How our kitchen kettle helped earn $1,000 - Selling stock video footage through Blackbox
When our housemate bought a new kettle, I doubt he imagined my next coffee would help earn over $1,000 in passive income.
How is this possible?
Stock videography.
As the kettle went through its final stages of boiling, a low sun was setting through the window — hitting the steam just right.
I rushed upstairs to grab my camera, quickly set it up in a range of positions, and hit record.
A few days later, I uploaded around six different kettle boiling clips to Blackbox’s stock videography platform.
Close to seven months later, one of those kettle clips has sold eight times at around $45AUD a sale, contributing to currently $1,119.39USD of stock videography sales to date.
You can check out the kettle clip at https://www.pond5.com/stock-footage/item/113508472-boiling-water-and-steam-comes-out-white-modern-kettle
What is stock videography and how did I get involved?
Along with website design through Domin8 Designs, I’m incredibly fortunate to run my own videography business here in Tasmania called Domin8 Media.
As my passion for videography grew over the years, I discovered both stock videography and Blackbox through another Medium article.
Much the same as stock photography, stock videography clips are short, specific videos that people can purchase from websites such as Pond5, Adobe Stock, and Shutterstock.
A buyer can use these clips in a range of ways, most often in social media campaigns and info-graphic videos — some users have even reported seeing their videos appear in high production movies.
A new approach to submitting and selling stock videos – Blackbox
The traditional approach to selling stock videos was to sign up with an individual agency, upload your videos, curate them (add relevant titles, keywords and categories), submit the clip.
You’d then have to repeat the process for each video and once approved, it would appear on the agency’s website and is available to purchase.
If you wanted to submit the stock video to another agency, you’d have to repeat the whole process, including sign up, upload, curation and approval.
Multiply this by each clip for each agency (as an example, I have 500 clips submitted at the moment — some people have thousands) — the process would be incredibly time-consuming.
Enter Blackbox.
What is Blackbox and how is it used for stock videography creators?
Much like Domin8 Designs and Domin8 Media, Blackbox filled a gap and solved the problem many videographers faced.
Blackbox has its own portal where users upload and curate video clips before submitting them to the platform for approval.
Once your videos are approved, Blackbox goes to work and submits the content and meta-information to the major stock videography platforms for you — skipping all the tedious, behind the scenes work.
Blackbox is also a group of video creators, with helpful documentation to get started (it’s free to sign up and upload your stock video clips) and an incredible community through their official Facebook group.
It should be noted that Blackbox does take a cut of the sale if and when a clip sells online (as does the stock agency) — however, it’s incredibly reasonable given the benefits the platform brings.
What are the pros of Blackbox?
- Save time and effort through one upload and curation process;
- Upload the videos to the major stock agencies for you;
- User-friendly backend process for curating video clips;
- Great documentation and getting started guide;
- Can dig through old hard-drives for stock footage;
- Selling stock videos can become a passive income — once uploaded, a clip may sell once or one thousand times without any further work;
What are some drawbacks of Blackbox?
- Uploaded videos appear under universal “Blackbox” user account, meaning you can’t easily link to and promote your account on the stock video agency websites;
- The FTP upload may be tricky for those unfamiliar with the process;
- Blackbox takes a cut of each sale;
What’s your highest selling clip?
After testing some different camera and colour grading settings in the garden one day, I uploaded a series of rose-related clips to Blackbox.
I woke one morning to see a sale of $190USD, as someone had bought the 4K version of the video at https://www.pond5.com/stock-footage/item/106242698-close-shot-vibrant-yellow-garden-rose-rain-water
Our family dog also continues to be one of the most consistent sellers in my stock video portfolio, with a series of clips like this one selling around 15 times via the various platforms. https://www.pond5.com/stock-footage/item/106893958-slow-motion-pan-around-king-charles-cavalier-spaniel-dog-loo
Is it easy to make money through selling stock videography?
Unfortunately, selling stock videos isn’t a quick get-rich scheme.
There’s a well-known saying that high-quality footage sells — one professional, well-shot video can make more money than 1,000 low-quality videos.
You can’t just take your phone out, film your kettle boiling and expect to make money on the clip.
This isn’t to say that you need an ultra-expensive camera to get started in the stock videography space, however shots should be well composed and professional looking.
Tips for creating high-quality stock videography:
- Stable footage is one of the most important factors, so using a tripod is almost always a requirement;
- If movement is required, ensure it’s smooth by using a stabiliser;
- Don’t film random things in your house and expect it to sell — while my example is lucky, there’s plenty of other (I’d say better) kettle boiling videos out there;
- Research other footage on your subject first — find gaps or aim to create videos that are 10x better than what’s currently available;
- Search a topic and have a look at the first five clips — these are often the best sellers;
- Think about subjects or locations that are unique to you — do you live in a unique part of the world or have something specific to film that nobody else does?
- Hone your skill — re-shoot shots if need be and continually aim to improve;
- 4K footage has a higher price, however 1080 HD footage is still the primary seller — don’t think you need an expensive camera setup to get started;
- Don’t be afraid to upload clips — as long as they are high quality, you never know what a buyer may be looking for.
The last point is incredibly relevant to my stock videography journey.
I’ve set up and filmed a range of clips that I thought would be definite sellers, only to have second-thought videos sell ten times more.
As mentioned above, particularly for videographers, you also don’t need to start from scratch to begin your stock videography journey — you can look back through your hard-drives for videos or relevant clips.
There’s also the opportunity to consider upcoming trends such as Christmas, world events, and holidays — and shoot these ahead of time to capitalise on demand.
Having dipped the toes into the stock video world, it even brings a different perspective to going on holidays and to commercial shoots, where appropriate — each presenting unique opportunities to capture potential stock videos to help make a passive income.
This however brings up an important note around some of the restrictions of stock videography.
I always stress the importance of doing your own research both around Blackbox and selling stock videography, but as a broad overview, it goes without saying that there are a number of permission and waiver requirements when uploading footage of people, places and logos.
Commercial footage are videos that you have all the releases and permissions for to sell online — for example, a garden rose doesn’t contain anything or anyone that’s recognisable and is a good commercial clip.
If you’re filming a friend or family member, the footage contains a logo (like Nike) or you don’t have permission to film in, or of, a place — then it can’t be used commercially.
To upload this sort of footage, you need to have a release signed and uploaded along with the footage, or consider it as ‘editorial’.
Editorial footage can only be bought and used in news or educational capacity, without having the required releases.
Editorial footage does sell, however in short — always aim to get a release for a person, property or brand you’re filming if it’s even 1% recognisable.
Also with drone footage, which is a great seller, be sure to follow the appropriate regulatory requirements for your area.
How does someone get started with Blackbox?
I’ve loved my Blackbox journey so far.
It’s also incredibly convenient for me given my passion and work in the videography space — not to mention that added bonus of a small amount of passive income each month.
Some people make a full time living off their passive stock videography income, however this is a very very long process and certainly not something that can be achieved overnight.
For me personally, I’ve actually been using my Blackbox income specifically to purchase new videography gear to further improve my skills and capacity to produce professional videos; both commercially and for stock videography.
If you’re interested in getting started with Blackbox, you can head to the website at https://www.blackbox.global/ and sign up.
If you’ve got any questions or would like to chat further, feel free to connect — always happy to help.
