With new media and viral marketing campaigns gaining momentum, stock footage and production music companies find themselves more in demand than ever. This time, our stock report examines how this new era is taking shape - via a crush of user-generated content or music videos for legendary rock acts. But first, a look at new collections, libraries and tech advances from some top stock footage and music companies.

Stock Companies

BBC Motion Gallery
What's New: Senior vice president Jan Ross reports the company's website, relaunched in January, offers clickless motion thumbnails in its search results and highly-detailed QuickTime 7 previews. Over 10,000 royalty-free clips are available in over 200 categories, and can be licensed and downloaded online. New archives include Japan's NHK and the Australian Broadcasting Corporation.

Other Areas of Expertise: News (BBC and CBS news archives); wildlife and natural history; locations; humor; personalities; the arts (including rare music footage); trends and concepts.

Tech Talk: New website enhancements include state-of-the-art motion previews and large-format QuickTime 7 previews. "Since most of our users employ some form of non-linear editor, we've worked hard to make our preview files assist their digital workflow," says Ross.

Recent Appearances: CBS and BBC News footage to AKQA, San Francisco for a Microsoft Xbox Internet spot; Southern California Edison via DDB LA for an industrial online video; a multi-platform program licensing CBS News clips for the film We Are Marshall; and clips from the natural history collection for Discovery Latin America station IDs.

Ahead for '07: Look for more HD material, several new archives and expanded services in mobile, short form programming and education.

Corbis
What's New: Corbis reports that footage commissioned from independent shooters and commercial providers is taking an increasingly conceptual focus, with themes including caring, teamwork, adversity, empathy, love, security and patriotism. The company is also expanding its royalty-free footage and animation CD offerings, popular for interactive campaigns. The most popular collections thus far include pro sports, historical/archival, and people and lifestyle.

Other Areas of Expertise: As part of its "complete solution" mandate for customer service, Corbis offers 30,000 hours of content via Corbis Motion; global search capabilities and rights and music clearance services.

Tech Talk: Corbis has made HD footage a priority, with all of the footage commissioned in the past year being in hi-def. Also, agencies can share motion footage with clients via Corbis' WebReel feature.

Recent Appearances: "A Place in the Sun" for Lay's via BBDO; Comcast for Goodby, Silverstein & Partners; Nissan "Titan" for TBWA\Chiat\Day; Lipton Asia for JWT; interactive campaigns for Sony PlayStation 3 via TBWA; rights clearances for music videos.

Ahead for '07: Corbis aims to expand its collections, enhance its global search capabilities, and leverage its rights clearances of film, actors and music for broadcast spots, interactive campaigns, music videos and internal projects.

First Light
What's New: First Light, with offices in Toronto and Vancouver, initiated a First Light Rewards program, which the company calls "frequent flyer miles for stock". Points can be collected on every stock purchase made (one dollar equals one reward point), and can be used for ticketmaster.com gift certificates, donations to Operation Eyesight (providing sight restoration operations) or for receiving a discount on future purchases. Also, the company was selected to represent the prestigious Image Bank and Archive Films collections.

Areas of Expertise: First Light also offers rights and clearances services and free expert research for all projects. Other collections carried include Footage Bank, Oxford Scientific, Film World, Corbis Motion, Creatas & Digital Vision footage.
Recent Appearances: Luna: The Way Home (TV movie). Spot work includes "Marble Mountain" for Newfoundland and Labrador Tourism, and Diageo's Crown Royal for Grey Worldwide.

Ahead for '07: "We'll continue to grow and expand our footage collections, but we think it's important to instill a mindset that sees footage as a natural part of the creative process," says First Light CEO Lisa Dempsey.

FootageBank HD
What's New: Award-winning 70mm films including Chronos by Ron Fricke, Ring of Fire, Sharks, Great Barrier Reef, Bugs! and Adrenaline Rush, all available in HD. Also, a deal signed with camera equipment manufacturer Innovision Optics in July gives FootageBank exclusive rights to represent HD footage shot with Innovision's Cine Speed Cam and the HD Probe (used for VFX shots in the CSI series).

Other Areas of Expertise: Specializing in hi-def footage.

Tech Talk: "Over 43,000 clips can be downloaded from our site for preview and offline use," says FootageBank president Paula Lumbard. "At a resolution of 640x480 using the H264 codec, our QuickTime movie files are large, high quality images with fast downloads."

Recent Appearances: Verizon Business "I'll Be There" campaign (Euro RSCG, NY); Sony Japan Dealers spot; Cente Service Corp. LA; five Spanish-language spots for Time Warner Cable.

