Philadelphia based Director of Photography Mitch Martinez thought the world needed access to more 4K footage for free. So, he collected clips he shot from all over the United States and created a catalog with over 35 different categories of footage on his website just for that. An even cooler aspect of this collection: it's free for commercial use as well.
I'm not sure how many video editors read Fstoppers, but I know those of you that do are either jumping up and down, or wondering if this is a mean trick. No, it's true. You can use Martinez's 4K video clips for free in your commercial videos. I know you were scratching your head as to where you could find amazing footage of fireballs without blowing up your office. Well, now you know!
Yes, these clips are free, but Martinez has a license agreement set in place so that you won't try to resell his content. He recently updated the agreement forms to make it a much quicker process for you to get the videos. Some of the biggest companies in the world, including Microsoft, Nike, HBO, NBC Universal, Samsung, just to name a few, have used these clips. The entire library is licensed out on a per project basis; if you have multiple projects, just fill out multiple forms. All of the footage was captured on a RED Epic Dragon, RED Epic MX, or RED One MX for the earliest clips.
I'm here to help. It's very rewarding to contribute to the film community, the entertainment of people, and even educational applications. It's kind of a "day off" type of thing. When I filmed the "film category" with the 8mm film projector and film reels and turntable, those shots were done over the course of three or four days at 1 a.m. after a full day of work each day (while I still had some energy); so, I turned on some lights, booted up the camera, and had some fun with it.
Thanks Martinez, I'm definitely going to be hitting you up for those awesome water shots! Check out more of Martinez's film work and reels.
Wow, awesome. Very thankful!
Well... this is great and sounds too well to be true... a few months ago a client of mine wanted to use one of his clips for educational use and we didn't get the agreement from Martinez... never knew why.
The most common reason for a license agreement not being issued is due to insufficient information or erroneous entries. In those cases, the user is notified of the issue and encouraged to resubmit the license agreement request form. The form is set up with many qualifiers that help the user submit a request that will be approved. The approval rate is well over 95% and rejection is rare.
Also, for strictly educational purposes (editing practice and similar), a license agreement is not required since it is not a commercial usage.
More detailed information is in the FAQ and Terms of Use on the website.
Get free commercial video footage -- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mkZqsasHGnU
where are the 1500 free video clips ?