Aaah Blackbox is my fave. Such an amazing opportunity 😍 I’m about to do my “one year on blackbox” update as it’s coming up soon! And thanks Victoria for so many great tips
Thank you both! Very useful tips. But, @Victoria Lauren Smith, what do you think about the order of each keyword? Does that matter? e.i. who, what, where, when, how OR how, where, what, when, who?
Of the agencies that BlackBox uploads to, order only matters for Adobe. Your first 10 keywords hold extra weight and any keywords found both in the title AND the first 10 keywords will have an even extra boost!
The thing that I'm struggling the most with stock footage is every platform has different formats, different csv file upload and metadata requirements. It became a bit frustrating after a while that I would have to render 4 different formats for 4 different stock platforms. and then adjust all keywords for various platforms... It started consuming so much time that I stopped it... I would really like to get some insight on which platforms to stick to to sell stock and if there are format that are unanimously supported by all platforms. thanks
This is why you should use blackbox. You upload once and they send your footage to the 4 big stock agencies. Makes it so easy to do stock. Here’s my guide on blackbox: ua-cam.com/video/bq6b7oCjNPE/v-deo.html
So do you use Blackbox as well as Artgrid? I saw another video where you said you upload footage to Artgrid so just wondering which one you think is better?
I have already uploaded over 50 clips now and I don’t know if that’s enough or not but haven’t gotten any sales yet and yeh I have been copy and pasting the metadata over and over again with slight changes but yeh after hearing these tips I’ll try again with these tips in mind thank you!
Don't copy and paste metadata. Good footage wont get purchased if a buyer can't find it. The idea with stock footage is upload a ton of footage and over time you'll see sales. 50 clips is a good start but you really gotta just keep going. Right now I have 1000's of clips online and I see sales come in frequently. Don't expect to make much without putting in the time and work upfront.
Thanks a bunch Jeven! I am selling stock footage on both Shutterstock and Blackbox. Still fairly new to it so trying them both out and seeing which is better and where this leads me. I'm pretty sure I will always use Blackbox though. Its pretty awesome. I have around 50 seperate clips on each uploaded but I'm going through 4 months of shooting cutting it up before I archive it so am only about 1/4 of the way maybe an 1/8th lol through. Then I got more plans. But thanks for throwing a video put in this direction. I already know those tips, but they definitely are helpful. Btw I am on Blackbox cause of one of your earlier videos lol. Thanks buddy.
Great information, short and to the point..completely understandable. I've been a still shooter for some time and I'll use the tips for keywording my still work as well. I believe that's been part of my issue with only making 2 sales (of the same photo incidentally) from the dozens of photos I've put up. I also know I should upload more.. when Victoria said she'd keyworded thousands and sold 265 I'm like "Wow.. I need to upload more.." I ALMOST got bummed but instead I got hopeful. Anyway, I could go on for a while but y'all have better things to do than read my raving.. Thanks Jeven, Thanks Victoria (I subscribed by the way)
That's the spirit! I have about 350 sales now with an upward trend every month (17 months in). You put in the work once and those clips can continue to sell multiple times for years to come. Once you get one sale on a clip, additional sales on that same clip become much more likely. Best of luck!!
Just checked out your channel. You should take all your B-roll an start selling it. You have a ton of sellable footage from your travels. Check out this video that goes through my process step by step to get started: bit.ly/30me3nQ
Thanks Victoria very helpful. I’ve been uploading to black box for 6 months now and yet to make a sale!!!!! Not sure where I’m going wrong. Can send you a link to some of the footage I’m uploading for your feedback...
Share it in the BlackBox Facebook group and tag me!! I can take a look at your keywording and others can give you more technical footage feedback. If your keywording can be optimized, you can use my Skillshare referral link up in the description to get two months free to take my course. I give personalized feedback on three of your keywording samples in the project section there!
A couple things on this one J-dawg. I like your videos, but there arent any recent posts about stock footage from you! I find the recent posts on youtube are mostly garbage. This is good, but 4 years old! One thing im having issues with is commercia vs standard, specifically how the releases work. You should do a video on that! Or maybe I should once i figure it out. Also, Blackbox denied me haha!
Question: Do you process your clips at all before uploading or do you sell the clip as it was when it came out of the camera? I never know whether or not to upload in h.264 or what...
