speaker 4: scale kills every cable sale too.
21:50
Speaker 2: So you know it's the very last then it's the
21:53
Speaker 2: last last thing you do.
21:55
Speaker 4: So back to the book, the whole book. The reason
21:58
Speaker 4: by I wrote the book was to kind of explain
22:00
Speaker 4: all this because as you're kind of hearing, it's really.
22:03
Speaker 3: It's murky, it's Murky's heck, And you got.
22:06
Speaker 4: To know all the elements and know how to deal
22:09
Speaker 4: with them. And that's what I hopefully accomplished right in
22:11
Speaker 4: this thing.
22:12
Speaker 2: Now, where can where can filmmakers find stock footage if
22:16
Speaker 2: they're just looking for because now we were talking about
22:18
Speaker 2: archival footage of many films and things like that, but
22:21
Speaker 2: there is other kind of archival footage. There's just stock
22:24
Speaker 2: footage in generals, Like if you need an aerial of
22:27
Speaker 2: New York City, you can go and find a place.
22:30
Speaker 3: You know, where do people go out and find that stuff?
22:33
Speaker 4: Well, you know, I don't know how many students are
22:35
Speaker 4: the year to said, well's just go the YouTube and downloaded. Okay,
22:40
Speaker 4: so let me explain the problem with it. I'll just
22:42
Speaker 4: go to YouTube and downloaded.
22:43
Speaker 3: There's a few, there's a there's a couple.
22:45
Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean it's it's it's been done. But here's
22:48
Speaker 4: the deal again, go back to that nasty attorney who's
22:51
Speaker 4: sitting right back yet. So you download it from YouTube,
22:55
Speaker 4: you get a letter the next week after releases. I'm
22:59
Speaker 4: I'm nasty attorney. I represent the producer and you took
23:04
Speaker 4: this producer's YouTube copy without permission and showed it. Okay,
23:10
Speaker 4: so what do you say, Well, it's public domain, and
23:13
Speaker 4: then the produc will come back and say prove it.
23:15
Speaker 4: So here's the deal. This is why you have archival
23:18
Speaker 4: footage houses and studios. They write you a letter, it's
23:22
Speaker 4: a license agreement. They say we own it or we
23:25
Speaker 4: own these rights and we give it to you for
23:27
Speaker 4: this fee. So when that nasty attorney calls and you say, well,
23:31
Speaker 4: I got this from Getty or Corbus or whoever, and
23:35
Speaker 4: I paid them two three thousand dollars for it, and
23:38
Speaker 4: they say they own it. You talk to them about
23:40
Speaker 4: your issues.
23:42
Speaker 3: So it's kind of like a legal protection.
23:45
Speaker 4: Exactly. Number two is if you do this and if
23:48
Speaker 4: you really you know, shot by shot, you go through
23:51
Speaker 4: it and make sure every shot you have is protected
23:55
Speaker 4: the end of the day, if you have a film
23:57
Speaker 4: that's going to make some money, you have to have errors.
24:00
Speaker 4: The mission's insurance. This is insurance where someone actually does
24:03
Speaker 4: sue you, they will take care of it. So believe me,
24:07
Speaker 4: as a producer, you want airs emission's insurance because when
24:10
Speaker 4: you get that nasty phone call where they actually do
24:12
Speaker 4: have some type of legal standing, you say, talk to
24:15
Speaker 4: my insurance and here's the phone number of good luck,
24:19
Speaker 4: and the insurance people know how to deal with these people.
24:21
Speaker 4: And so, because what the insurance is done is they've
24:24
Speaker 4: gone through your script seen by seeing and nature, you
24:27
Speaker 4: have protected yourself. So when the call comes, they say,
24:31
Speaker 4: every scene is licensed, we double checked it. You're wrong.
24:35
Speaker 3: So let me ask you about this lovely term called
24:37
Speaker 3: fair use.
24:39
Speaker 2: Yeah, especially when it comes to documentary, it was I
24:44
Speaker 2: don't think you could do it for a narrative, but
24:47
Speaker 2: you can't claim fair use in documentary a lot. Can
24:50
Speaker 2: you explain what fair use is and what are the
24:52
Speaker 2: limitations of fair use when dealing with archival.
24:56
Speaker 4: My understanding of fair use is the law permits for
25:00
Speaker 4: educational purposes, educating the public, educating the audience, usage of
25:05
Speaker 4: what is copyright material in very short form. So you
25:10
Speaker 4: can't take ten twenty thirty minutes of something and stick
25:12
Speaker 4: it in and say well it's fair use. I mean,
25:15
Speaker 4: but if you use a ten second twenty second clip
25:17
Speaker 4: within an educational environment, people or newsreels for example TV news,
25:23
Speaker 4: oftentimes you'll see copyright images.
25:25
Speaker 3: On your constantly.
25:27
Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean, and they don't worry about because it
25:29
Speaker 4: is covered under the fair use protection. Where it gets
25:32
Speaker 4: murky is where Michael Moore does a film that makes
25:37
Speaker 4: sixty million dollars and you know, or Sasha barn Cohen,
25:42
Speaker 4: and they're saying, well, we're protected by fair use because
25:45
Speaker 4: it's educational. So this is where you always have to
25:49
Speaker 4: think of that attorney. The attorney goes, oh, you guys
25:52
Speaker 4: made fifty million dollars last here on that film, and
25:58
Speaker 4: I'm sorry, this is not under this is entertainment. The
26:02
Speaker 4: success in the commercial market proves this is entertainment and
26:05
Speaker 4: not an educational mission. And there they try to break
26:09
Speaker 4: that fair use argument. And so what you've got is
26:14
Speaker 4: the lawyers arguing it. You're paying four hundred dollars an
26:16
Speaker 4: hour for the lawyers to argue the point. So what
26:20
Speaker 4: I always tell filmmakers, and I've told us all my
26:22
Speaker 4: students about the years, is well, if you're going to
26:26
Speaker 4: use fair use, I really hope you have a failure
26:30
Speaker 4: in your project and it doesn't get a penny because
26:33
Speaker 4: you actually do make money. No matter how much you
26:36
Speaker 4: think you're protected by this farious argument, you may the
26:39
Speaker 4: commercial success of it may hurt your fairious protection because
26:45
Speaker 4: they smell money and it's worth the settlement effort. So
26:49
Speaker 4: if you've made fifty million dollars on your feature, they're
26:52
Speaker 4: coming after I'll come after you. And so faious is
26:55
Speaker 4: it's a really it's a great thing. And it's for
26:58
Speaker 4: public television. That's a good usage, probably for Hulu because
27:01
Speaker 4: of the license viewing. You can you can call it,
27:03
Speaker 4: you know, the the Alex Farry, you know news show
27:08
Speaker 4: I'm sure you're projected. But Michael Moore, I'm sure those
27:13
Speaker 4: lawyers keep busy.
