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The Footage Log

Licensing, archives and research, entry by entry

The log / period

2026

Nine entries written between 10/02/2026 and 12/09/2026. The year opens on the question that comes before every other one, whether to licence a shot or go and film it. The spring was then spent on sources and money: where archive material is actually held, and why the same clip carries different prices on different days. From May onward the subject shifts to method, briefing a researcher, choosing between suppliers, getting results out of a catalogue, and finally to what all of it is for in the edit. September returns to sources with the question that precedes the licence: where the material actually comes from, and how a clip can be read as the decade it claims.

Entries
9
First
Latest

September 20262 entries

  1. Provenance before the licence: checking where archival material comes from

    The four kinds of record that make up a paper trail, how to check a document's origin before paying, and why small specialist archives show their workings.

    ArchiveResearch9 min read

  2. What makes a clip read as 1940s: a buyer's look at period images

    The cues that make footage read as its decade, how the noir image was built on set, and the checks to run before paying for a period clip.

    ArchiveCraft9 min read

August 20261 entry

  1. What b-roll is for, and what makes a shot worth licensing

    Six jobs, the difference between coverage and filler, and the three technical points that decide whether archive b-roll can be cut at all.

    Craft8 min read

July 20261 entry

  1. How to search a footage database and actually find the shot

    Rewrite the request as a filmed event, then let the filters do the work. Plus the tactics that only apply to archives.

    ResearchMethod9 min read

June 20261 entry

  1. Choosing a footage library for documentary work

    Seven criteria, five kinds of supplier, and why a documentary buys a chain of title rather than a shot.

    Suppliers9 min read

May 20261 entry

  1. The nine lines a footage research request needs

    A brief a stranger can search from: subject, period, place, people, shots, format, license scope, dates and scale.

    ResearchTemplate9 min read

April 20261 entry

  1. What footage costs, and why nobody can quote it in the abstract

    Nine variables move a quote, and the clip fee is only one row of the budget. Plus the real comparison between licensing and shooting.

    Money10 min read

March 20261 entry

  1. Where archival and newsreel footage actually lives

    National collections, newsreel libraries and the commercial archive houses, and how to tell a rights holder from a custodian.

    ArchiveSources10 min read

February 20261 entry

  1. License it or shoot it: comparing the two costs honestly

    The clip fee against the day rate is the wrong comparison. What each side really carries, the four cases where a shoot cannot compete, and the reuse question that settles the rest.

    MoneyProduction10 min read

How the year was spent

Entries by month and subject
MonthEntriesFocus
September2Provenance and period images
August1Editing craft
July1Research method
June1Choosing suppliers
May1Research method
April1Money
March1Sources
February1Money

Latest log entries

Recent additions to the footage research log.