Ahead for '07: The company recently opened a New York City office.

Framepool
What's New: Lifestyle footage directly sourced from top commercial production companies, as well as two large historical libraries that were previously not accessible.

Other Areas of Expertise: Contemporary lifestyle and business shots; high speed and timelapse footage; world locations; landscapes; aerials; and a wide range of natural history.

Tech Talk: With more than 350,000 clips now available online, Framepool's website gives access to a fully digital archive of master copies of clips that clients can download within minutes of making an order. CEO Göetz Schmidt-Bossert says Framepool has also expanded its range of selectable download formats to fit all editing environments.

Recent Appearances: The top seller in 2006 was soccer footage to promote everything from European banks or Asian beer to American retailers.

Ahead For '07: Schmidt-Bossert says he expects great growth in viral and online marketing market segments. Geographically, new offices in Paris and London (which Framepool opened in 2006) and an upcoming New York office are also priorities for the Munich-based company. "The new digital formats suit us very well. We have always believed in digital access and delivery of stock footage; we have pioneered the technology," says Schmidt-Bossert.

Getty Images
What's New: Getty's partnered with dick clark productions, Discovery Footage Source and AP Archives for rights-managed offerings. New royalty-free collections include those from Post Holes and Artbox Images as well as OmniReelLife, ReelHouse and Rocketclips, among others.

Other Areas of Expertise: Getty's the only company with a global in-house creative research department, which is often part of integrated film and still shoots. A showreel including still image samples documenting the process can be found at Getty's site.

Tech Talk: Improved search functionality - customers can now find clips by entering contributor/filmmaker names into keyword search. Also, customers can search for clips from the same shoot to help bolster campaigns. Speed of delivery is also a priority, says Getty communications manager Molly Lohman. "Our sales team will immediately drop clips into our customer's web account after purchasing, and customers can then access the clips from their 'Previous Purchases' folder on the website."

Recent Appearances: An Inconvenient Truth feature (Paramount Pictures, Ant Farm); Chevy "Anthem" spot for GM via @radical.media.

Ahead for '07: Web improvements including refined searching, customization and personalization, as well as "continuing to provide a vast and growing collection of high quality imagery."

Global ImageWorks
What's New: More hi-def footage from categories including destinations, aerials, environment, global warming and extreme weather. "Last year shots from our popular culture, lifestyle, global conflict and Katrina collections were the most heavily licensed," reports principal partner/president Jessica Berman-Bogdan.

Other areas of expertise: World lifestyle and destinations; pop culture; nature and wildlife; environment; fire and rescue; underwater; time lapse and aerials; red carpet and entertainment.

Tech Talk: Several hundred hours of searchable video clips will be available for online viewing this year. Hi-res digital files are also available for online delivery.

Recent Appearances: Chevy's "Anthem" spot through @radical.media and Campbell-Ewald as well as all stock and archival footage research for the "Our Country, Our Truck" campaign; several Time Life and Universal Music infomercials.

Ahead for '07: Besides launching hundreds of hours of viewable video online, Berman-Bogdan says the boutique stock agency "can afford to take more risks and be a bit more nimble than larger organizations, especially in light of the changing dynamics of new media and technology."

Sony Pictures Stock Footage
What's New: "Essentially the way we 'acquire' content is we review the list of movies and TV shows produced by the studio and prioritize those that will yield collections of content," says Brian Merriman, GM/executive director of business development. Collections added this year include the Premium Collection, The Futuristic Collection (including material from Sixth Day, Gattica, Stealth), Cultural Footage/The Asian Culture Collection (including material from Memoirs of a Geisha), Blockbuster Movie Stunts, Pyrotechnics, Award-Winning Cinematography, Exotic Locations and Period Recreations.

Other Areas of Expertise: Creative/conceptual content; travel; nature; stunts/explosions; worldwide city establishers; comprehensive NY coverage; feature quality 35mm content.

Tech Talk: The company's library is tagged with over 2,000,000 attributes and 650,000 keywords. Flash previews allow users to browse a page of clips from the search results page. Users can batch download multiple clips in a single transaction. Digital distribution is allowed directly through the website.

Recent Appearances: Features using footage include Eragon and Rocky Balboa, while spots include eBay "Express It" and lion footage for an Eggo campaign.

Ahead for '07: Merriman reports the company will build on its current online inventory of 85,000 clips - "By summer we will surpass 100,000 clips and will do so by acquiring international footage, overseeing domestic shoots and adding a major new collection."