27:15
Speaker 3: So so things like.
27:17
Speaker 2: Because I've seen this a lot on YouTube where they
27:20
Speaker 2: do these, uh explanation of scenes in movies and things
27:27
Speaker 2: like that.
27:27
Speaker 3: YouTube is constantly hitting.
27:28
Speaker 2: People up with copyright issues with that. But as long
27:31
Speaker 2: as you're talking over the footage and explaining it, it's
27:35
Speaker 2: part of fair use as well, because it's because you
27:39
Speaker 2: are explaining it is it is a public explanation, educational
27:44
Speaker 2: or just your opinion, which is a big thing.
27:47
Speaker 3: And also satire.
27:49
Speaker 2: You can get away with satire a lot too, because
27:51
Speaker 2: if you look at the Daily Show, you look at
27:53
Speaker 2: any of these late night shows, they'll bust out copyright
27:56
Speaker 2: and footage in the middle of you know, from a
27:58
Speaker 2: movie that has nothing to do with anything that's.
28:00
Speaker 4: Said, and yeah, I mean and there they may be
28:03
Speaker 4: trying to get away with it on that. So you
28:07
Speaker 4: also have this other issue which deals with image rights
28:12
Speaker 4: and exploitation of image rights. So if you show a
28:19
Speaker 4: Coca Cola image and you sit there and say, there
28:23
Speaker 4: it is, here's a Coca Cola image and it's the
28:25
Speaker 4: worst drick ever made, and you and you sit there
28:29
Speaker 4: and you show people drinking it and throwing up whatever. Yeah. No,
28:33
Speaker 4: and it comes from a public domain Coca Cola commercial
28:38
Speaker 4: and then you play with it. Think you get a
28:42
Speaker 4: call from Coca Cola attorneys saying you have tampered with
28:46
Speaker 4: our very tightly controlled image rights of Coca Cola. And
28:52
Speaker 4: so that becomes another area where you may or may
28:57
Speaker 4: not be protected. Yes, it's a fair usage. Yes, the
29:01
Speaker 4: commercial may be considered a public domain commercial that you've
29:04
Speaker 4: used because it's older than you know, it has them
29:06
Speaker 4: to copyright or whatever. But if you're demeaning an image,
29:10
Speaker 4: you're opening yourself up for potential lawsuit. Well, sure that
29:16
Speaker 4: exploited themselves during the time they were alive, as a
29:20
Speaker 4: lawyer alive today represent even if they're dead, representing that
29:23
Speaker 4: estate of that James Dean, Marilyn Monroe, chaplain, because they
29:28
Speaker 4: exploited the image when you were alive. Elvis Presley, that
29:32
Speaker 4: estate guarding that image of him makes tens of millions
29:36
Speaker 4: of dollars a year off the image. And if you
29:38
Speaker 4: do anything with that image that demeans and they say
29:41
Speaker 4: it hurts that image, you're holding yourself liable for a problem.
29:46
Speaker 2: We'll be right back after a word from our sponsor,
29:52
Speaker 2: and now back to the show.
29:55
Speaker 3: So that's a good example.
29:57
Speaker 2: So I've heard of, you know, people like Chaplain's a
30:01
Speaker 2: State and things like that, because there are a lot
30:02
Speaker 2: of Chaplain movies, Buster Keaton movies that are public domain. Yeah,
30:07
Speaker 2: and arguably you could just play them in their entirety.
30:12
Speaker 2: But if you do anything else, I mean, because arguably
30:15
Speaker 2: public domain stuff, you could do whatever you want, you know, arguably,
30:20
Speaker 2: but if you're editing in Chaplain with a porno that
30:24
Speaker 2: so much, that's not gonna work.
30:27
Speaker 4: Yeah, that's where the image right comes in. Right, if
30:30
Speaker 4: you do a commercial and you show right, you know,
30:34
Speaker 4: what do you think of this cigarette, Charlie? And then
30:36
Speaker 4: you have to shout out Charlie Chaplin smiling and going
30:38
Speaker 4: like that lawsuit because you are using him to exploit
30:44
Speaker 4: a commercial product.
30:45
Speaker 2: And is that why Disney is so so crazily protective
30:50
Speaker 2: of Steamboat Willie because arguably Steamwolt Willy should have been.
30:54
Speaker 2: And for people who are listening who don't know what
30:56
Speaker 2: Steamboat will it is. It is the first Mickey Mouse
30:58
Speaker 2: cartoon and the first sound cartoon.
31:02
Speaker 4: Still very copyrighted, ye, but it's credit both as a film,
31:06
Speaker 4: and also the image right of Mickey Mouse and so.
31:10
Speaker 2: But eventually it's opposed to go into public domain eventually, but.
31:14
Speaker 4: The image rights me not so so.
31:16
Speaker 2: In other words, the movie itself would, but you could
31:19
Speaker 2: never play it.
31:20
Speaker 4: Well once it legally falls to the public domain, you
31:24
Speaker 4: could use it in your documentary, but if you try
31:27
Speaker 4: to use Mickey in a commercial, that's explaining the image,
31:29
Speaker 4: and that's where you get the problems.
31:31
Speaker 3: And Disney has a very large legal.
31:34
Speaker 4: Team, oh yeah, and well practiced, very well.
31:38
Speaker 2: Practiced, especially when it comes to their to their copyrighted
31:41
Speaker 2: images and stuff.
31:43
Speaker 3: It's fascinating, I know.
31:44
Speaker 2: I mean, stock footage is always it's always been an
31:49
Speaker 2: interesting thing for me because especially public domain stuff, because
31:53
Speaker 2: you're just like, oh, you know, you could just grab
31:55
Speaker 2: a whole bunch of Hitchcock's films and Chaplain films and
31:58
Speaker 2: Buster Keaton films and and project them on a screen somewhere,
32:03
Speaker 2: and you can.
32:04
Speaker 3: But there is that murkiness that you talk about in
32:07
Speaker 3: the book.
