Logging - Keywords Explained

Logging - Keywords Explained

A FEW BRIEF NOTES:


Familiarize yourself with the Browse Pages on the Nature Footage site

Our main browse pages are:

Nature & Wildlife
https://www.naturefootage.com/stock-video/nature-wildlife-video

Ocean & Underwater
https://www.naturefootage.com/stock-video/ocean-underwater-video

People & Adventure
https://www.naturefootage.com/stock-video/people-adventure-video

Looking at these pages and seeing how various subjects are organized can help you figure out which keywords to add to any clips you are logging, particularly for the Subject Category field.  These pages can also help you figure if your clips belong under the "Nature & Wildlife" (i.e. "Land" on the Metadata Import Sheet) or the "Ocean & Underwater" (i.e. "Ocean" on the Metadata Import Sheet) Category.  For more info on how to log the Category field, please review the "Category" section under the "Keyword Fields Guide" below.


Using Pre-existing Keywords

It is best to select applicable pre-existing keywords from the dropdown menus for each field before adding custom keywords. For example, if a clip is a Time Lapse shot, it is best to add “Time Lapse” as a keyword to the clip from the special category Shot Type, where Time Lapse is already listed as an option, rather than manually type “Time Lapse” in the Subject field. This way, the clip will come up when a client performs an Advanced Search for Time Lapse from the Shot Type search filter on our website.


There may be some cases while logging where you do not use every logging field.  In cases like that, please do not enter words like "Unknown" or "N/A", just leave the field blank.  

Also, if you don’t understand the definition of a certain keyword, please be sure to ask us!

 

Duplicate Keywords

Only one instance of a keyword needs to be entered for the keyword to be searchable. It is NOT necessary to duplicate keywords. However, if the main subject of your clip is identical to one of the pre-existing keywords in one of the dropdown menus (i.e. if the time of day is "Sunset" but the main subject of the clip is a also a sunset), then you could add the keyword to both the Time field and the Primary Subject field.  Please see below for more about the Primary Subject field.  

 

Plural vs. Singular

Our online search engine will automatically remove an “s” or “es” from the end of a keyword search. Therefore, you can use either the plural or singular form of a keyword.  However, it is helpful to include the root word and singular/plural word where the root word is modified (fin/finning, butterfly/butterflies, etc.), or commonly used synonyms (crocodile/croc, etc.).

 

Spam Logging

Please do not "spam log" your clips.  "Spam Logging" occurs when keywords unrelated to a clip's action, behavior, species, location, etc. are added to the clip in order for it to appear in more search results.  The problem with this is that it floods search results with clips unrelated to the subject that a client is looking for.  Please only log your clips with keywords that specifically match the action, behavior, species, location, etc. in the clip.

 

KEYWORD FIELDS GUIDE:


CLIP DESCRIPTION

Use this field to summarize in a clear and understandable way the subject/location and/or the action/behavior displayed in a clip. Then you will use keywords in the fields below to support that description.


CATEGORY

In the Category field, you have the options to log your clip under either the Nature & Wildlife (Land) or the Ocean & Underwater (Ocean) category. If you're unsure whether a clip belongs under Land or Ocean, check where the animal/subject of the footage is listed on our Browse by Species, Nature & Wildlife, or Ocean & Underwater browse pages. The Ocean category is for subjects who are intrinsically tied to the ocean. For example, if you are logging footage of sea lions lying on a beach, you should log these clips under the Ocean category even if the sea lions are on land. Conversely, if you have footage of a monkey on the beach drinking from the ocean, the clip should still be logged in the Land category because Monkeys are land animals, and are listed under the Nature & Wildlife Browse page.  A good rule of thumb is that if the animal in your clip (or other animals in the same scientific genus or family) is listed on the Marine Bird, Marine Invertebrate, Marine Mammal, or Marine Reptile Browse by Species pages, then it belongs in the Ocean & Underwater category.  Otherwise, it belongs in the Nature & Wildlife Category. 


