Footage.net, which is a metasearch search engine for stock, archival, and news footage, announced yesterday a new release of its search form and a new industry directory.

The search engine, available at http://footage.net/, lets you do a keyword search for footage and specify whether you want online screeners and text results or just online screeners. You can also narrow your search results by category. I did a phrase search for roller coaster and got over 2000 results from about 20 suppliers, though when I narrowed that down to search results that had online screeners the number of results dropped to just over 250.

Search results include a brief description, supplier, and links to play (if there’s a screener) and e-mail for more information about the clip. One time I could not get a screener to load.

I actually decided to mention this site because of the related directories. There’s an archive directory at http://footage.net/ArchiveDirectory.aspx which lists archive video companies from ABCNEWS VideoSource to WPA Film Library. There’s a supplier archive which seems to echo the archive directory with a few more additions. The directory I really want to see, though, is the researchers directory, which is supposed to be at http://footage.net/ResearcherDirectory.aspx. I say “supposed to” because at the moment it is only
“coming soon…”

You might not think so but metasearch engines for stock footage are serious time sinks, especially if you restrict your results to online screeners and use weird keywords. The time lapse video of the melting chocolate Easter bunny is still freaking me out…