(This post continues “MICROSTOCK: the beginning” and shares our experience at AND Inc. in trading visual content, within one of the most innovative and successful online industries over the last years.)

By the end of 2006, our microstock honeymoon was over.

After the first PayPal transactions the “easy money”excitement was fading. Between the three websites we used at that time: Shutterstock, IStockphoto and Dreamstime; the cumulative monthly payment rarely amounted to cover a cable TV bill. Even if it was fun to do it, the time spent on posting content was extensive and contributing hard to justify as reasonable income source. Shaking down the couch pillows or selling used stuff on eBay felt more lucrative then uploading and key-wording batches of photos and illustrations.

Now what?

I returned to Google this time with the keywords: “sell” + “video, footage, animation”.

As expected at the top of the list were the websites we already sold (for pennies) photography and 3d illustrations. As contributor on both, I knew that Shutterstock offered stock footage since April 2006 and IStockphoto since September the same year, however never tried to open a videographer account with any of them. The reason was simple: what we do at AND Inc. is Architectural Visualization – our 3d animations are not actual (film) clips. I assumed there was no real place for CG in what I saw as a video world dominated by portfolios with exceptional motion-picture quality footage. Even if it was working with 3d illustrations (mainly object modeling) augmenting our travel photography portfolio, my feeling was that our specialty: CG and 3d architectural modeling were not serious contenders to monetize a hobby and coin it into “real” money. By December 2006 I was sure (with or without animations) 3d won’t help us make the transition from pennies to paper, in the microstock world.

Then Adrian showed me one of his test videos.

He experiments on small personal projects various plug-ins or animation techniques. Before deleting into oblivion the generating 3DS MAX models, he gives me the chance to take a look, in his words: “just to make sure you know what can be done before the files disappear in the (digital) netherworlds”. This time it was a take on DaVinci’s Vitruvian Man:

“Wow! This might work as stock video.” I actually loved it. “We still need a few more to apply for a videographer account,” I said.
“Like what?”
“Like globes: everyone does rotating 3d globes,” and I pointed to a few examples online. “Just make it look different.”
After a few hours Adrian came up with his take on the subject:

One week later we became video contributors and soon our monthly cumulative payments morphed from the “cable TV bill” amount to the “family health care premium” size. With microstock video, we finally graduated the “coins” class. We were now in the “paper money” range. It was February 2007 and things didn’t look as bright in construction.

One year later, in 2008 and with a video contributor account on the newly opened Pond5, we stumbled upon the chance to transform an economic downturn in the opportunity of a lifetime, and made me a believer that if one Googles enough, what does not kill the business makes it stronger. (Pun intended, and my apologies to Nietzsche.)

More on 3d footage and meeting a new type of video client in the microstock trading environment – all in future posts.

Until then, be well.