What’s the going rate for licensing skateboarding video?
September 20, 2021 6:08 AM Subscribe
I’ve reached out to a local skate crew about licensing some video from them for a two-minute music video. I have a small budget to get the footage. What’s a fair offer to license the footage from them?
• They have a videographer in the crew.
• I would be licensing maybe 20 minutes of footage for the video, which would be 2:06.
• They would retain the rights to all the raw video footage they send me. I would only have the rights to my edit of the video.
• They would get credit in the video.
I have a small budget (low three digits) and I want to make sure that what I quote them is a fair price. With all of this in mind, what would be a fair ask?
• They have a videographer in the crew.
• I would be licensing maybe 20 minutes of footage for the video, which would be 2:06.
• They would retain the rights to all the raw video footage they send me. I would only have the rights to my edit of the video.
• They would get credit in the video.
I have a small budget (low three digits) and I want to make sure that what I quote them is a fair price. With all of this in mind, what would be a fair ask?
Best answer: Some years back I was walking with my wife and a new baby in a carriage, and coming down the sidewalk the other way were half a dozen skaters. When they were fifteen feet ahead of us the one in front yelled, "Hold it, guys!" They all dismounted, picked up their boards and walked past, and they smiled and a couple said our new baby looked nice.
I was impressed and happy.
A few years later I was asked to be on the design committee for a new park in our area, and it was to include a skate park. (That was partly my fault, but that's a longer story.)
There was a lot of talk at the first meeting about what to do about the pack of antisocial thugs we had to deal with, from the nearby old folks drop-in center, the police, the science center guys, and the people who didn't want a skate park in their park. It wasn't safe, would need police patrols, there'd be violence.
I was pretty sure it wasn't like that. I had only the one experience, but I was pretty certain, and I did my best to explain that. Maybe that helped.
It pretty soon became apparent that the skaters were the only reasonable people involved. The police were arrogant and one of the other guys on the committee, who was about seventy and very respectable, turned to me and said, "I thought these assholes worked for us." The old folks people were nice and intelligent, but a bit paranoid. The science center guys said they were worried about noise because it turned out they wanted the entirety of the park to be made into a giant parking lot, and they wouldn't budge. It also turned out that they'd neglected to put sound insulation in their building.
The skaters were nice and weren't going to screw this up. People warmed up to them, and after a while an interesting bit of trivia came up. The city hadn't wanted a skate park on public land, because they were worried about lawsuits. What if a skater got hurt and sued someone? So they'd had their legal team check out lawsuits brought by skaters.
There weren't any. There had never been a single lawsuit brought by a skater in North America.
This still amazes me, and it was enough to get our refined and intelligent city government to listen. And eventually, after some bargaining and last minute reprieves, they built it.
The point here is that skaters aren't idiots or difficult, they see themselves as people dedicated to a sport, and they know what it's like to be treated badly and pushed aside. They're reasonable. Skaters routinely give old gear and advice to younger skaters. I've seen them shoveling a foot of snow out of the park in winter so they can skate until it snows again. They're not perfect, but they impressed me more than most of the people the committee had to deal with.
Explain how much money you have, and that you're not going to get rich on this, and ask if they'll work with you. I'm pretty sure they will.
posted by AugustusCrunch at 12:52 PM on September 20, 2021 [9 favorites]
I was impressed and happy.
A few years later I was asked to be on the design committee for a new park in our area, and it was to include a skate park. (That was partly my fault, but that's a longer story.)
There was a lot of talk at the first meeting about what to do about the pack of antisocial thugs we had to deal with, from the nearby old folks drop-in center, the police, the science center guys, and the people who didn't want a skate park in their park. It wasn't safe, would need police patrols, there'd be violence.
I was pretty sure it wasn't like that. I had only the one experience, but I was pretty certain, and I did my best to explain that. Maybe that helped.
It pretty soon became apparent that the skaters were the only reasonable people involved. The police were arrogant and one of the other guys on the committee, who was about seventy and very respectable, turned to me and said, "I thought these assholes worked for us." The old folks people were nice and intelligent, but a bit paranoid. The science center guys said they were worried about noise because it turned out they wanted the entirety of the park to be made into a giant parking lot, and they wouldn't budge. It also turned out that they'd neglected to put sound insulation in their building.
The skaters were nice and weren't going to screw this up. People warmed up to them, and after a while an interesting bit of trivia came up. The city hadn't wanted a skate park on public land, because they were worried about lawsuits. What if a skater got hurt and sued someone? So they'd had their legal team check out lawsuits brought by skaters.
There weren't any. There had never been a single lawsuit brought by a skater in North America.
This still amazes me, and it was enough to get our refined and intelligent city government to listen. And eventually, after some bargaining and last minute reprieves, they built it.
The point here is that skaters aren't idiots or difficult, they see themselves as people dedicated to a sport, and they know what it's like to be treated badly and pushed aside. They're reasonable. Skaters routinely give old gear and advice to younger skaters. I've seen them shoveling a foot of snow out of the park in winter so they can skate until it snows again. They're not perfect, but they impressed me more than most of the people the committee had to deal with.
Explain how much money you have, and that you're not going to get rich on this, and ask if they'll work with you. I'm pretty sure they will.
posted by AugustusCrunch at 12:52 PM on September 20, 2021 [9 favorites]
This thread is closed to new comments.
posted by Jairus at 7:13 AM on September 20, 2021