Obviously any ocean plants belong in the Ocean & Underwater category, and any land plants belong in the Nature & Wildlife category.  Scenic ocean footage, such as ocean coastlines, beaches, mangroves, the open ocean, coral reefs, etc. should also be placed in the Ocean & Underwater category.  If the subject of a clip is a coastal city, then I would recommend placing the clip in the Nature & Wildlife category.

 

Also, any land-based body of water (i.e. river, lake, wetland, pond, etc.) should logged in the Nature & Wildlife category, unless the clip is shot underwater as our Ocean category covers Ocean & Underwater animals.

 

LOCATION

Always log the Location field for clips when possible, as it is very helpful to know where the clip was shot. Clients are often looking for species from specific or broad geographic areas. Please add additional custom location keywords that are not already included as keyword options under the Location field. It is not necessary to repeat the location in the description of the subject. For example, for a clip with the Clip Description “Sunset at Half Dome”, you would add the keyword “North America” from the Location field, but you should also include custom keywords like “Yosemite National Park”, "California", and "Sierra Nevada Mountains" as keywords in the Location field as well.

 

Location is separate from Habitat, which has its own keyword field. Please see below for more on the Habitat keyword field.

 

COUNTRY

Make sure that if you log the Country field, that the chosen country is consistent with the keywords you have already added to the Location field. For example, if the footage was shot in Europe, then the country should be a European country.  If you do not know the country the clip was shot in, leave this field blank.

 

SHOT TYPE

When filling out the Shot Type remember to consider:

 

1) How the camera is moving (Lock Shot, Tilt, Track, Pan, etc.), and 

2) How the shot is framed (Wide Shot, Close Up, Low Angle, etc), and 

3) How the subjects move in relation to the camera (i.e. Time Lapse, Enters Frame, Toward Camera, etc) 

 

The Shot Types that are most often requested by our clients are listed below, so be sure to include these keywords on your clips when applicable:

Aerial
Close Up
Gyro Stabilized
Jib / Crane
Lock Shot
Macro
Pan
Slow Motion
Tilt
Time Lapse
Wide Shot
Zoom

Make sure you know the definitions of all Shot Type keywords! Here are the definitions for some commonly confused/misused keywords:


Aerial – A shot taken from an airborne device, generally while moving.

Blue / Green Screen – shots where the subject is placed in front of a greenscreen or a bluescreen.


High Angle – shot where the camera looks down on the subject from a high angle and the point of focus often gets "swallowed up."

Low Angle – a shot from a camera angle positioned low on the vertical axis, anywhere below the eye line, looking up. Sometimes, it is even directly below the subject's feet. 

Macro – keyword this describes an extreme close-up shot, usually of very small subjects and living organisms like insects, in which the size of the subject in the photograph is greater than life size.

Over – Under Water – underwater shots where half of the frame (the top half) is above water and the bottom half is below water.  This is also known as a "Split Shot".  The "Over - Under Water" keyword can also be used to describe clips where the camera moves above and below the water’s surface in a single shot. 

Track – a shot where the camera is following the movement of a subject

Travel – this keyword is to be used ONLY if the camera itself is physically moving from one place to another, like in an aerial shot captured by a drone or helicopter, or a shot captured by a camera on a moving vehicle, or a shot captured by a camera on a crane, etc. This keyword is not to be used to describe subjects that are traveling in the shot; use the keyword “Travel” in the Actions field instead.  The Shot Type keyword "Travel" should also not be used as a keyword to describe the act of visiting foreign or exotic places.  


Vertical – this keyword should be used for shots where the camera orientation is vertical (see screenshot example below).  It should not be used for aerial footage looking down on a subject, unless the aerial shot is vertically oriented as well.
   


