Can You Spot The Stock Footage?

Heres a fun game for you play next time youre watching a movie or a TV show

. See if you can spot the difference between the original footage of the show and the stock footage that the directors and producers put in there to save money. It might be harder than you think. But here are some tips and tricks to see if you can spot it, as well as some information that might help.

First of all, pay attention the quality of the film youre watching. By that, I dont mean how good the screenplay or the acting is, but how the film actually looks. Does it look like the same type of camera has been used throughout the whole thing? Are there any moments where things look a little fuzzier, or where the colours seem different? You might have just spotted stock footage.

Next: sorry, but no points for spotting black and white footage and calling it as stock. Thats really obvious. One of the most well known examples of stock footage is from historical events and shows historical figures. The Moon Landing footage, or film showing Marilyn Monroe walking down the street, thats too easy to count.

Now, look at how some of the shots have been structured. Have you ever seen an exterior shot of a building cut to an interior shot? If you dont see any footage of, say, the actors walking in, it might be that the exterior shot was actually stock. Shots like this are usually very brief, just a couple of seconds long, so you have to be sharp to spot them.

Next, do you notice any repeated shots in the movie, or across a series of TV shows? Lets talk about building exteriors again. Say the main characters are often hanging out in their favourite coffee shop, and before we cut to them hanging out there, we see footage of the outside of a coffee shop with people walking past. Is it the same people each time? This is more likely to happen in TV than in feature films, but its worth keeping an eye out for.

It might take you a while to get the eye for it, but youll start seeing it in almost everything you watch. Thats because with the rising cost of HD cameras, as well as the more general expenses that come with filming a movie, TV show or documentary, it usually ends up being cheaper to pay for little bits of footage other people have filmed to splice into your own production. This is usually for things like exterior shots, news reels and historical footage.

This sort of footage is sometimes also called archival footage, because its stored in a footage library or archive. Film makers can visit these archives and look through for the footage they want, and then license it from the archive for a small fee. Thats why some bits of footage might crop up in productions made by completely different companies and with completely different film staff. But maybe now youll be equipped to spot it when it shows up!

by: Adam Smith

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