32:08
Speaker 4: Yeah, well, you know, you just have to know what
32:11
Speaker 4: you need and then you have to know how to
32:14
Speaker 4: deal with it. Once you break it down into that
32:17
Speaker 4: one two step it's not that difficult. You just have
32:21
Speaker 4: to do it. That's the problem. I mean a lot
32:23
Speaker 4: of people just don't want to deal with it. It's like,
32:25
Speaker 4: I got enough headaches just making this film. I don't
32:28
Speaker 4: want to have to sit there and deal with all
32:30
Speaker 4: these wires and licenses. It. Oh, welcome to the adult world.
32:35
Speaker 4: This is what we do. And that's why again, if
32:37
Speaker 4: you have the money, hire the film clip person because
32:41
Speaker 4: to them they don't have they don't lose sleep over it.
32:43
Speaker 4: They're just being hired to do it, and they do
32:45
Speaker 4: a great job.
32:46
Speaker 2: So is that the reason why in every independent film
32:50
Speaker 2: ever made? You see The Night of the Living Dead
32:53
Speaker 2: on television, because it is pretty much solidly copyright for
33:00
Speaker 2: or in public domain.
33:01
Speaker 4: Yeah, but to even tell you, okay, the more famous example,
33:07
Speaker 4: or just as famous is It's a Wonderful Life.
33:09
Speaker 3: Yeah, that was exactly so, It's wonderful life.
33:12
Speaker 4: It was a commercial failure when it was released, Liberty
33:16
Speaker 4: Films folded, and twenty eight years later, which was the
33:19
Speaker 4: length of the old copyright law, no one was around
33:23
Speaker 4: to renew it. And then the TV stations in the
33:26
Speaker 4: mid seventies cut you know how toold that this may
33:30
Speaker 4: be a pretty good Christmas film. So they all started
33:34
Speaker 4: airing because it was public domain, and they all went
33:36
Speaker 4: to and then so what's so funny is Turner got
33:41
Speaker 4: wind of it that it was public domain, so they
33:43
Speaker 4: colorized it. So suddenly there was a copyrighted version, the
33:46
Speaker 4: colorized version. And then one of my music clearance people
33:51
Speaker 4: told me many many years ago, guess what it's wonderful
33:54
Speaker 4: life is in the black Lin version is not public
33:57
Speaker 4: domain anymore. I said, I see that. I was hired
34:02
Speaker 4: to go back and copyright all of the music that
34:06
Speaker 4: was in it separately, and if you listen to that film,
34:09
Speaker 4: it's wall to wall music. So they the letter that
34:14
Speaker 4: then her client would send out was not that we
34:18
Speaker 4: own copyright to the film, but we own copyright to
34:20
Speaker 4: all the music to the film, and therefore we own
34:23
Speaker 4: this film and you owe us money for airing it.
34:26
Speaker 3: So how do you separate the two?
34:29
Speaker 2: Like, how could you go back and.
34:32
Speaker 3: Redo that?
34:33
Speaker 4: And through this in the book. But here's the deal.
34:37
Speaker 4: Look at every film as the elements that go into it.
34:41
Speaker 4: So nowadays, for example, if you license a new Star
34:46
Speaker 4: Wars clip and the studio says, okay, fine, Alex, we'll
34:49
Speaker 4: give it to you for twenty twenty five thousand dollars
34:51
Speaker 4: in that, which is kind of standard nowadays.
34:53
Speaker 3: Twenty five thousand a minute, Yeah.
34:55
Speaker 4: Twenty twenty five thousand. Okay, okay, well, okay, fine, I'll
34:58
Speaker 4: do it. You're not done. You've got now all the
35:01
Speaker 4: secondary clearances that go with that, because as filmmakers, we
35:06
Speaker 4: know we've got music that's a separate clinic that suit.
35:09
Speaker 4: It doesn't necessarily own that. And you have the director's clearance.
35:14
Speaker 4: You've got to go to the director's guild and pay
35:16
Speaker 4: them money, and the writer's Guild and pay them money.
35:18
Speaker 4: And every actor that appears in that scene and with
35:21
Speaker 4: the others, or they just have to take the money,
35:23
Speaker 4: and there's a set amount the actor. You have to
35:26
Speaker 4: negotiate them out and they can say yes or no.
35:31
Speaker 4: Many years ago, I did a show on censorship the movies.
35:35
Speaker 4: Peter Fondo was the host, and there was a scene
35:38
Speaker 4: in there from Easy Riders. If you remember the film
35:40
Speaker 4: Easy Writer, the famous scene in there is where Jack
35:45
Speaker 4: Nicholson and Denz Hopper and Peter Fonder around at campfire
35:48
Speaker 4: and they're smoking dope. Yeah, it's super time. Jack Nixon
35:52
Speaker 4: smoked a joint, right, I mean That's the quintessential scene
35:56
Speaker 4: in Easy Writer, besides the ending, and I needed I
36:02
Speaker 4: wanted to use that film clip. It was it was
36:04
Speaker 4: part of the story. It was actually banned the film,
36:07
Speaker 4: and the host of the film was in it and
36:09
Speaker 4: was friends mostly with Jack Nicholson. So we call Jack
36:15
Speaker 4: Nicholson's Asian you know, we want to use it, and
36:18
Speaker 4: we're paying every one thousand a minute, and they come
36:21
Speaker 4: back and say, no, Jack doesn't do clip shows quote
36:24
Speaker 4: unquote Alwyo remember that, And we couldn't use it, and
36:27
Speaker 4: I had to use a completely different scene just didn't
36:30
Speaker 4: work as well. And so you never I mean, these
36:34
Speaker 4: are the complexities you're dealing with. Every film is broken
36:37
Speaker 4: into the bits and pieces.
36:38
Speaker 3: That's insane.
36:41
Speaker 2: Yes, it makes my head hurt thinking about it.
36:46
Speaker 4: You know, it makes you think twice of it doing
36:48
Speaker 4: documentaries because they're not there are a lot of work.
36:53
Speaker 4: You don't make that much money, and you gotta deal
36:55
Speaker 4: with this stuff because you don't want to be dealing
36:57
Speaker 4: with the headaches of Universal or Sony calling you up and.
37:04
Speaker 2: You is it just basically at a certain point, is
37:07
Speaker 2: it's just a bully thing that they have so many
37:10
Speaker 2: resources they can outspend you a billion to one, and
37:14
Speaker 2: they know it. So they're like, look, we're just going
37:16
Speaker 2: to bully you until you give us some money.
37:17
Speaker 4: Basically exactly, that's what Isn't that a law?