Yes process them before uploading. Also I do suggest uploading multiple versions. So you can do one real time and one slow mo if you shot 60p. Watch this video which explains everything. m.ua-cam.com/video/ZmQb6bRgkNs/v-deo.html
Thanks Jeven, this is very useful info! My biggest question is after cutting my clips in Davinci Resolve or any other software, what codec/bitrate should I export the clips in? Normally I export 1080p at 70,000 Kb/s and 4k at 100,000 Kb/s in h.264.
@@BlueEyeVisuals Export no higher than the same bitrate as your camera records in. And if you have a camera that records in a super high bitrate then you should reduce it to make it more manageable. 100Mbps is good for 4K (that's what I use), and 25Mbps works for 1080p. Keep framerates in mind though.... 1080p at 60p then you should go to 50Mbps. So on and so forth.
@@SpaceStockFootage Thank you for this clear answer. This has kind of confused me for a while and it's very hard to find information. I found information about bit rate when uploading to UA-cam which has upped the quality of my uploads, but that is mostly dealing with the compression of UA-cam.
@@BlueEyeVisuals as high quality as you possibly can export. black box have a limit on 4gb for a file and you really don't want to be uploading more than 30 seconds per clip anyway. so under 4gb and ideally 4k at the highest quality you can with a clip under 30 seconds. also most stock libraries don't accept 8k footage yet.
My main problem is getting first sales. I have a couple of clips on Blackbox, which has been there for about 5-6 months without a sale. I did the description and keywords, so I wonder if I did something wrong
Its all about the long game. Once the clips are uploaded they will keep getting sales. Every month i have money coming in from my shots and I don't have to do anything
The stock video model is seriously dwindling. Getty images introduced their premium access and it absolutely killed videos. At this point you wonder if it's even worth it.
hang on.... she keyworded 6,000 clips and only 265 sales. that doesn't sound like a lot.... am i missing something? also you lose 15% of your sale to blackbox already. You're now losing another percentage paying for someone to write your keywords and descriptions. This sounds like you're screwing yourself.... can't you write your own keywords and descriptions?
Speaking from my own experience, time can be a big factor in building SEO and I see more and more sales every month. After 17 full months on BlackBox, I have now had around 350 sales with an upward trend every month. I could walk away and never touch that portfolio again and I would continue to see sales for years. It's a marathon for sure.
@@VictoriaLaurenSmith thanks for taking the time out to reply i don't mean to knock what you do. i appreciate it's a lot of work and commitment but i question the need for a third party to do keywording for me. perhaps when i've got lots and lots of footage it might make sense for me but starting out it seems an unnecessary expense. thanks for sharing your knowledge, i appreciate it. that when, what, when, where, how tip is invaluable despite it seeming very obvious at first hearing it.
@@feralmode you can totally do your own keywording if you're into it! The reason I like using BlackBox is you can pick which parts you want to do and team up with others who will do the rest. My partner is a professional videographer and I have a background in SEO copywriting, so when we first started uploading, we split up the work. I don't film or edit and he isn't a native English speaker, so it's a perfect combo. Then I started keywording for some other BlackBox members as well who wrote to me! Some people prefer to only shoot or only edit, so they like to team up with a collaborator for that party and have extra time to film or edit even more content. Some people aren't native English speakers and they prefer to team up with someone native or highly proficient, removing the language barrier. That's my favorite aspect of it!! Either way, we're partners at the end of the day.
Hey Heiko! That portfolio was still pretty new when we made this video. It's generated about $15k by now and I haven't touched it in three years since I've been fully booked. That $15k is only 20-30% of the sales amount and the rest was split with collaborators, so it can really add up over time. It doesn't replace my active income, but it's a nice addition.
I'm up to 336 now near the end of my 17th month on BlackBox! Time is a big factor in your SEO ranking and sales and I haven't had 6,000 online from month one - it's been a gradual build. I'm happy with the sales trends and it's a good idea to study the market before you get started to decide if the time investment sounds worthwhile to you. It's a marathon stream of passive income. Hope that helps!
Once you're clips are uploaded once you never have to think about it again. My clips that I've uploaded 4 years ago are still selling today. Stock footage is all about volume over time. When you build a big library you'll start seeing sales come in all the time and you don't have to do anything to get them.
hei @jevendoves! I like your videos alot. Would still recommend black box or going solo? I will start out but I am not quite sure which one will be better on the long run. thank you for your opinion! Greetings from a Swiss guy living in Brazil
Learn how to do stock footage step by step: bit.ly/30me3nQ
Jeven Dovey .... 💥💥this is good. Love for you to check out some of my videos and let me know what you think.💥💥
Fun collabing with you, Jeven! I hope these tips help our fellow content creators!!
