The following survey of stock footage websites was conducted by Playback’s sister publication RealScreen magazine. A version of this article appeared recently in RealScreen.

So you’ve decided to save some money by not hiring a researcher. The Internet is definitely a boon to business – it puts the power back into the hands of the user and cuts out middlemen. But, do you really know what you’re getting yourself into? To help you find out, we visited dozens of footage websites to examine the state of the market online.

Online access to footage houses has producers questioning the dollars they spend on research. Filmmakers now have a direct link to archives through their desktop, and if they can find the footage themselves it can save hundreds, even thousands, of dollars. But it’s a trade-off. By doing so, they give up the expertise of the researcher.

We surveyed 75 websites to find out how simple the process is for producers who decide to take on the online research themselves. Although each website is as different as the company it represents, there are some key factors that determine success or failure for a producer on the hunt.

Contact information

There’s no substitute for human contact. At some point in the process, producers will have to talk to the people they’re getting the footage from.

Of the websites surveyed:

* 92% had phone and fax numbers

* 84% had e-mail address or links, but of that 84%, one in 10 didn’t work

* 79% had snail-mail addresses

* 37% had a contact name (the name of a human being, rather than a general contact)

A majority, almost 91%, had a company synopsis or background, so visitors can get a better idea of who they are dealing with.

Finding your footage

A stock footage website is only as good as its search engine. It’s the interface that allows you to find the footage you’re looking for – everything else is just window dressing. A good search engine will do three things: look for the footage the producer wants, find it, and return the information in a useful form.

Of the websites examined:

* 8% had neither search engine nor index

* 29% only had a text listing of the footage on the site

* 63% had a text search engine

Searching

On the sites that would allow text searches, we tested both for completeness of cataloguing and fuzzy logic.

Fuzzy logic allows a search engine to bend requests in order to return matches that might not necessarily fit the exact wording of the search. For example, would a search for ‘sunrise’ and ‘sun’ ‘rise’ return related results? Another example: what would happen if you looked for ‘u-boat, ‘uboat’ and ‘u boat’? Fuzzy logic allows producers to find footage they’re looking for, even when they aren’t certain of spelling or proper syntax.

Of the search engines tested:

* 54% used fuzzy logic consistently (i.e. would find the same footage regardless of text)

* 9% used it occasionally

* 47% did not use it (i.e. if you used the wrong word, you got different/no footage matches)

To test the completeness of the cataloguing, we performed searches such as ‘united nations’, ‘u.n.’ and ‘u n’ – searches where there was an accepted synonym, or a short form in common use.

Of the search engines tested:

* 32% returned consistent results for any of the word searches

* 17% returned partial results, depending on which text was used

* 51% found only the text searched for

Results returned

A search engine is only as good as the information it uncovers. About two-thirds of the websites examined returned useful information.

Of the searches performed:

* 71% returned some form of text description of the clip

* 60% returned the date of the clip (for historical material)

* 68% had a reference number in order to make ordering simple

* 63% gave the length of the film clip

* 46% noted what format the clip was archived on (video, 35mm, 16mm)

Searches that returned images:

* 25% returned sample images for the text search consistently

* 5% returned sample images occasionally

* 70% returned no sample images

Film clips

As bandwidth increases, more and more footage archives are offering visitors the chance to actually see what they are buying through full-motion film clips. Although the technology is relatively new, many archives are already getting on board.

Of the websites visited:

* 40% had some form of playable film clips

* 6% had film clips for the majority of searches conducted

Of the clips discovered:

* 31% loaded quickly (less than a 20:1 ratio – length of film clip to loading time)

* 35% played in the Web browser, or offered a link to the proper player

Completing the transaction

Costs: of the websites tested:

* 34% had a listing of footage costs

* 31% listed service fees (dubbing, sample reels, etc.)

* 34% explained extra fees (shipping and handling, etc.)

What makes the Internet efficient is the fact that it allows surfers to begin and end transactions from the comfort of their office or workstation.

Once the searches are complete, and you’ve found the images you were after, the unfortunate part follows – paying the bill. While the vast majority of transactions will still involve a follow-up to the site visit, few footage sites offered producers the chance to one-stop shop.

Remarkably, only 6% of the websites examined gave producers any indication of the rights information attached to the clips they were interested in.

Transactions: on the sites examined:

* 2% allowed you to do the entire transaction online

* 17% allowed you to submit your order online, after which you would be contacted

* 15% allowed you to send your personal information, so that you could be contacted

A little help along the way

Navigation tools are important on any website. On archive sites, which offer both complex information searches and online retail, they are especially critical.

Site maps – standalone pages which allow visitors to jump to any other page on the website – are especially useful, and are standard on most retail websites. If you can’t find it any other way, a site map allows users to instantly jump to whatever they need.

Of the footage sites visited:

* 9% had some form of site map

* 5% had a complete, easy-to-navigate site map

* 86% had no site map

Along with a site map, most websites will offer visitors online help, or faq (frequently asked questions) files.

Of the sites surveyed:

* 23% had a complete online help section or faq

* 18% had some help/faq

About 34% of the sites examined provided links to other websites (film forums, footage/government agencies, etc.) Only 6% of all the websites visited offered information in more than one language.

Response time

In order to test how fast the online companies returned e-mails, or if they returned them at all, we sent each online library an e-mail asking them how much of their archive is accessible through their website.

Of those sites surveyed:

* 84% had e-mail address or link, but 9% bounced back

Of those that did not bounce back:

* 14% responded same day

* 32% responded the next day

* 10% responded in two days

* 2% responded in three days

* 2% responded in 7 days

* 40% did not respond after 10 days

No websites offered a definitive indication as to the extent of the archive’s online content.

Only 46% of those archives responded when asked about the completeness of their online sites. While responses pegged the amount of their archive available online at anywhere from 0% to 100%, the average worked out to 36.5%. It’s important to keep in mind that this figure is based on estimates collected on the ‘honor system’ and only a few of the total footage archives responded.

It’s a wrap

Whether or not footage research on the Internet has achieved the level where it could be considered a completely reliable and useful tool to producers is still a matter of opinion. It’s more likely – at this juncture anyway – that online is a good complement to a personal relationship with either a stock footage provider or a researcher. *