37:21
Speaker 3: Is pretty much.
37:24
Speaker 4: You're not going to hire a nice attorney that doesn't
37:27
Speaker 4: want to hurt anyone's feelings. You want to hire a
37:29
Speaker 4: barracuda that's that's got really sharp teeth that can go
37:32
Speaker 4: after people. Because you know in the film business is
37:35
Speaker 4: notorious for that.
37:37
Speaker 3: That's that's ridiculous.
37:39
Speaker 2: Now, there was a movie that I saw when in
37:42
Speaker 2: my video story days that used It was a unique
37:45
Speaker 2: film because the entire movie was made of stock footage.
37:49
Speaker 3: Yeah, and it was called Atomic Cafe.
37:51
Speaker 4: Oh yeah, sure you.
37:52
Speaker 3: Remember Atomic Cafe.
37:54
Speaker 2: Can you tell the honest a little bit about that
37:56
Speaker 2: that film, because it's become a cult classic over the years.
37:59
Speaker 4: Yeah. Well, the theme was that the early nineteen fifties,
38:02
Speaker 4: when the atomic bomb, they were trying to find useful
38:07
Speaker 4: purpose for outside destroying cities, and so they came up
38:11
Speaker 4: with all these like you know, you can drink it
38:14
Speaker 4: as a lexur and it'll be healthy for you. You
38:17
Speaker 4: can survive in a nuclear bomb attack by hiding under
38:20
Speaker 4: the desk. And so this filmmaker, I forget his name
38:24
Speaker 4: at the moment, put together a whole film of material
38:28
Speaker 4: that was just of I mean, they're all entertaining because
38:31
Speaker 4: they're all so ridiculous, and he was able to craft
38:33
Speaker 4: an entire feature film out of that. But they were
38:36
Speaker 4: all basically either industrial films, educational films, or government films.
38:40
Speaker 4: It was pretty clear when it was made there was
38:45
Speaker 4: very little concerned about music. So I'm sure he cleared
38:48
Speaker 4: whatever music was there, if any, or a very cheap price,
38:53
Speaker 4: and so it was an affordable price. I don't know
38:56
Speaker 4: if the audience today if that were released it in
38:58
Speaker 4: the movie theaters as well, because we're so sophisticated, but yeah,
39:04
Speaker 4: it was a hit because it really was something we
39:05
Speaker 4: could laugh at.
39:07
Speaker 2: Right now, you also say something about government. Can you
39:10
Speaker 2: please let everybody know in regards to government footage and government,
39:14
Speaker 2: anything that the government makes is to my knowledge public domain.
39:18
Speaker 2: So any NASA stuff, anything that the moon landing, all
39:23
Speaker 2: that stuff is complete public domain.
39:25
Speaker 3: Correct, Yeah.
39:26
Speaker 4: Yeah, And what you do, and I mentioned this in
39:29
Speaker 4: the book How To Do It, you assume it may
39:33
Speaker 4: or may not be public domain. And what I mean
39:36
Speaker 4: by that is they may have music that they licensed
39:39
Speaker 4: in it that may be copyrighted. So if you're seeing
39:43
Speaker 4: a film and suddenly they're playing a theme song from
39:46
Speaker 4: a nineteen sixties television.
39:49
Speaker 2: Show, we'll be right back after a word from our sponsor,
39:57
Speaker 2: and now back to the show.
40:00
Speaker 4: They may have just license it and it fit their
40:02
Speaker 4: producers just as much as we're producers. So that's one
40:05
Speaker 4: thing to be careful about. Years ago, I did a
40:09
Speaker 4: documentary on disasters and I used a film, a government
40:13
Speaker 4: film about earthquake and earthquake damage, and in the film
40:17
Speaker 4: was like a minute from mtm's classic San Francisco Clark
40:22
Speaker 4: Gable the whole destruction of San Francisco. Well, it came
40:26
Speaker 4: from that film. That's not public domain, that's very copyrighted.
40:30
Speaker 4: So if I would have just pulled that out stuck
40:32
Speaker 4: that in my film, I would have gotten fall probably
40:35
Speaker 4: from MGM at some point going excuse me, you just
40:38
Speaker 4: use a minute. And if I said, well I got
40:40
Speaker 4: it from this government film, they said, we don't care. Yeah, yeah,
40:43
Speaker 4: we licensed it to them forty years ago. But the
40:45
Speaker 4: point is you used it. So music reuse, I mean,
40:50
Speaker 4: those are issues you just have to be aware of.
40:54
Speaker 4: But for the most part, it's much safer to use
40:56
Speaker 4: government films than any.
40:58
Speaker 2: Other type, like any of the nast the footage, just
41:00
Speaker 2: be careful with I mean, if its sound by just
41:02
Speaker 2: them talking is fine. But when you yeah, if you're
41:05
Speaker 2: hearing Neil Armstrong say whatever he says. Uh, but when
41:09
Speaker 2: you have music underneath it, that's when it becomes problems.
41:13
Speaker 2: Now there is like something like that, let's say the
41:16
Speaker 2: NASA footage. To find high quality versions of that is
41:22
Speaker 2: also like another because there's a lot of stock footage.
41:24
Speaker 2: I mean you could download go to archive dot org
41:28
Speaker 2: or gov or something.
41:29
Speaker 3: Like that, yeah or whatever, Yeah, exactly, and there it's
41:32
Speaker 3: there for.
41:33
Speaker 2: You to download as a that is public domain. But
41:37
Speaker 2: how to access the high quality now two K versions
41:41
Speaker 2: or four K versions or even just plain HD versions.
41:44
Speaker 4: Of this stuff.
41:45
Speaker 2: That's where, uh, the stock footage houses really make their
41:49
Speaker 2: money because I've I've actually reached out to companies.
41:53
Speaker 3: Who have let's say, uh not on livy Den.
41:58
Speaker 2: Let's say they're like, oh, but we have a thirty
41:59
Speaker 2: five millimeter print and it's pristine and we've transferred it
42:03
Speaker 2: and you know, as opposed to something you could download
42:05
Speaker 2: off of YouTube. You know, it's completely different. Is that
42:09
Speaker 2: where you have to go to find this kind of
42:11
Speaker 2: really high quality version of the stuff?
42:13
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, yeah yeah. How do you to the sources?