Thanks for all the insight! Your tips are so good!
Happy to pay it forward!
Victoria Lauren Smith🎈🎈🎈Great job that will also help me with my regular videos as well🎊🎊
@@holyflamesoffireministries5341 Thank you! I'm so glad to hear that! Best of luck with your work!!
Victoria Lauren Smith very clear and concise. Great job thanks. 🐼👍🏽🧟♂️
Yes, I'm a Blackboxer and I've sold 6 clips so far. It's been an enjoyable ride for footage that otherwise just sits on my hard drives.
I need to think about selling some of my video as stock footage. Thanks for all this great information.
Aaah Blackbox is my fave. Such an amazing opportunity 😍 I’m about to do my “one year on blackbox” update as it’s coming up soon! And thanks Victoria for so many great tips
My pleasure! Love you channel and I look forward to your post!!
Thank you both! Very useful tips. But, @Victoria Lauren Smith, what do you think about the order of each keyword? Does that matter? e.i. who, what, where, when, how OR how, where, what, when, who?
Of the agencies that BlackBox uploads to, order only matters for Adobe. Your first 10 keywords hold extra weight and any keywords found both in the title AND the first 10 keywords will have an even extra boost!
What's the best camera to use and to start doing stock footage?
The thing that I'm struggling the most with stock footage is every platform has different formats, different csv file upload and metadata requirements. It became a bit frustrating after a while that I would have to render 4 different formats for 4 different stock platforms. and then adjust all keywords for various platforms... It started consuming so much time that I stopped it... I would really like to get some insight on which platforms to stick to to sell stock and if there are format that are unanimously supported by all platforms.
thanks
This is why you should use blackbox. You upload once and they send your footage to the 4 big stock agencies. Makes it so easy to do stock. Here’s my guide on blackbox: ua-cam.com/video/bq6b7oCjNPE/v-deo.html
This question seems a little preplaplanned 😉
@@AndersRox very ignorant of you to say that. What I stated above is my personal experience.
Hmmmm....🤔 I never even thought of selling stock footage. Thanks for sharing this with us Jeven, and 👍 for your partner
Love those excellent, concrete, real-world tips! Great video!
Very helpful video Jeven and Victoria!
Blackbox is the best!
Great video with excellent tips!
this is something I want to try. I have a decent amount of 4k footage from the past 3+ years.
Do it! I’ve cut 1000’s of shots out of my old footage
So do you use Blackbox as well as Artgrid? I saw another video where you said you upload footage to Artgrid so just wondering which one you think is better?
I have already uploaded over 50 clips now and I don’t know if that’s enough or not but haven’t gotten any sales yet and yeh I have been copy and pasting the metadata over and over again with slight changes but yeh after hearing these tips I’ll try again with these tips in mind thank you!
Don't copy and paste metadata. Good footage wont get purchased if a buyer can't find it. The idea with stock footage is upload a ton of footage and over time you'll see sales. 50 clips is a good start but you really gotta just keep going. Right now I have 1000's of clips online and I see sales come in frequently. Don't expect to make much without putting in the time and work upfront.
Victoria secret's for key wording! :) Great tips. Thanks Victoria and Jeven.
Victoria is the best. 👍👍👍
Thanks a bunch Jeven! I am selling stock footage on both Shutterstock and Blackbox. Still fairly new to it so trying them both out and seeing which is better and where this leads me. I'm pretty sure I will always use Blackbox though. Its pretty awesome. I have around 50 seperate clips on each uploaded but I'm going through 4 months of shooting cutting it up before I archive it so am only about 1/4 of the way maybe an 1/8th lol through. Then I got more plans. But thanks for throwing a video put in this direction. I already know those tips, but they definitely are helpful. Btw I am on Blackbox cause of one of your earlier videos lol. Thanks buddy.
