First Light, a major supplier of stock photography in Canada, is moving into the footage business. The company, with offices in Toronto and Vancouver, represents various U.S. and European footage suppliers, including, most recently, New York-based Sekani, which has distribution rights to collections from Paramount Pictures, CNN, NHL, ESPN, the Hearst Collection, the Smithsonian Institution and Sharpshooters, which compiles lifestyle imagery for advertising. Sekani, which has built up its collections over 16 years, also secures licensing and rights as well as clearances, additionally offering a selection of royalty-free footage.

The Paramount collection sounds particularly juicy, containing material from the film studio from 1917 to the present day, with footage from notable productions, from 1953’s The War of the Worlds to 1990’s The Hunt for Red October. The collection also includes Paramount TV content such as Star Trek. However, as in the case with Sekani’s NHL collection, major stars are not included, although special effects and action sequences are available.

First Light felt it was the right time to enter the footage market after footage supplier Image Bank Film was taken over by Getty Images Creative. On Sept. 1, Getty, a global company with Toronto and Calgary offices, combined the resources of Energy Film with those of Image Bank Film in the U.S. and Canada. In a further attempt to corner the market, Getty will also incorporate New York’s Archive Films onto its website in December.

‘Stock footage buyers in Canada have lost a major source, as two sources are being incorporated into one,’ explains First Light president Pierre Guevremont. ‘We thought it was timely to offer the marketplace a new source.’

For the ever-expanding world of new media production, First Light has also created a resource for royalty-free stock Flash animation movies, called Big Shot Media. Sample movies include dollar bills being slapped down, fingers typing on a keyboard, moving traffic and a man talking on a cell phone. First Light produces the footage, then sells it on a per movie basis, with prices varying per production. The company sees this service as useful to producers of HTML pages, Web ads and Flash movies.

-www.firstlight.ca

-www.sekani.com

-creative.gettyimages.com

-www.bigshotmedia.com