42:18
Speaker 4: And well, the government has you can call it the
42:20
Speaker 4: National Archives directly if it's National Archives, NASA has its
42:24
Speaker 4: own film department, so you do a Google search, find out,
42:28
Speaker 4: you know, if it's in Houston, now whatever, you go
42:31
Speaker 4: to them directly. If you're going to be going directly
42:34
Speaker 4: to this original source, they may be requesting things from you,
42:39
Speaker 4: so they may request what are you doing, how are
42:42
Speaker 4: you using it? That type information? And they may or
42:45
Speaker 4: may not give it to you. Just because you've found
42:48
Speaker 4: the original source doesn't mean you're going to automatically get it.
42:52
Speaker 4: They don't have to give it to you. There's someone there,
42:54
Speaker 4: it's called the bureaucrat, and they decide, you know, this
42:58
Speaker 4: is this is worthy of giving to them or not.
43:01
Speaker 4: If you're doing a recruitment film for the for the moscows,
43:09
Speaker 4: you're not going to get any FBI films from here.
43:12
Speaker 2: Correct and uh and and years ago I actually reached
43:16
Speaker 2: out to NASA about stuff, and you can't get I mean,
43:18
Speaker 2: there's just such a massive amount of just massive amount
43:21
Speaker 2: of plus.
43:23
Speaker 4: Yeah.
43:23
Speaker 2: But the thing not only that, but then it's like, Okay,
43:25
Speaker 2: if you want it in beta SP it's cost this much.
43:28
Speaker 3: If you want it on Digi beta, this is years ago.
43:31
Speaker 4: Yeah. Well, here's the point for all filmmakers to remember.
43:34
Speaker 4: Now we've now had about ten plus years of high depth,
43:39
Speaker 4: so we're used to hy. Well, here's the thing to
43:42
Speaker 4: keep in mind. We have one hundred and twenty years
43:46
Speaker 4: worth of media, ten years of it as hot as
43:51
Speaker 4: HD over one hundred years of it is not it's
43:56
Speaker 4: called st standard. So you're not going to be getting
44:04
Speaker 4: sixteen to nine high depth. We're ninety nine percent of
44:08
Speaker 4: what's out.
44:08
Speaker 2: There unless you go unless you get a thirty five
44:10
Speaker 2: milimeter print and.
44:12
Speaker 4: Then retransferred right and yeah at four hundred dollars an
44:15
Speaker 4: hour telesiny and yeah, and a lot of this stuff
44:20
Speaker 4: is sixteen milimeter. I got to tell you, taking a
44:23
Speaker 4: sixteen milimeter and blowing it up through so high depth
44:28
Speaker 4: oftentimes kind of works against you because all the scratches
44:32
Speaker 4: and all the things that come into sixteen prints, you're
44:35
Speaker 4: seeing those ways you didn't want to see them. So
44:38
Speaker 4: SD may actually even be a better way to go
44:40
Speaker 4: because the image is actually going to probably look possibly better,
44:44
Speaker 4: so you have to be careful about that.
44:46
Speaker 2: Now, how can filmmakers make money with their own stock footage?
44:49
Speaker 2: Because if I go out, I mean I live here
44:51
Speaker 2: in Los Angeles and I go out and go to
44:53
Speaker 2: Hollywood Boulevard and have my beautiful red camera and I
44:57
Speaker 2: shoot a whole bunch of stock footage of a Hollywood Boulevard.
45:01
Speaker 2: By the way, there's thousands of that. So anyone living
45:02
Speaker 2: in Los Angeles don't do that.
45:05
Speaker 3: But if you do that, where do I go?
45:08
Speaker 4: A couple of places, I mean the most media are Adobe,
45:11
Speaker 4: in places like Adobe and Vimeo that have their own
45:14
Speaker 4: stock footage services built into their offerings. So if you
45:18
Speaker 4: go to Vimeo, they have it. If you go to Adobe,
45:21
Speaker 4: they've got it and you can just upload it and
45:23
Speaker 4: then if one takes it, you get a piece of
45:25
Speaker 4: the pie. Footage dot Net is another site to look at.
45:30
Speaker 4: Possibly if you have enough stock footage, you can advertise
45:33
Speaker 4: it on footage dot Net. For most filmmakers, the question
45:38
Speaker 4: asks is do I have something that's rare, so you know,
45:41
Speaker 4: a shot of Grandma's Chinese or mans Chinese creates? Please,
45:46
Speaker 4: you know if you've got something that really is unique, rare, interesting,
45:49
Speaker 4: and you think some filmmakers around the world would like it.
45:53
Speaker 4: You can call go to film footage dot net, look
45:56
Speaker 4: at all the big archive houses and then contact each
46:00
Speaker 4: of them and say I'd like you to represent and
46:01
Speaker 4: see if any I'd like to represent it, and you
46:03
Speaker 4: get you know, forty fifty, sixty percent or whatever of
46:07
Speaker 4: the profit if there is a sale.
46:09
Speaker 2: So if you live in a if you live in
46:11
Speaker 2: a unique place that there's like obviously Los Angeles, I
46:13
Speaker 2: mean seriously shot the city has been shot a billion times,
46:17
Speaker 2: so every corner of it is somewhere on stock footage
46:21
Speaker 2: or in a film. But if you live in Guam,
46:25
Speaker 2: or let's say you live in Hawaiian you saw that
46:27
Speaker 2: volcano blow up a few years last year, right.
46:33
Speaker 4: If you scuba dive in your scuba diving and getting
46:36
Speaker 4: some great HD footage, you know that's a possibility. If
46:40
Speaker 4: your grandfather was an avid sixty milimeter cameraman and shot
46:45
Speaker 4: all this stuff on sixteen.
46:46
Speaker 3: Millimeter, can you imagine?
46:48
Speaker 4: And actually I got some of that stuff in my
46:50
Speaker 4: archives and it's just wonderful material. I got a shot
46:53
Speaker 4: from the Hindenburg I was shot as a whole movie.
46:56
Speaker 4: It's great stuff, and that stuff you can actually sell.
47:01
Speaker 2: That's because they because there's no copyright on it. It's
47:04
Speaker 2: and if you own it, it's yours.
47:05
Speaker 4: It's yours. So you can actually then consider copyright.
47:08
Speaker 2: Now, if you now do you own, you also own
47:11
Speaker 2: like a footage house as well that you license.