Great information, short and to the point..completely understandable. I've been a still shooter for some time and I'll use the tips for keywording my still work as well. I believe that's been part of my issue with only making 2 sales (of the same photo incidentally) from the dozens of photos I've put up. I also know I should upload more.. when Victoria said she'd keyworded thousands and sold 265 I'm like "Wow.. I need to upload more.." I ALMOST got bummed but instead I got hopeful. Anyway, I could go on for a while but y'all have better things to do than read my raving.. Thanks Jeven, Thanks Victoria (I subscribed by the way)
That's the spirit! I have about 350 sales now with an upward trend every month (17 months in). You put in the work once and those clips can continue to sell multiple times for years to come. Once you get one sale on a clip, additional sales on that same clip become much more likely. Best of luck!!
Thank you for that info 👍👍👍👍
Great tips Jovey. I haven’t considered selling stock footage but maybe I should start.
Eddie Nunez for sure! Just checked out your channels and you have lots of good b roll that can sell.
Thanks for the tips! I've never sold my footage as stock before. Interesting idea 🤔❓💰💰💰
Just checked out your channel. You should take all your B-roll an start selling it. You have a ton of sellable footage from your travels. Check out this video that goes through my process step by step to get started: bit.ly/30me3nQ
Great tip! I would have wished to get tip on the color grading as well.
Great video thanks for the info!!
Thanks Victoria very helpful. I’ve been uploading to black box for 6 months now and yet to make a sale!!!!! Not sure where I’m going wrong. Can send you a link to some of the footage I’m uploading for your feedback...
Share it in the BlackBox Facebook group and tag me!! I can take a look at your keywording and others can give you more technical footage feedback. If your keywording can be optimized, you can use my Skillshare referral link up in the description to get two months free to take my course. I give personalized feedback on three of your keywording samples in the project section there!
What great tips thank you 😊
I start selling my drone footage. Thank you for advices!
Thanks so much for this.
Thanks for the black box tip
Registered and will investigate :)
Awesome! Make sure you join the FB group for Blackbox. There is a ton of info in there and its a great resource to sell more stock
Thank you for helpful tips.
A couple things on this one J-dawg. I like your videos, but there arent any recent posts about stock footage from you! I find the recent posts on youtube are mostly garbage. This is good, but 4 years old! One thing im having issues with is commercia vs standard, specifically how the releases work. You should do a video on that! Or maybe I should once i figure it out. Also, Blackbox denied me haha!
Great tips, TFS
Thank you for taking the time to make this video. I so appreciate it more then you would ever know. You are amazing. Thank you so much.
Question: Do you process your clips at all before uploading or do you sell the clip as it was when it came out of the camera? I never know whether or not to upload in h.264 or what...
Also, if you film in 60fps do you upload a 24p version as well or just let the buyer make that conversion?
Yes process them before uploading. Also I do suggest uploading multiple versions. So you can do one real time and one slow mo if you shot 60p. Watch this video which explains everything. m.ua-cam.com/video/ZmQb6bRgkNs/v-deo.html
Thank you, will definitely give it a try
Thanks Jeven, this is very useful info! My biggest question is after cutting my clips in Davinci Resolve or any other software, what codec/bitrate should I export the clips in? Normally I export 1080p at 70,000 Kb/s and 4k at 100,000 Kb/s in h.264.
Highest bitrate that you can that will create a file that is small enough to be used as stock. You'll have to find what works best with your settings
@@JevenDovey thanks , but I'm not sure how to do that. I'm not sure what is an acceptable bitrate for stock footage.
@@BlueEyeVisuals Export no higher than the same bitrate as your camera records in. And if you have a camera that records in a super high bitrate then you should reduce it to make it more manageable. 100Mbps is good for 4K (that's what I use), and 25Mbps works for 1080p. Keep framerates in mind though.... 1080p at 60p then you should go to 50Mbps. So on and so forth.
@@SpaceStockFootage Thank you for this clear answer. This has kind of confused me for a while and it's very hard to find information. I found information about bit rate when uploading to UA-cam which has upped the quality of my uploads, but that is mostly dealing with the compression of UA-cam.
@@BlueEyeVisuals as high quality as you possibly can export. black box have a limit on 4gb for a file and you really don't want to be uploading more than 30 seconds per clip anyway. so under 4gb and ideally 4k at the highest quality you can with a clip under 30 seconds. also most stock libraries don't accept 8k footage yet.
I dont have any idea what is stock footage. Bit I will do some research.
You think it is still usefull to upload to blackbox now, because there are a lot of stockfootage clips already?
Yup I still make sales all the time.
