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.