Also, it is important to know when to use “Close Up” or “Wide Shot”, or both, when logging a clip. A close-up shot a shot taken of a subject or object at close range intended to show greater detail to the viewer.  If the object fills up the entire frame, we still consider this a close up.  For example, both of these clips are Close Up shots:



A wide shot (WS), also referred to as a long shot, is a camera angle that shows the entire object or person and their relation to what surrounds them.  Both of these clips are considered a Wide Shot:
However, there will be clips that could be considered both a Close Up and a Wide Shot. When logging a clip like this, you could add both of the keywords “Close Up” and “Wide Shot” to your clip. Here is an example of a clip that could be considered a Close Up and a Wide Shot, where one part of the clip is close to the subject and another part of the clip is far from the subject:
     
When looking at how a shot is framed, it is also important to keep in mind what the shot type is in relation to the main subject, or subjects, in the shot. For example, in the image below, we are close up on a tree, but the main subject is a small bird. Since we’re not close enough to the bird for this to be considered a medium shot, this clip should be logged as a “Wide Shot”.


SUBJECT CATEGORY

The Subject Category field contains keywords of general, broad categories; it is not intended for specific names of subjects. As mentioned above, use our browse pages to help determine which keywords in this field are most appropriate for the subject in the clip you are logging:

 

Nature & Wildlife
https://www.naturefootage.com/stock-video/nature-wildlife-video

Ocean & Underwater
https://www.naturefootage.com/stock-video/ocean-underwater-video

People & Adventure
https://www.naturefootage.com/stock-video/people-adventure-video

 

Please note that the reviewing the pages above are extremely important for distinguishing the difference between these similar Subject Category keywords below:


Mammal vs. Marine Mammal
Invertebrate vs. Marine Invertebrate
Reptile vs. Marine Reptile

When logging, choose all possible categories that a subject may fit in to. We recommend including “Animal” for all animal shots and "People" for all shots with people. Also, be sure to include keywords such as "Single", "Pair", "Small Group", or "Large Group" to describe the number of subjects in a clip, which are best used for clips with animals or people. Another important keyword is “Juvenile”, which is appropriate for young animals or people.

 

As an example, look at the image below. Since this is a small group of Elephants, right away we can see that the appropriate keywords are “Animal”, “Mammal”, “Small Group”, and “Juvenile”. However, since this is a wide shot showing off a fair bit of the landscape, we can also add “Scenic”.



PRIMARY SUBJECT

Primary Subject is for the main subject(s) in the shot, with no other descriptive keywords. There is no need to repeat these terms in the Other Subject field. Save that field for scientific names, common synonyms, or other secondary subjects in the shot. Make sure you are using the correct common name of the subject for this field, and if you don’t know the common name, you can use a more general name instead. For example, if you are looking at a clip of a Grasshopper, then your Primary Subject keyword would be “Grasshopper”. However, if you are looking at a clip of an insect and don’t know the species, then you can just use “Insect”.


Please note that it is important to keep your Primary Subject field clean and uncluttered, as any keyword that is added to the Primary Subject field is also added as a linked Cloud Tag on your Contributor Profile.  This is useful for clients who view your Contributor Profile to see what types of subjects you shoot, which is why we recommend that only main subject keywords are added to the Primary Subject field.

For more information about Contributor Profile tags, please see our Cloud Tags help article.

 

OTHER SUBJECT

Since the Primary Subject field is for the common name of the subject, then the Other Subject field is to be used for scientific names, common synonyms, or other secondary subjects in the shot. Always include a species’ scientific name and common names when possible. For example, if the Primary Subject was a Cougar, then you would want to include the scientific name “Puma concolor”, as well as it’s additional common names “Puma”, “Mountain Lion”, “Panther”, and “Catamount”.