@@JevenDovey ow okay nicee, i just uploaded some footage yesterday, does it take long for them to review the uploaded shots?
this was great, I'm a beginner at this so that helped a lot
I have been declined 2 times for my application to BlackBox... What do you recommend?
Awesome video, very useful tips. Thanks buddy well done!
Thank you. ✌️
My main problem is getting first sales. I have a couple of clips on Blackbox, which has been there for about 5-6 months without a sale. I did the description and keywords, so I wonder if I did something wrong
It’s a numbers game. How many clips have you uploaded?
Jeven Dovey I have only 8 at the moment. But I just checked and they are status as “online”
🎉🎉Yes yes🎉🎉
Thanks!!!!!!!!!!!
where is payout in blackbox?
really useful
Nice hat Jeven. 🐼👍🏽
Good♥️
265 videos sold out of several thousands? This is not a good percentage... Though it could be due to factors other than keywording.
over 6000 clips key worded and 265 sales sound pretty low to me
Its all about the long game. Once the clips are uploaded they will keep getting sales. Every month i have money coming in from my shots and I don't have to do anything
New!
👍👍👍
I love you
The stock video model is seriously dwindling. Getty images introduced their premium access and it absolutely killed videos. At this point you wonder if it's even worth it.
hang on.... she keyworded 6,000 clips and only 265 sales. that doesn't sound like a lot.... am i missing something? also you lose 15% of your sale to blackbox already. You're now losing another percentage paying for someone to write your keywords and descriptions. This sounds like you're screwing yourself.... can't you write your own keywords and descriptions?
Speaking from my own experience, time can be a big factor in building SEO and I see more and more sales every month. After 17 full months on BlackBox, I have now had around 350 sales with an upward trend every month. I could walk away and never touch that portfolio again and I would continue to see sales for years. It's a marathon for sure.
@@VictoriaLaurenSmith thanks for taking the time out to reply i don't mean to knock what you do. i appreciate it's a lot of work and commitment but i question the need for a third party to do keywording for me. perhaps when i've got lots and lots of footage it might make sense for me but starting out it seems an unnecessary expense. thanks for sharing your knowledge, i appreciate it. that when, what, when, where, how tip is invaluable despite it seeming very obvious at first hearing it.
@@feralmode you can totally do your own keywording if you're into it! The reason I like using BlackBox is you can pick which parts you want to do and team up with others who will do the rest. My partner is a professional videographer and I have a background in SEO copywriting, so when we first started uploading, we split up the work. I don't film or edit and he isn't a native English speaker, so it's a perfect combo. Then I started keywording for some other BlackBox members as well who wrote to me! Some people prefer to only shoot or only edit, so they like to team up with a collaborator for that party and have extra time to film or edit even more content. Some people aren't native English speakers and they prefer to team up with someone native or highly proficient, removing the language barrier. That's my favorite aspect of it!! Either way, we're partners at the end of the day.
Frankly speaking, having keyworded more than 6.000 clips, 265 sales is pretty poor in my opinion. It's 4,4 %
Hey Heiko! That portfolio was still pretty new when we made this video. It's generated about $15k by now and I haven't touched it in three years since I've been fully booked. That $15k is only 20-30% of the sales amount and the rest was split with collaborators, so it can really add up over time. It doesn't replace my active income, but it's a nice addition.
6000 clips but only 200 sales? That doesn't seem worth it
I'm up to 336 now near the end of my 17th month on BlackBox! Time is a big factor in your SEO ranking and sales and I haven't had 6,000 online from month one - it's been a gradual build. I'm happy with the sales trends and it's a good idea to study the market before you get started to decide if the time investment sounds worthwhile to you. It's a marathon stream of passive income. Hope that helps!
Once you're clips are uploaded once you never have to think about it again. My clips that I've uploaded 4 years ago are still selling today. Stock footage is all about volume over time. When you build a big library you'll start seeing sales come in all the time and you don't have to do anything to get them.
As a quick update, 18.5 months in, I'm up to nearly 400 sales. Time is a huge factor!
hei @jevendoves! I like your videos alot. Would still recommend black box or going solo? I will start out but I am not quite sure which one will be better on the long run. thank you for your opinion! Greetings from a Swiss guy living in Brazil
Blackbox for sure. That’s what I use for all my stock
@@JevenDovey thanks for your answer! keep up the good work!
Excellent video, thanks for sharing 🙌