47:14
Speaker 4: When I did my Paramount documentary back in the mid seventies,
47:19
Speaker 4: started collecting, I went, you know, and then I had
47:21
Speaker 4: a friend about nineteen nineteen eighty or so that was
47:25
Speaker 4: working Entertainment Tonight and he knew I had all this
47:30
Speaker 4: old footage. And so they keep calling me and saying,
47:32
Speaker 4: you know, I need this, I need this, and I'd
47:34
Speaker 4: sell to him. I was making all of I was
47:36
Speaker 4: making more money selling to entertainment Tonight band's making producing films.
47:39
Speaker 4: And that's what made me think I really should be
47:42
Speaker 4: doing this as well as making films. I'm enjoying films,
47:45
Speaker 4: but I'm making money selling stock footage. So I started
47:50
Speaker 4: back in the mid seventies doing that. Now I've got
47:52
Speaker 4: about five thousand titles in my art and my database.
47:56
Speaker 2: Nice and so and then people contact you if they
47:59
Speaker 2: want to access, you know, certain things well.
48:01
Speaker 4: Yeah, I had it for about twenty years as a business,
48:03
Speaker 4: and then I went into academia and I posted up
48:07
Speaker 4: because I was doing fine just teaching. But right now
48:11
Speaker 4: it's you know, friends call me, I need this, I
48:13
Speaker 4: need that. I just send it to them. Every year
48:16
Speaker 4: I'm doing one or two films, and so I don't
48:18
Speaker 4: have to worry about stock footage because I just go
48:20
Speaker 4: and see what I've gotten, make sure I have enough
48:22
Speaker 4: for it.
48:23
Speaker 3: And is that a fairly high quality or is it
48:24
Speaker 3: all standard deaf HD.
48:26
Speaker 4: I've got seven hundred films and then the rest is
48:31
Speaker 4: one inch beta and then three quarter.
48:34
Speaker 2: And films meaning and films meaning three five okay, But
48:38
Speaker 2: there are like actual narrative films or reels at.
48:42
Speaker 4: Government industrials, educationals, newsreels, cartoons. Oftentimes they fit the themes
48:49
Speaker 4: of films I did over the years. So if I
48:51
Speaker 4: was doing films on disasters, I got lots of disasters.
48:54
Speaker 4: I did war related films. I got lots of war
48:57
Speaker 4: related films, and I'd always get films that republic domain
49:01
Speaker 4: are considered public domain.
49:02
Speaker 2: So then once you so basically as as you're being
49:05
Speaker 2: a filmmaker, you're gathering a collection of these clips, which
49:10
Speaker 2: then you could resell later because they would become more
49:14
Speaker 2: than the clips.
49:14
Speaker 4: I would buy the entire films because it's cheaper for
49:17
Speaker 4: me to buy an entire half hour hour film and
49:20
Speaker 4: license anything from anyone.
49:22
Speaker 2: So then when you buy so okay, so then it's
49:23
Speaker 2: so just so unclear. So then you would just buy
49:26
Speaker 2: the film thirty minute let's say cartoon of Tom and Jerry.
49:29
Speaker 2: You buy it, you know, a bunch of them, a
49:31
Speaker 2: series of them that's in the public domain. Once you've
49:34
Speaker 2: got that at a high quality, now it's in your archives,
49:37
Speaker 2: and now you can sell.
49:38
Speaker 4: Yeah, and the secret is finding I mean buying it
49:42
Speaker 4: knowing it's in the public domain. And that's takes a
49:45
Speaker 4: little expertise.
49:48
Speaker 2: We'll be right back after a word from our sponsor,
49:54
Speaker 2: and now back to the show.
49:57
Speaker 3: Got it?
49:57
Speaker 2: And that's where you need the clip clip person to
50:00
Speaker 2: help you, or they call you if you But you
50:04
Speaker 2: don't do that anymore.
50:07
Speaker 3: Now where can now where can people by people find
50:10
Speaker 3: your book?
50:11
Speaker 4: I think everywhere at this point. It's Amazon, of course,
50:17
Speaker 4: it's available on the MWP dot com, which is publisher
50:22
Speaker 4: micro Productions their site, and also any bookstore can order it.
50:27
Speaker 4: If they don't have it already on the shelves.
50:29
Speaker 3: Very cool. And is there any website? Is there a
50:31
Speaker 3: website that you have?
50:32
Speaker 4: Yeah, there's a website of a book called stock Footage
50:35
Speaker 4: the book dot com, so there's some more information on that.
50:39
Speaker 4: There's also a Facebook page.
50:41
Speaker 3: Very cool. And I'm going to ask you a few questions.
50:43
Speaker 2: I ask all of my guests what advice would you
50:46
Speaker 2: give a filmmaker wanting to break into the business today.
50:51
Speaker 4: Well, first thing I would always advise anyone is if
50:58
Speaker 4: they're in school, look around the classmates and see where
51:02
Speaker 4: you stand compared to them. If you're looking at a
51:06
Speaker 4: class of thirty students, one to two of them will
51:10
Speaker 4: be able to get up into the next level, which
51:14
Speaker 4: is an internship that will lead to a first job.
51:17
Speaker 4: Are you as good? Are you at the top or
51:19
Speaker 4: are there are ten people ahead of you? If you're
51:22
Speaker 4: sitting in their first whatever reason, you're getting a D
51:24
Speaker 4: or a C and there's a person getting an A
51:27
Speaker 4: or a minus. That's telling you one thing right away
51:31
Speaker 4: that the competition just at school is already beating you.
51:36
Speaker 3: So just a warning.
51:38
Speaker 4: The second thing is got to get an internship, figure
51:41
Speaker 4: out your best at editing, shooting, getting coffee, it doesn't
51:47
Speaker 4: matter wherever your best at, because it's again, it's this
51:50
Speaker 4: crazy competitive world. Always has been worse than ever now
51:55
Speaker 4: because there's five thousand film schools and everybody's turning out
51:58
Speaker 4: Steven Spielberg. Of course. So if you're good at whatever,
52:03
Speaker 4: your chances whatever it is, you may not be as
52:06
Speaker 4: interested in it, but your chances of success are greatly increased.
52:09
Speaker 4: Then if you're saying, well, I want to be a director,
52:11
Speaker 4: but you know you have no clue how to direct,
52:13
Speaker 4: So that's number two. Number three is once you get
52:16
Speaker 4: an internship. Rule of thumb with internships is you make
52:22
Speaker 4: sure that you do one hundred and ten percent every day,
52:26
Speaker 4: and you leave that internship with one or two people
52:28
Speaker 4: that think you are the best, you're not likely going
52:30
Speaker 4: to get a job at that place. But if you've
52:33
Speaker 4: impressed one or two people and they'll let you know that,
52:36
Speaker 4: you go to them at the endem and say, you know,
52:37
Speaker 4: I'm available for work. You have anyone you could send
52:41
Speaker 4: me to that I can get employed with, and they
52:43
Speaker 4: will then do that, and that's how you kind of
52:45
Speaker 4: break in. And once you've broken in, wherever that level
52:49
Speaker 4: is well you know the career. Everything changes so quickly.
