BBC MOTION GALLERY CANADA

Offers: 70 years of BBC programming, the archival collections of CBS News, ABC Australia, NHK Japan, CCTV China, plus underwater species footage and a large amount of HD material.

The latest: Royalty-free footage can now be searched, viewed, downloaded and purchased online. New web search tools include creative inspiration and idea generators, concept and metaphor searches. Working clips are now available in Windows Media and QuickTime 7.

What’s hot: ‘There are a lot of new markets for stock footage, such as mobile, digital screens and IPTV,’ says sales manager Sandra Murphy. ‘Clients are asking for stock footage to fit these applications. In particular they are looking for short sports, celebrity and entertainment clips.’
www.bbcmotiongallery.com

CANAMEDIA

Offers: Natural History New Zealand library and ITN Source, including more than 800,000 hours of footage from Reuters news agency, Fox News, Film Four movies, and broadcasters Channel 4, ITV and Granada TV in the U.K., Ulster TV, Northern Ireland, and Nine Network, Australia.
Canadian producers access ITN through canamedia.com to pay in Canadian dollars and get Cancon points for working with a Canadian company in post.

The latest: ITN has digitized with more than 100,000 hours of stock footage for online viewing and downloading. The ITN website has been made more user-friendly with shot descriptions and themed collections for idea generation.

What’s hot: Providing stock footage for digital signage clients, such as in-store closed-circuit TV networks.
‘We just got a request from a Toronto company starting a closed-circuit bar TV system looking for two-minute clips with fun content,’ says Les Harris, Canamedia president. ‘It is a whole new area.’
According to ITN, there is a move away from a traditional licensing model to a subscription-based payment system for stock shots.
www.canamedia.com

CBC ARCHIVE SALES

Offers: Canadian history and contemporary news and current affairs via CBC’s newsgathering infrastructure. It also boasts an extensive collection of CBC-produced arts entertainment from the 1950s to present.

The latest: In a deal with www.zvue.com, clips from CBC news and in-house programs (interviews with celebrities and newsmakers, movie reviews, Fashion File segments, etc.) can be downloaded onto mobile and handheld devices or home computers.
It is also building an HD archive, as the parent network is actively shooting in HD – particularly large doc projects.

What’s hot: Although its stock collection is not currently available for online viewing, ‘the Internet has been a good marketing tool for us,’ says sales rep Paul McIntryre. ‘People are recording our programs and uploading to websites where filmmakers see the material and then come to us.
‘For example, a producer called us because he found a notorious interview Peter Gzowski did with Iggy Pop in the ’70s on YouTube, and he wanted to license it for a DVD package he was working on. So even though this person had no right to put the video on YouTube, it created a sale for us.’
www.cbc.ca/archivesales

CORBIS CANADA

Offers: Sports, business, nature, travel destination, people and lifestyle stock shots. Also offers royalty-free CDs, rights representation for celebrities, global shot searches, and negotiating third-party clearances.

The latest: Stock shots can be viewed – and working copies downloaded – online, and new web search tools are being developed.
The company is also planning to become more of a specialty stock shot boutique. ‘We are trying to distinguish ourselves in certain areas, such as people and lifestyle, and be choosy about the quality of what gets in our collection,’ says Corbis director of motion Skip D’Amico.

What’s hot: ‘We are seeing more traditional commercial work,’ says D’Amico. ‘Clients aren’t making whole commercials out of our content, but certainly we are seeing them source more footage for commercials. Agencies are also shifting more of their resources to online business such as streaming, so our archives are being used for a lot of alternative advertising.’
www.corbis.com

CTV ARCHIVE SALES

Offers: Canadiana from news bureaus across the country, and a strong collection from international newsgathering. It boasts an extensive figure-skating collection, and offers the Associated Press video archives in Canada, so producers can access this material in Canadian dollars and off the CTV rate card, which provides some savings.

The latest: Stock now available from news bureaus in Sydney, New Delhi, Kampala and Mexico City. Currently digitizing its collection so that within a year, the archive can be viewed and working copies downloaded online.

What’s hot: ‘We are getting quite a few requests for HD footage and have very little available in that format, so that is something we have to address,’ says CTV Archive’s Carol Ashurst.
www.ctv.ca

FIRST LIGHT

Offers: Current events and political footage; extreme weather and natural disasters; lifestyles; professional sports, celebrities and animal action shots. Distributes the libraries of FootageBank, Oxford Scientific and Film World. Most collections are available in HD, and clips are available for review and download online.

The latest: Tripled library in the last year by signing exclusive Canadian distribution deals with Image Bank, Archive Films (vintage newsreels, historic personalities and various eras), Apexstock (wildlife, landscapes and cities) and Universal Studios film and TV studio library. It also represents AP archive (headline news).

What’s hot: ‘Royalty-free CDs are a growing area of the industry,’ says director of business development Gary O’Connell. ‘There is increased demand for this content for new applications such as Internet programming, mobile and video on demand, and the quality of royalty-free content has improved over the last few years as a result.’
www.firstlight.ca

NATIONAL FILM BOARD

Offers: Extensive Canadiana collection dating back to 1895, with a focus on world wars, the North, native groups and early Canadian history. But the library has become more diversified, with contemporary collections.
‘There is the perception that you go to the NFB for pre-1950 footage, but the reality is more of our sales are for contemporary stock shots,’ says assistant director of distribution Christian Ruel.

The latest: Currently digitizing its collection and aiming to have a website – where clips can be viewed and working copies downloaded – ready for late fall.
Also transferring film stock to HD and acquiring more HD footage. About 30% of its collection is now available in HD. The NFB is also partnering with Parks Canada to access its HD material of national parks.

What’s hot: ‘There are a lot of opportunities for stock footage in the educational field, producing contextualized short clips under five minutes for school curriculums, so we are doing some test projects in that area,’ says Ruel.
www.nfb.ca