Other synonyms you can add to this field include names for a group of animals (i.e. flock, herd, pack, etc.), baby animals (i.e. cub, kit, pup, hatchling, etc.), or the gender of animal, if it is distinct enough to be able to tell the gender in the clip (i.e. Ram, Ewe, Lioness, Male, Female, Vixen, Buck, etc.). For any clip featuring a baby animal, always include the keyword “Baby”, as “Baby Animal” is a common search on our site. Plural forms of an animal’s common name can also be added here (i.e. wolves), as well as names for the general group a species belongs to (i.e. Insect, Ape, Canine, Feline, Big Cat, Bird of Prey). Another important keyword to add is “Endangered Species”, which you should always research before adding to make sure the animal is endangered.

 

Secondary Subjects are any other keywords describing the scenery or other subjects around the primary subject that don’t fall into any of the other keyword fields.

 

APPEARANCE

The Appearance field should only be used when the term strongly describes the content. For instance, only add the color keyword “Red” if Red is the dominant color in the shot.

 

ACTIONS

The Actions keyword field includes keywords for broad actions, but be sure to use additional Action keywords (or add your own custom keywords) to make the action more specific. For example, if the action in the clip is Travel, you could also add Swim, Run, Swarm, Walk, Slither, Migrate, etc. For the term Parent, you might include Nurse or Nest. Many clients are looking for specific behaviors and may use those terms to search.

 

Also, it is important to note the distinction between certain feeding behaviors:

 

Feed – this keyword is to be used for Animals consuming food

Eat – this keyword is to be used for People consuming food

 

Browse – feeding on woody twigs and leaves from trees and shrubs

Graze – feeding on grass or forbs

 

TIME

This category includes keywords for seasons and the time of day. Generally, you only want to use the seasons keywords if you know what time of year the footage was shot or if the landscape in the clip clearly represents a season, i.e. “Spring” can be added for clips of flowers in bloom, “Fall-Autumn” can be added to footage of trees with autumnal leaves, etc.  Additional keywords like “Twilight”, “Morning”, “Evening”, etc. can be added when applicable as well.

 

HABITAT

This is the place to add habitat terms such as Kelp Forest, Mangrove, Beach, Meadow, etc.  Also try to think of any terms a client may use to search for a specific habitat that is not included in menu of keywords, such as Steep, Rugged, etc.

 

If you know the exact location of your footage, then you can figure out the exact habitat. And if you don’t know the exact location, you can often guess the habitat by looking at the landscape in the clip. If I do know the location, I like to use these resources to figure out the correct habitat keywords:


Wikipedia Biome article: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biome

 

For this field, it is extremely important that you are aware of the differences between the various biomes. Make sure you understand the definition of each biome listed. Some of them seem very similar, but are very different, such as:

 

Savanna vs. Grassland

Chapparal vs. Scrub

Urban vs. Rural

Coast vs. Open Ocean

Swamp vs. Wetland (a Swamp is a Wetland, but not every Wetland is a Swamp)

Deciduous (Broadleaf) Forest vs. Coniferous Forest vs. Boreal (Taiga) Forest (If you are unable to figure out the specific forest in a clip, just use “Forest”.)

 

Two other similar keywords are "Park-Reserve" and "Marine Sanctuary". “Park-Reserve” is for protected areas on land, and “Marine Sanctuary” is for protected areas in the ocean/coast.


Also, please note that "Underwater" should be used for shots where the camera itself is underwater, not for topside shots of animals that are underwater.

 

It is also important to know the distinction between the zones “Temperate” and “Tropical”. Use “Tropical” for locations that are distinctly tropical; i.e. jungle, rainforest, tropical oceans & beaches, not so much for biomes like African deserts that also happen to be in the tropical zone. I use this link below to help me figure out which zone my clips are in:

            
            World Map on Climate Zones: 


CONCEPT

The Concept field should only be used if the content clearly illustrates the concept in a compelling way. This field is primarily used by Advertising agencies when they want to portray a strong emotion. For example, the keyword “Fast” could be used on a clip that shows a cheetah chasing after a gazelle, or the keyword “History” could be used for clips of ancient ruins, or the keyword “Cooperative” could be used for a clip featuring a group of animals, like wolves, working together to take down prey while hunting.


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