52:52
Speaker 4: In year two or three years from now, who knows.
52:54
Speaker 4: I mean, in five years from now everything may be
52:57
Speaker 4: virtual reality films. We don't know. You worry about five
53:00
Speaker 4: years from now, you worry about getting that first paid job.
53:03
Speaker 4: And that's kind of the sequence. I just laid out
53:05
Speaker 4: how you do it, and it's kind of what I've
53:07
Speaker 4: told me. I've had literally had several thousand students over
53:10
Speaker 4: the last few years, and I tell them the same thing.
53:12
Speaker 4: And the ones that listened to me, they've got work.
53:15
Speaker 4: And once they do listen to me thinking they knew better,
53:17
Speaker 4: they're now probably at Walmart reeting people or wherever they are,
53:20
Speaker 4: but they're not in the film in the street.
53:22
Speaker 3: That's how I got my start.
53:23
Speaker 2: I had multiple internships, multiple multiple internships, and I got
53:27
Speaker 2: hired often PA jobs or you know, running around or
53:33
Speaker 2: out here. You want to be the office PA for
53:34
Speaker 2: a little bit. I'm sure I'll be the office.
53:36
Speaker 4: But you're good at it. You didn't go into work
53:39
Speaker 4: saying I know how to do this. When I first started,
53:43
Speaker 4: I would hire undergrads that were super passionate, and they
53:48
Speaker 4: always impressed me much more than hiring the grads, the
53:51
Speaker 4: graduate students who really thought they knew better than me
53:54
Speaker 4: how to make a film.
53:56
Speaker 2: Yes, the ego, isn't that always amazing?
53:58
Speaker 4: So check at the desk, walk in there and let
54:04
Speaker 4: everyone think that they are the smartest people in the
54:07
Speaker 4: world and that you really are getting a lot from them,
54:10
Speaker 4: even if you think they're an idiot.
54:12
Speaker 3: Isn't isn't it?
54:13
Speaker 2: But the thing is, when when those egos do walk
54:15
Speaker 2: in the door, the business will sort them out.
54:17
Speaker 3: It always does.
54:18
Speaker 4: But you know, it's very quick to tell those people
54:20
Speaker 4: that really think they know what they're doing, because basically
54:23
Speaker 4: all my years of running into those people, I'd say
54:26
Speaker 4: good luck and let me know when you saw your
54:29
Speaker 4: first film.
54:31
Speaker 2: I deal with that on a daily basis, dealing with
54:35
Speaker 2: egos and people who have the delusions of grandeur. I'm like,
54:38
Speaker 2: stream big, but yeah, be real, but exactly, and there
54:42
Speaker 2: has to be a balance between the two. Now, can
54:44
Speaker 2: you tell me what book had the biggest impact on
54:47
Speaker 2: your life or career?
54:51
Speaker 4: I love reading, so I don't know if there's one book,
54:54
Speaker 4: there's one of types of books. I big believe that
55:02
Speaker 4: you've got to be a storyteller. That every film you're
55:06
Speaker 4: making at the end of the day, it's not how
55:08
Speaker 4: you're cutting it, it's the story you're telling. So the Classics,
55:13
Speaker 4: you know you're going back to Weathering Heights or gone
55:17
Speaker 4: with the Winner. Books that have really good story structures.
55:21
Speaker 4: I love Michael Connolly. The reason there's thirty Michael Conley
55:24
Speaker 4: books out there because this guy has a really good
55:27
Speaker 4: way of telling the story. It's visual, it draws you
55:31
Speaker 4: in the same thing with the old Classics and Dickens.
55:35
Speaker 4: Those were books that you actually saw the story unfolded,
55:38
Speaker 4: so that's why they were so easily taken from the
55:41
Speaker 4: book to the screen. So that's one area I liked
55:44
Speaker 4: reading about people in the industry and how they succeeded.
55:48
Speaker 4: It's not like I was going to follow their success,
55:51
Speaker 4: but to read books by Goldman and they're whatever, how
55:56
Speaker 4: they actually went from nothing to building themselves up to
56:03
Speaker 4: you the best in their craft is really you pick
56:07
Speaker 4: up pieces that can help you. And throughout the years,
56:10
Speaker 4: I did a lot of films about Hollywood and Hollywood history,
56:15
Speaker 4: probably thirty thirty five and from a half hour features,
56:20
Speaker 4: and I interviewed a lot of people who were kind
56:23
Speaker 4: of in nowadays you consider them the early Pioneers. So
56:26
Speaker 4: I'd interviewed Matt Levine, that Levine members Latin League. He
56:31
Speaker 4: started Republic Studios, he started Mascot, which became Republic. I
56:35
Speaker 4: interviewed Hal Roach in a documentary about him. Little rascals,
56:40
Speaker 4: Laurel and Hardy, so those people also kind of I
56:44
Speaker 4: picked up things from them, how they succeeded, how they were.
56:47
Speaker 4: My mom's old boss was a guy named Colonel Parker.
56:51
Speaker 3: Elvis old time.
56:52
Speaker 4: I was three on Colonel Parker, which really is very interesting.
56:58
Speaker 4: When Donald Trump got elected, I went, we got Colonel
57:01
Speaker 4: Parker and now was president because Donald Trump is a
57:05
Speaker 4: exact duplicate of Colonel Parker. In terms of what Colonel
57:08
Speaker 4: Parker used to call his philosophy was snowing. He used
57:12
Speaker 4: to snow people. Snow person is a person you con
57:15
Speaker 4: It's another word for conning people. That's what we've got
57:20
Speaker 4: as a president. This guy knows how, and just like
57:23
Speaker 4: Colonel did, how to make people believe something that's not true,
57:27
Speaker 4: but you're not sure if it's true or not true,
57:29
Speaker 4: and you get confused, and so you know, having grown
57:34
Speaker 4: up with Colonel my whole life. While I was in
57:36
Speaker 4: my late twenties, I know a snowman, and so I
57:42
Speaker 4: woke up in November twenty sixteen and went, ah, we
57:45
Speaker 4: got a snowman as president. This will be interesting.
