TIP #1: Upload footage quicklyDon't sit on your footage for too long after a shoot. Upload it to cliplog as soon as you can, giving clients more time to review your clips when choosing footage for their productions.
TIP #2: Upload relevant footage
Be sure to upload relevant content related to our niche, as we only promote subjects directly related to the three categories of footage we represent: Nature & Wildlife, Ocean & Underwater, People & Adventure. Please note we've become stricter on what footage we accept and showcase on our site, so we no longer accept footage not directly related to those three categories. Be sure to browse the NatureFootage collection to get an idea of what kind of content is acceptable to upload.
TIP #3: Upload quality footage
Is the footage you upload of good quality, with good resolution, color, focus, stability, etc.? Do your shots have good composition, and is there a variety of shots (establishing, wide, medium, close, etc.) in your collection? Clients ultimately decide what to license from a creative perspective, so providing them a variety of quality options is important. The clip you upload is the exact clip that will be licensed, so please see the help article
Video Standards and Specifications page for more information on quality standards. Also note that HD 1920x1080 has become the minimum required resolution across most productions and clients are increasingly interested in 4K+ footage in an effort to "future proof".
TIP #4: Upload unique footage
Remember "content is king" and it's difficult to predict the creative direction of any industry of company. With that in mind, we seek to represent footage meeting the following criteria because of the difficulty for production teams to film it themselves:
- wildlife behavior (feeding, mating, predation, etc.)
- special natural occurrences (storms, lightning, flooding, earthquakes, etc.)
- human impact (cities, development, transport, pollution, etc.)
- species/subjects/locations/circumstances difficult to film or that don't occur often
So whether your footage collection is diverse or whether you have a specific footage niche, it's important to upload unique content, i.e. locations, species, behaviors while shooting. Consider these questions when shooting:
- Can you tell and engaging story about the footage you shot?
- Is the location of subject of the footage unique or interesting?
If you can answer "yes" to the questions above, then it is more likely a client will use your shot to help tell their story.
TIP #5: Upload more footage
Continue to build your online collection and keep it up to date. Quantity and Quality are both important to consider when shooting and uploading your footage. A small collection of footage is very limiting and can keep your footage from being noticed. Our best selling contributors provide large submissions of diverse footage. If you submit a greater diversity of footage, you will have a greater opportunity to increase licensing. The larger your collection, the wider variety of footage there is for clients to choose from.
TIP #6: Log your footage accurately, thoroughly, and quickly
Clients need to be able to find your footage. Make sure your shots are not only logged soon after upload, but also accurately and thoroughly keyworded (species, subject, action, location, adjectives, etc.). For tips on the best way to log your footage using our system, please see our
Logging Tips and our
Logging - Keywords Explained help pages.
TIP #7: Review the Client Wishlist
This is a running list of subjects and locations clients have asked us for, which are lacking in availability within the NatureFootage collection. If you are looking for ideas of what to film, you can look at the list and prioritize shooting footage of those subjects - even those associated with inactive client projects still represent gaps in our collection. The Wishlist can be accessed from NatureFootage account menu. For more information, visit the
Client Wishlist help article.
TIP #8: Keep your Collection Profile updated
Available on your NatureFootage account homepage is also a link to your personalized "Contributor Survey", with questions about where you have filmed, where you plan to shoot, and what gear you use. Please make sure to keep this up-to-date as our licensing team uses this information when recommending custom shoots to clients as well as searching for OFFline footage. We want to know what you're up to!