One of the most common questions I get about stock footage is what kind of stock footage is going to sell best this year. Or to put it another way, which stock footage should you film to maximize the chances of people buying it and you making passive income? That’s what I’m answering here.
And if you’re wondering about my qualifications, I made $8,327 last year selling stock footage. If you want to make that kind of income selling stock footage too, I’ve put together a free Stock Footage Jump Start Guide that shows you what to film, how to film it, and where you should sell it.
So let’s tackle this big question. To do it, I’m going to share my top five most purchased and downloaded stock footage clips from last year, and then give you three big takeaways you can use to decide what to film.
Artgrid Is Where The Money Came From
Artgrid is where I made the bulk of my stock footage income, about $7,000 of the $8,000 plus I made last year, and it’s also where I get far and away the most downloads. So all the statistics in this post come from Artgrid.
My Most Downloaded Clips Of 2023
My most downloaded clip from Artgrid was downloaded almost twice as much as the second most downloaded clip. Not bad. With 467 downloads, it was this clip of the Las Vegas strip. I filmed it in slow motion with my Sony a7S III, handheld, and I wasn’t doing anything fancy. It’s a relatively basic shot.
So why was it popular? Well, I think the answer lies in two of the other most popular clips I had people download, because the second most popular clip was also a clip of the Las Vegas strip.
And if we look at my fifth most popular clip, it was a clip from Times Square in New York. Yes. Three of the top five most popular clips I sold were all clips of popular urban areas that have inevitably been filmed before, and I’m sure are quite popular on stock footage sites.
Takeaway One: Film What That Site Doesn’t Have Yet
So you’re probably thinking, okay Matt, your takeaway is that I should just go to popular locations and film them. Come on. Haven’t those been filmed way too much? Isn’t there way too much competition?
Well, here’s the trick, and this is the thing I figured out that explains why these clips have so many downloads.
The Las Vegas strip and New York City’s Times Square are very popular locations that have been filmed by a lot of stock footage filmmakers over the years. What I leveraged is that there was not that much stock footage of those locations on Artgrid in particular.
Let me put it this way. If I had chosen to upload these clips to Shutterstock, I highly doubt I would have had hundreds of downloads. I might have gotten one or two people licensing a clip, because there are tens of thousands of clips on Shutterstock of the Las Vegas strip and Times Square already.
13,467 results for “las vegas strip” on Shutterstock. Here is the same search on Artgrid.
Because I knew Artgrid did not have as many filmmakers uploading clips, I knew I had far less competition for locations people actually want stock footage of. So whenever I was in New York City on a trip, and in Las Vegas on a trip, I took a bit of time to film this stock footage and uploaded it to Artgrid, because I knew I’d be one of the few filmmakers who had footage of those locations.
I’ll tell you how I knew it was working, too. One of my filmmaker friends texted me and said hey, thanks for the Las Vegas footage, I just downloaded literally all of your clips for my video. That was awesome.
So here’s my recommendation as you’re thinking about what stock footage to film. Don’t stress about whether the subject is popular or not. Instead, look at the specific stock footage site you’re uploading to and check how much footage is already there of that specific location or activity or object. If there isn’t much, that is a niche you can fill on that specific website.
Except For The Copycat Shots
That is, unless it’s a hand moving through a field of grain, like from Gladiator where Marcus Aurelius is walking with his hand brushing the top of the grass and it looks super cinematic. There’s that meme of women asking their boyfriends how often they think about the Roman Empire. Well, my Roman Empire is that shot of that dude walking through the grass, because the number of times I have seen copycat shots like that on stock footage websites is completely mind blowing.
Seriously, just search “hand moving through grain” and you’ll be shocked by how every single stock footage site already has that clip uploaded. It’s crazy. It feels like everyone had to copy Ridley Scott and do that shot, so I would just avoid it. Probably don’t film that one. It’s taken on all of the stock footage sites.
The Sequoia Trees
One other quick story for you, keeping in mind that you want to upload footage people are looking for that has not already been uploaded to that specific site. With Artgrid in particular, I knew nobody had uploaded stock footage of the giant sequoia trees near Yosemite National Park in California.
