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Underground > Art, Fashion & Design >

Free Video Archives? (making Gibsonian footage)

20:53 / 23.03.03

So, there's this thread in magic about using footage (ala Pattern Recognition) as a magic tool.

Which got me thinking that it would be fun to just download a bunch of stock footage and try my hand at splicing it into arty little shorts. Video collage type stuff. Not exactly what they do in the book, but whatever.

So I searched for free video clips, and mostly I found places that wanted you to pay. Anyone know where there's free clips to be downloaded?

And does anyone reccomend one video editing program over another?

21:30 / 23.03.03

I haven't really come up with any free video resources that are worth anything...generally too much work to give out for free...at least if it's quality. If it's for personal use, I don't know if you'd be able to get your hands on comps or low-res versions of it, but adobe has video cds tha have cool clips. I'd search their site.

As far as production, I'd use After Effects (another Abobe app) to put a vid together. You could take layered files from photoshop[ and mix it with video clips. Final Cur Pro is also pretty good. I've yet to mess with it too much, but it seems fairly intuitive.

Possibly worth mention is iMovie from Apple if you want a software package with a consumer bent...'course most of these mentions are for use on a Mac.

It also sounds like Flash might be a good way to go. You could create vector art and import it as well as jpgs and the like spliced in. I create most web deployed work in it and it has quite a big user base. You could create lots of shapes, color shifts, etc. with the tools available. My friend put together some abstract visuals with clips of audio to a similar effect and it was pretty cool.

10:02 / 25.03.03

Free video downloads can be found at the Prelinger Archives. It's historical stuff so it may not be exactly what you're thinking of, but there's loads of it so I should think there'll be something useful.

10:12 / 25.03.03

Also, most modern, digital video cameras and many digital still cameras will make MPEGs and the like. If you could borrow one of those you could roll your own.

12:28 / 25.03.03

The Pathe site has huge amounts of clips and it was free the last time I looked, worth checking out.

03:05 / 02.04.03

Thank you very much for the link back to Prelinger. I'd heartily reccomend "Make Mine Freedom", a charming cartoon that very accuratley details what makes America great, and in the current climate, how fast they're falling (I was sold from the titles, where the words "make mine freedom" appear next to the Statue of Liberty). And check out "Perversion for Profit, Part 1" to see the most warped defender of family values ever. He blames the cavalcade of pronographic filth (90% percent of which will apparently land in the hands of Your Children) on demonic tools like the printing press. Then he spends most of his time showing you the very pornography that will corrupt you. Golden.

Now, a favor, if I may. I'm looking for clips of news footage. Preferably Canadian or British, but at this point, any news will do (although I'm bent more towards issues of politics, health scares, and budget cuts to social programs). thanks.

21:15 / 03.04.03

Well, if you just want to see British news footage, as Bear said, go to British Pathe. The free stuff is quite low-res and watermarked but like I said, if you just want to see it, go there.

You can find more about Pathe and a lot of other British sources at BUFVC newsreels. They come personally recommended ;-)

13:56 / 05.04.03

Archive.org is very good indeed. Check this page for more websites with free footages. The software, Resolume, is a good non-linear (live) video creation software worth checking out too. Also VJCentral has a good links section here.