“Journey to the Sea” Takes 2nd place in UWOL Challenge

The “Under Water, Over Land”
(UWOL) Challenge is a brand-new
opportunity for documentarians,
planet Earth-lovers, tree-huggers,
extreme sports enthusiasts,
bird-watchers, sea-dwellers, and
guys and girls who like to walk
around with cameras shooting stuff
in their neighborhoods, to get out
there and shoot something.

We’re pleased to announce that our short film “Journey to the Sea” won 2nd place in the most recent UWOL competition.

Filmmakers are given a theme and then have three weeks to create a film based on that theme. This is the fourth round of the challenge and there have been over 100 films created.

You can view “Journey to the Sea” on our new iTune Podcast called HD Naturally. Subscribe by clicking HERE.

Rights Managed vs Royalty Free

Before the first frame of High Def footage was ever shot, Julie and I made a conscious decision that all our footage would be handled as Rights Managed media and not Royalty Free.

With the plethora of royalty free companies cropping up we still feel that we made the right choice.

That choice really hit home one evening when I was watching a commercial for a local church. I recognized the music in the background as a royalty free track from SmartSound. It wasn’t but a few days later that I heard the exact same track on a Girls Gone Wild commercial.I’m sure if the church had known that their commercial featured the same music that was in a Girls Gone Wild commercial, they would be mortified.

That is the driving force behind our choice to stay rights managed. Many clients want to have some exclusivity whether it’s advertising their product or putting together a show for Animal Planet. With royalty free, you have no way of knowing if your commercial will play right next to the competitions using the same footage.You might think that the sheer volume of royalty free footage would make that pretty unlikely. But have you really taken a hard look at some of the footage that is out there?

Make no mistake, there is quality footage out there in the royalty free market. But, there is also allot of footage that is sub par. So, the real pool of royalty free quality footage is actually much smaller.When a client buys footage from Silver Phoenix, we have the ability to provide to the client every instance where that footage has been used. We feel that it’s an important part of our customer service to ensure that clients get the best footage and the peace of mind in knowing that it’s not going to show up in a competing project before theirs hits the market.

While royalty free footage can certainly keep the bottom line down, for some clients they actually prefer buying more expensive footage. It’s called pass-though. Some agencies will tack on commissions for anything they need to acquire to complete the project. Stock footage which would fall under “media expense” can have up to a 17.5% premium added to the cost which is passed onto the client. So, the more expensive footage actually means a larger profit for them.

New Podcast HD Naturally

Internationally award winning photographer and cinematographer, Kevin J Railsback takes you on an incredible journey through our natural world.From a gently flowing creek in the Iowa countryside to the top predators in the Yellowstone food chain, and everything in-between.Along the way you’ll get an opportunity to get inside the mind of filmmaker Kevin J Railsback. Learn how he captures some of his incredible footage with helpful tips as well as how he puts it all together in front of his camera lens. You can subscribe to HD Naturally through iTunes by clicking HERE