57:47
Speaker 3: He's in Colonel the Colonel Parker.
57:51
Speaker 2: He is one of the main reasons you think that
57:53
Speaker 2: Elvis was as popular as he Wasn't mean, obviously Elvis
57:56
Speaker 2: was Elvis.
57:57
Speaker 4: Elvis was an incredible talent, but you needed.
58:00
Speaker 2: You needed that that gas He was a fire. But
58:03
Speaker 2: I think Colonel Parker was the gasoline on it to
58:05
Speaker 2: make it a raging fire.
58:07
Speaker 4: And he thought that himself. I mean, I've got I
58:11
Speaker 4: remember my mom used to always tell me stories about
58:13
Speaker 4: telling Colonel oh, Elvis said this, and Elvis said that,
58:16
Speaker 4: and Colonel's yeah, Trudy, and you know all that. If
58:19
Speaker 4: I hadn't taken him off of his plumbing it's a job,
58:24
Speaker 4: and you know, put him in front of those audiences,
58:26
Speaker 4: he'd still be on his plumbing truck, gotcha.
58:29
Speaker 2: So you know, yeah, Now, what lesson took you the
58:34
Speaker 2: longest to learn, whether in the film business or in life.
58:39
Speaker 4: The one I'm still learning is is I don't know
58:46
Speaker 4: if it's a lesson or or just a reality of
58:49
Speaker 4: the business of getting up you know, after being knocked down,
58:56
Speaker 4: dusting off yourself, and then going back and one more day.
59:01
Speaker 4: This is a business of nos. The reason it's a
59:04
Speaker 4: business of nos is very simple. It's a lot easier
59:06
Speaker 4: to say no to something and they say, yeah, go
59:08
Speaker 4: ahead and do it. You say go ahead and do it,
59:11
Speaker 4: you're on the line. And so most people are very,
59:14
Speaker 4: very reticent to sit there and say yeah, go ahead
59:16
Speaker 4: and do that. Okay, I'll help you. Or if you
59:18
Speaker 4: sit there and say no, you don't have to deal
59:20
Speaker 4: with it. You're not gonna have headaches. It's not going
59:21
Speaker 4: to be a failure. And so convincing people to join
59:26
Speaker 4: in a project, and then all the work that's involved
59:30
Speaker 4: in getting a film or television show made requires a
59:34
Speaker 4: lot of people saying yes, which is not a natural
59:37
Speaker 4: thing in the film business. And that's probably the toughest
59:39
Speaker 4: part to me, is just going, Okay, what am I
59:44
Speaker 4: gonna do? They to avoid what happened yesterday?
59:47
Speaker 2: Fair enough, we'll be right back after a word from
59:51
Speaker 2: our sponsor, and now back to the show and three
59:59
Speaker 2: of your faiavorite films of all time?
1:00:03
Speaker 4: Oh god, okay, Well, mister Smith goes to Washington. That's
1:00:10
Speaker 4: on the top of my list. I show that every
1:00:12
Speaker 4: year when I was teaching film history, and I never
1:00:15
Speaker 4: ceased to be amazed at what Kapito was able to
1:00:19
Speaker 4: do with that film. I know every word of it
1:00:22
Speaker 4: and it still kind of brings me in. Not so
1:00:27
Speaker 4: much film, but filmmaker Busby Berkeley. I've seen every one
1:00:32
Speaker 4: of his films, and I look at those dance numbers.
1:00:36
Speaker 4: I mean, the stories are not while you watch them.
1:00:38
Speaker 4: You look at those and go, how hell did he
1:00:41
Speaker 4: do that?
1:00:42
Speaker 3: Pretty remarkable?
1:00:44
Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean, all these years later, it's pretty amazing.
1:00:47
Speaker 2: It'd be tough to do it today. Honestly, some of
1:00:49
Speaker 2: the stuff he did it was amazing.
1:00:51
Speaker 4: Oh, it's totally amazing. And I got into documentaries because
1:00:54
Speaker 4: of an old document filmmaker named less Blank, and less
1:00:58
Speaker 4: Blank was great at taking taking a story real life
1:01:09
Speaker 4: and putting it together. Is an entertainment piece, So not
1:01:13
Speaker 4: to be confused with Meil Blank. That made funny voices out.
1:01:15
Speaker 3: Of front bugs Bunny.
1:01:17
Speaker 4: Yes.
1:01:18
Speaker 3: And then where can people find your work? And and
1:01:21
Speaker 3: the stuff you do.
1:01:23
Speaker 4: No clue, but if you go to force your productions.
1:01:26
Speaker 4: It's a list of films I've done, or some of them,
1:01:29
Speaker 4: and a lot of those are in eBay. You know,
1:01:33
Speaker 4: you can buy a lot of my films for very
1:01:35
Speaker 4: cheap because they're you know, they're vhs and DVDs and whatever.
1:01:40
Speaker 4: So I commercially have nothing available out in the market
1:01:43
Speaker 4: as of today in America Europe, yes, but not here
1:01:48
Speaker 4: is what I've been producing lately. I can't afford to
1:01:50
Speaker 4: sell in America.
1:01:51
Speaker 3: And of course if they want a license ad me footage,
1:01:53
Speaker 3: they can contact you.
1:01:55
Speaker 4: Oh please. I got plenty of footage and anywhere from
1:01:58
Speaker 4: you know, the very cheap to pretty expensive.
1:02:01
Speaker 2: Fair enough. James, thank you so much for spending the
1:02:04
Speaker 2: time with me and dropping some knowledge bombs on the
1:02:06
Speaker 2: tribe today.
1:02:06
Speaker 3: I appreciate it.
1:02:08
Speaker 2: I want to thanks James for coming by and really
1:02:11
Speaker 2: enlightening us on what stock footage is and how we
1:02:14
Speaker 2: can use it to make our films better. If you
1:02:16
Speaker 2: want access to anything we talked about in this episode
1:02:19
Speaker 2: and a link to his book, which I highly highly recommend,
1:02:22
Speaker 2: head over to Bulletproof Screenwriting dot TV Forward Slash four
1:02:26
Speaker 2: one hundred. Thank you so much for listening, guys, as always,
1:02:29
Speaker 2: keep on writing no matter what.
1:02:31
Speaker 3: I'll talk to you soon.
1:02:32
Speaker 1: Thanks for listening to the Bulletproof screenwriting podcast at Bulletproof
1:02:36
Speaker 1: Screenwriting dot tv.