YouTube is filled with monetization strategies for filmmakers. One of these avenues is selling stock footage. Having been a regular Pond5 customer, we decided to upload some recent footage and document the process for our readers.
Account Creation. Log in or create an account on Pond5: https://www.pond5.com/sell-stock-footage. Alternatively, you can hover on the top-right, profile icon and select "SELL YOUR MEDIA".
Click through the pop-up boxes until prompted for your "Basic Information". Once completed, press "NEXT".
Identify your production status and preferred media under "About Your Work"; then, press "NEXT".
In order to create a seller's account, you will need to have a digital image of a state-issued identity card. This MUST be in a PNG or JPG file format and be under 2 MB. Once uploaded, check the box to acknowledge the Pond5 Contributor Agreement. Note: 2 MB pretty tiny, so you may just want to take a PNG screenshot of the digital image.
Once submitted, POND5 will send you an email account verification email. Click the embedded "VERIFY EMAIL" button and you'll be redirected back to POND5.
Select "GET STARTED". At this point, you are on hold until your account is approved by POND5 staff. The official line is that the approval process can take upwards to one week; however, my Saturday afternoon submission was approved early Monday morning.
In the meantime, you can upload a profile icon and select your preferred payment method. In order to do so, you will need to go through the email verification process again. Select the blue "EDIT ACCOUNT INFO" hyperlink under the "Account" and "Contact Info & Payout Preferences" tabs in order to choose a payment option.
Upload Footage. Pond5 wants non-edited clips sans sound between 3-60 seconds in at least 1080p resolution. If you upload 4K, Pond5 will go ahead and create a down-resolution HD copy on your behalf. We shot over an hour of footage, which was reduced down to 18 minutes of selects; then, further scrutinized down to 12 minutes. Ensure your footage is not grainy, in focus, with appropriate lead times (2-3 seconds) before and after any interesting event captured in the clip. I highly recommend watching these clips on multiple platforms (mobile, large screen TV, etc.) with a timecode overlay in an effort to identify any suspect clips/frames. Our clips were rendered in MP4 file format with the H.264 codec. Supported codecs, file size, and titling restrictions are listed fully on their website: https://contributor.pond5.com/getting-started/preparing-your-files-2/footage/. More on titles in the next section. Files can now be uploaded via File Transfer Protocol or just ‘drag and drop’. Once ‘processed’, you are free to edit the files and apply tags.
Optimize Your Clips. Obviously, you will want to have a descriptive and accurate title to help people find your media. For titles, I look at the top-performing keywords for the past year on Google Trends. Pond5 also maintains a lengthy list of “Top Search Trends” that may be useful, as well as provides recommended pricing.
POND5 requires a minimum of 5 keywords but recommends between 10 to 20. For tagging, I use an online thesaurus and mykeyworder to identify additional keywords. A “description” and other optional meta-data fields are available.
As a consumer of Pond5, I like to see the aspect ratio, frame rate, and if the footage is raw/log. I’ll also pay more for a clip if it has a property and/or model release. Per Pond5, “model and property releases are required for all media to be sold as cleared for commercial use.” As such, our releases were scanned and uploaded in PDF format. Once uploaded, you can select the desired clips, go to “Actions” and select “Attach Release” from the drop-down menu. Warning: Pond5 wants an image of the property being released on their form, which MUST match the particular clip’s footage. They will not allow you to just use a single release form to cover the entire collection.
You can also create a template (Uploads > Footage templates > New Template) that will pre-populate common fields (description, pricing, keywords) and add to a centralized collection.
When ready to submit to Pond5, select all clips under “Uploads”, choose “Actions” and “Submit” from the drop-down menu. Files will now be labeled “Pending Review” for 24-48 hours. All my uploads were reviewed by the following day with a corresponding email notification that the clip is now “Online”.
Important Considerations:
I strongly encourage you to actually read Pond5’s Contributor Agreement as there is an important caveat to understand should you want to remove your content: “We and the Distributors may continue Promotional Uses of the terminated Content for a period of one (1) year from the effective date of such termination.”
It’s in your best interest to review others’ clips, quality, duration, and pricing in order to be competitive. Pond5 has a minimum $25 charge per HD clip (applied upon upload) with a 40% return. However, you can increase your take by an additional 20% if you opt-in as an exclusive provider. This means you ONLY submit the uploaded clips to Pond5: https://www.pond5.com/exclusive-artist. Feel free to customize your profile cover image. Just know that it cannot be larger than 1 MB with a recommended width of 1500 pixels.
You can also group your uploads into public collections. Perhaps a customer likes the look, but not that exact image? Having a collection, might persuade her or him to look at the other footage.
Don’t forget to include your Pond5 portfolio on socials and any marketing material!
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