Video Sources

So you've decided to ruin your life by becoming a video artist. Great! You have grown the ironic moustache and have shrugged on the ugly sweater vest and are all ready for your first gig! But wait… where are you going to get your videos from? You can't just point a webcam at your face for the whole show like you do when you're practising at home (you totally can and that's totally fine). Sooner or later though you're going to need some video clips.

I'm going to quickly mention that I do not condone media theft or illegal downloading. I think there is definitely some wiggle room when it comes to artistic interpretation, remix culture, fair use, and parody, just don't just rock up to a show and play the latest Hollywood blockbuster you downloaded from The Pirate Bay and blame me if you get busted. I would totally download a car though.

Free Sources

Pexels

Pexels is a source for stock images and videos. I use the site all the time for testing out quick ideas for synths or shaders or getting some thematic flow going. The quality is pretty damned good and the price is free. You can of course tip the creator a coffee if you want - which you should do if you're going to use their work in a performance.

The Internet Archive

Where would be without The Internet Archive? It has thousands of gigabytes of archival video footage just waiting to be examined and explored, prodded and broken. Prelinger Archives is a fantastic place to start.

Prelinger Archives remains in existence, holding approximately 20,000 digitized titles (all originally derived from film) and a large collection of home movies, amateur and industrial films acquired since 2002. Its primary collection emphasis has turned toward home movies and amateur films, with approximately 30,000 items held as of Fall 2023. Its goal remains to collect, preserve, and facilitate access to films of historic significance that haven't been collected elsewhere. Included are films produced by and for many hundreds of important US corporations, nonprofit organizations, trade associations, community and interest groups, and educational institutions.

Just search around and you're bound to find something that strikes a chord with your creative process.

YouTube

You can use tools such as youtube-dl or yt-dlp to download videos directly from YouTube. I'm not 100% on the legality of doing so but the platform is public and it is user-generated content so using video from YT should technically be the same as watching videos on the sofa on your laptop with friends. I don't know, I am not a lawyer. If you are going to grab video from YT then be sparing with it I would say.

Your Parents

Have a dig about at your old home and see if your parents have a pile of VHS videos you can record and rip the adverts from. Maybe some old news reports. Your college graduation or Great Aunt Mabel's 80th birthday where she drank too much sherry and set fire to the dining room window curtains. All of it is ripe for the harvest. Getting analogue sources onto a harddrive can be a challenge but you could always just point your phone at the TV to begin with.

I have a pile of old 8mm footage that spans about 80s years of other peoples' lives that I bought bulk lots of over a couple of years on eBay 15 years ago that I had digitised for another project. It's unlikely that anyone will have seen the footage on those reels/tapes/discs before and they always have a charming comfy vibe.

Go Outside

Wander the neighbourhood with a phone or old '00s digicam and using a fresh pair of eyes get some new footage to play with. I know it's hard but I promise it's worth it. Some of my favourite footage is from a neon-lit carwash in the North of England I took on my phone almost 10 years ago and various collections of subway rides around the world.

Film Your Own

The same as going outside but you get to stay inside! Visual artist processing_____________ does some really beautiful work using glass, water, and light which not only looks good on its own is really something else when they mix sources during a show. Wow. Get a torch and your cutlery out and film the ceiling and walls as you play the beam off it.

Get AI to do it

I dunno, AI is in everything these days. I saw a live stream of Yovozol preparing for a Halloween show by creating a bunch of clips in ComfyUI. Not all AI is bad but all bad AI has been poorly utilised. For certain values of free. The software and models are free but the cost comes in terms of the time to research which tool to use, the time it takes to learn how to use that tool effectively, and the cost of the hardware you need to run it.

The Wider Internet wink wink

I am not going to go into how you might obtain other video material on the internet. I am definitely not going to tell you about newsgroups or torrents in particular.

Not So Free Sources

Video Packs

Ron over at Sleepy Circuits has a bunch of excellent free and small fee curated video packs by established video artists for you to download and get creating with. My personal favourites are Cinema AV's Radia II and Particle Into Waves' Goopy Gradients

Hiring an Artist

If you've got the bucks to flash and an artistic itch to scratch that you just can't reach yourself maybe you should find someone who can. There are plenty of artists out there who would love nothing more than to take on a freelance project filming something for you.

What Next?

There's a part two of an undefined number of these rambling posts to do with video here.