Let’s say you are doing a tribute video to celebrate your parent’s anniversary. You’ve got pictures, a bit of home video or film and appropriate music. But you’d like to add some production elements that enhance the story.
That’s where public domain footage enters the picture.
What is “Public Domain”?
Item in the public domain are items that have expired their copyright period, usually 75 years after the death of the author. Copyright is the ownership established when a copyright is filed with the government, but also is automatically assumed when an item is published by an individual. This ownership can be of anything that is “intellectual property”, most typically books, movies, TV shows, recordings, plays, artwork, etc. It should be noted that legal games are often played to extend copyright– for example, Disney still has the copyright on Mickey Mouse despite he first appearing 92 years ago.
The benefit of public domain materials is that there is often no charge to rent, download or use them. This is a big deal as even “royalty free” film, video, or sound libraries will charge for downloads of regular copywritten stock.
You could add news footage, scenes from old TV shows, even musical performances. It’s all in a place called The Internet Archive (see below). For a family history we did for a client, we interviewed the parents and learned their backgrounds– he had been in the second world war; she was an accomplished office manager. Searching the Internet Archive, we found appropriate footage– newsreel footage of the second world war with narration, and generic 1940’s office scenes that we mixed with pictures of Mom at work. Not only does public domain footage help flesh out your video, it makes it more interesting to less involved (non-relatives) viewers. The footage can be downloaded in several formats that should work with your editing system… make sure you’re downloading the highest resolution for the biggest impact. Give it a try!
Chronologies Need Context
Most tribute videos are chronological in nature. It helps, at various points in the tribute, to use call-outs to the time period being examined. As an example, For a baby-boomer honoree, the fifties and sixties would be the period when they were kids, Chances are they grew up watching Ozzie & Harriet, Leave it to Beaver, The Flintstones, Howdy Doody, etc. The listened to Chuck Berry, The Beatles and the Supremes, and their favorite DJ. They may have watched silly space opera b-movies or old westerns.
Many of these items can be found in the public domain.
Case Study: The Cunninghams Tribute
[tcb-script src=”https://player.vimeo.com/api/player.js”][/tcb-script]
This comprehensive review of married couple’s full life (they were approaching nineties) was commissioned by their adult children. Te goal was simple– tell their life stories in their own words. We did extended interviews with them and their recollections were strong. But in some cases we didn’t have good images or film to accompany what they were saying. And watching a talking head for any length of time without supporting visual cutaways is not good technique. So we went to the public domain footage. When Mr. Cunningham discussed joining the Navy, we found a Navy recruiting film with great footage. When Mrs. Cunningham discussed working in New York in her 30s, we found excellent New York City street and office footage. Her words painted a picture– we colored it in.
Case Study: Veterans’ Memorial Park
[tcb-script src=”https://player.vimeo.com/api/player.js”][/tcb-script]
In Matamoras, PA., a public Memorial Park celebrating the role of local veterans in various world conflicts was due to open. We were asked to produce a video telling the stories of war from veterans of World War II, Korea, and Vietnam. We interviewed veterans from each war and discovered incredible stories as you could imagine. They were able to provide pictures in some cases, but we didn’t have enough material to do justice to their complete stories. The answer was found in a treasure trove a footage from a public domain source of war footage provided free by a quality film library that otherwise would have charged a small fortune for the footage we selected. I’ll discuss the sources of the footage just described below.
Where to Find Public Domain Stock Footage
We are making this content available to our customers and contributors without any charge, so they can rediscover part of mankind’s history and build upon it in their creative projects. We have designated Content on the Website as being “Public Domain Content” when we believe that it is in the public domain under the laws of the United States, meaning there are no copyright restrictions over that content.
Pond5 started this public domain project in 2015, and all you have to do is create a free account to start downloading.
Prelinger Archives at Archive.org
All over the world, “industrial” (corporate) video producers make films for companies on organizations– new product intros, travelogues, training films, market studies, fund-raising efforts, and more. “Prelinger Archives was founded in 1983 by Rick Prelinger in New York City. Over the next twenty years, it grew into a collection of over 60,000 “ephemeral” (advertising, educational, industrial, and amateur) films…Prelinger Archives remains in existence, holding approximately 11,000 digitized and videotape titles (all originally derived from film) and a large collection of home movies, amateur and industrial films acquired since 2002″.
The Internet Archive Moving Image Archive
Another collection located at archive.org. “Our goal in digitizing these movies and putting them online is to provide easy access to a rich and fascinating core collection of archival films. By providing near-unrestricted access to these films, we hope to encourage widespread use of moving images in new contexts by people who might not have used them before.”
Anyone can upload to the Internet Archive, so you may want to do a bit of searching re: copyright status, but some categories, like ephemeral films and film trailers, should be safe.
5. The National Screening Room
This project was created by the Library of Congress National Audio-Visual Conservation Center to showcase their vast collection of otherwise unavailable movies. They hold many interesting historical and cultural documents, mostly filmed in the USA during the 20th century. It is a good source for finding educational and research material which covers that context. Most of the titles are available in both 5 MB MP4 and ProRes 422 MOV/Quicktime download formats.
8. The National Archives: Motion Picture, Sound, and Video Holdings
They house a huge number of diverse film reels, sound recordings, and video recordings. They’ve several videos created or produced by the US government, which are all considered to be in the public domain. However, not all the videos available here are in the public domain. And several public domain videos are not available online, which may incur extra costs. So be mindful of the terms of usage of the videos you choose.
If you are looking for public domain footage around space exploration, NASA is a great resource. It holds a lot of material produced by the government, like texture maps and polygon data used to create 3-dimensional models. These fall under the public domain and are free to use “for educational or informational purposes, including photo collections, textbooks, public exhibits, computer graphical simulations and Internet Web pages.” However, if you are using it for commercial purposes, you cannot “explicitly or implicitly convey NASA’s endorsement of commercial goods or services.”
What Do You Think?
Before the internet, the only way to get your hands on public domain material was by studiously looking through bargain bin VHS’s, and later, DVD’s. If they were cheap and the packaging was ugly, chances were that was public domain material being thrown on the market for a quick buck. But now, you have resources. How would you use public domain footage? Do you think it’s a good idea. Questions and comments are welcomed below!