Because I was taking a trip to Yosemite, I brought my camera along and took the time to film some clips of those trees and upload them. Suddenly I was the only person selling stock footage of sequoia trees, which made my competition essentially zero and guaranteed I’d get a ton of downloads from anyone using Artgrid to look for footage of them. And that is why my ninth most downloaded video last year, with 196 downloads, was footage of giant sequoias in California.
Takeaway Two: Film A Unique Perspective
The second takeaway comes from my third and fourth most downloaded clips of 2023. The third was a clip of a dry lake bed I filmed in Colorado.
This was a super eerie experience, because I had been to this lake before multiple times to go fishing when it was full, and I’d already filmed stock footage there once before, whenever there was a massive wildfire nearby and the smoke was rising up and completely covering the sun. That resulted in one of the craziest time lapses of my life. So cool.
While you’re here, take a look at How To EASILY Film Stock Footage For Passive Income and How Much Passive Income I Made Selling Stock Footage In 2024.
Of course, this time I returned to the lake it was completely dry. And because I had my camera with me I said, you know what, this is a cool and unique thing to film, especially considering I keep seeing articles online about lakes drying up and severe drought. So I figured it could result in clips people would want to use.
You may be thinking it’s just a generic clip of a dry lake bed. But going back to my first point about there not being many dry lake bed clips on Artgrid, suddenly if someone was making a video about how lakes are drying up, they could find and license my clip. And a lot of people did.
More importantly though, the takeaway here is that I was filming a unique perspective of this lake bed. It wasn’t a generic video of a lake full of water. It was a unique look at a lake that is not nearly as common.
The Forest From Above
This ties into my fourth most downloaded clip, which was an overhead drone clip of a forest with 243 downloads.
I’m sure at this point in your life you’ve seen hundreds of drone or helicopter clips of forests. I know I have. But the reason I think this one in particular was so popular is that it’s a unique and abstract perspective of a forest. This forest could be any pine forest in America or anywhere in the world. The drone is slowly flying overhead, you’re seeing the trees, and I can imagine how easily I could slide some text over it and make an animated clip. Or if I needed a cutaway for a video where I was talking about literally anything forest or camping related, I would grab this clip.
So just like the unique perspective of the lake, that is what I want you to keep in mind whenever you’re filming stock footage. If you have a unique shot of something people commonly film, but you’re filming it in a unique way, that can help guarantee the clip stands out and you can get significantly more downloads.
Takeaway Three: Start Filming Vertical
The last takeaway is not pulled from my sales last year. This one is more of a prediction, but I’m hoping and betting it’s going to be accurate.
In 2023, Artgrid announced they were going to start allowing filmmakers to upload vertical video clips, and they have been pushing this hard. I feel like every few weeks I get an email from them asking me to upload vertical footage, and this got me thinking. With how prevalent vertical video is becoming, with so many people wanting to upload to TikTok and Instagram Reels and YouTube Shorts, of course people are going to want vertical stock footage.
And going back to my first takeaway about how you can really stand out if you’re one of the only people uploading a certain type of clip to a certain platform, I can tell you for a fact that on the vast majority of stock footage sites out there, if they’re accepting vertical video, there are not many filmmakers making it. You have the potential to really stand out as a creator if you start making vertical stock footage.
This is something I’m going to be heavily considering going forward. I’m planning on either filming stock footage horizontally and stepping back a bit so my shots are wider and I can crop them to vertical, or, if I have time, filming stock footage both ways. Film a shot horizontal, then turn my camera vertical and film it again. That way I’m basically doubling the number of clips I can sell, and my hope is that the vertical clips will be even more valuable to filmmakers looking for them, giving me more licenses and downloads.
So There You Have It
Film stock footage that no one is filming on the specific sites you’re uploading to. Try to film unique shots from unique perspectives so your footage stands out and more people want to license it. And consider starting to film your stock footage in a vertical format, because vertical is not going away, and I can really see you making a lot of money with this.
Speaking of making a lot of money, if you want to make money selling stock footage, the best place to start is my Stock Footage Jump Start Guide. It’s free, and it will show you what to film, how to film it, and where to sell it.
Thanks so much for reading, and have a great day!