Online clip service by the Nederlands Institute for Sound and Vision

Date: Friday 26 February 2010

The Nederlands Institute of Sound and Vision has recently launched a new online clipservice. Simply put, it is an online platform where professionals can search for unique Dutch material in an extremely easy way, in order to reuse in their programmes or other visual expressions. At this moment there are already 700 clips online (divided into subjects such as Dutch nature and geography, sports, royalty and Second World War) ranging in length from 10 seconds to 3 minutes.
As can be expected a substantial process preceded this outcome. AV & Entertainment Magazine spoke to Michael Spendel, Manager Broadcast Professionals of Sound and Vision.

Anyone that visits the famous - colourful - building of the Nederlands Institute for Sound and Vision will be impressed. The building is impressive. A look downwards ensures the visitor of a view of the upper floors of the archive. This archive is huge, but it’s not all there is. Below the ground you are faced with more levels of audiovisualmaterial that has been preserved over the years in the archives of Sound and Vision. To request footage for reuse has always been possible, but with the launch of Dutchfootage.com it has become easier than ever. Search, preview, download and checkout can be with a few simple mouse clicks.

Clip sale
The site is very organized and is filled with new clips every week. It creates a new dimension of jobs for Michael Spendel and his department Broadcast Professionals: “Our department fullfills two main tasks. First, we provide services to the broadcasters. Here at Sound and Vision we have the archive of the public broadcasters. They can still ask for a tape the oldfashioned way when they want to use it, but more and more of the archive is being digitalized.
Therefore the website is a logical step, because professionals can watch the clips online, read the description and the desired material can be download and checked out without our intervention.”
The second main task for Spendel and his department is the sales of clips. “The sales of complete programmes is handled by the broadcasters themselves, but when a broadcaster like RTL wishes to use clip of the news edition, it will be handled by this deparment. We’re dealing with thousands of clips on a yearly basis. The commercial broadcasters form the largest group of customers for our deparment, but also producers, museums, ministeries and companies are regular customers as well. So are foreign broadcasters like the BBC, VRT and ZDF.”

Digital
In the old days a selection was made of the programmes that where saved in the archives and which weren’t. Now, in the digital era, everything is being kept, so Spendel tells us: “Since 2006, everything is stored digitally without tapes, and everything really means everything. So for example we have all of the Lingo’s from 2006 in our archives. Maybe it will never be used , but you can never know.”
On Dutchfootage.com a first selection of Dutch subjects has been made, which will be useful for domestic and foreign broadcasters. These include historical as well as current material.  This has  become available from different collections such as Polygoon, the Dutch government, science films and public broadcasting. The clips can be downloaded in different resolutions after payment, but before that it is possible to download a lowres version of the clip. In determining the pricing for the downloads the sort of reuse is taken into account. For instance, will it be used by a national or regional broadcastar? Or is the use for profit or non-profit purposes and how big is the ultimate range?

Accessible
Dutchfootage.com went online in September, but the process to realize the website started much earlier. Spendel: “A year ago the first preparations began. We had to write down how we felt it should look like and we have done some extensive market research. Because there were already websites who did something similar, we had to see if there was still a place for us and how we could distinguish ourselves. We also wanted that the website was clear and accessible for everyone, and eventually we succeeded in that.” The factors with which the website distinguishes itself the most is according to Spendel in a number of things. “The subdivision in subjects for example, we focus on the Dutch material and typical Dutch themes. Of course, many other websites also have clips from Amsterdam and windmills or other Dutch subjects, and to come up with new issues about The Netherlands was not really a possibility. But lately we have spoken with Getty Images and the BBC – these are major international players in this field – and they were delighted to hear about our archive, exactly because of its simplicity and accesibility. A thing that also doesn’t occur very often is that the purchase process is this easy to complete. On the other larger footage sites you still have to clear the image rights by yourself, and you can’t immediately start downloading or you still have to call somebody. We are one of the few who have already dealt with all these legal issues. It’s really just a matter of searching, downloading and you’re ready for reuse.”