Best Websites for Stock Footage and Music
Have you ever been in the situation where you forgot to film a certain b-roll clip and you need it for your final edit. Or maybe you’re struggling to find the perfect background music for your YouTube video. Well, look no further because I’m going to give you my favorite websites for finding all of that!
Stock footage
Believe me, I’ve had this problem more times than I’d like to admit. No one is perfect, we all forget to film clips sometimes. For those times when you need a specific action, let’s say dribbling a basketball, the best place to find a clip to use is Storyblocks. Storyblocks has one of the largest online libraries of 100% Royalty-Free stock footage. They have great flexible payment options so whether you’re by yourself or you have an entire company, there’s an option for you! The footage is all professional, and high quality up to 4K and even offer 360 degree/VR videos. Once you download the footage, they’re yours to keep and use forever! And every download is compatible with all the most popular editing softwares, such as Adobe Premiere Pro, Final Cut Pro and DaVinci Resolve.
Motion Array and ArtGrid
Motion Array is essentially the same thing as Storyblocks, although their selection of video clips is more limited. Pricing across all three of these services is comparable, however ArtGrid stands out in one way. Instead of just having a bunch of random clips you can select from, you’re able to select clips from an entire sequence. Going back to the example of dribbling a basketball, on ArtGrid, you’ll be able to get the dribbling, but you’ll also find the player lacing up their shoes, walking into the gym, shooting, stealing the ball from an opponent. You could edit and entire story from the footage you download off of Art Grid.
Music
Royalty free music is extremely important in today's social media world. Getting copyright claims can be harmless sometimes, but if you have intent of making money off your videos, you’ll need to find a library of royalty free music. The first two that I’ll mention today are Epidemic Sound and MusicBed. These are the two that I personally use and love. Epidemic sound has over 35,000 songs to choose from! Their playlists can not be beat, they curate some of the best playlists I’ve seen. This makes it very easy to find songs that I want to use. I find that Epidemic Sound has been my go-to for mostly YouTube “talking head” videos. They have a lot of good background music, and with their commercial plan, you can easily clear every video of a copyright claim so you’ll never have to worry about being flagged on YouTube again!
MusicBed
This is another service I use in addition to Epidemic Sound. They have great playlists as well, and some by YouTube creators which I think is awesome! The main thing I’ve noticed about MusicBed is that their music just seems a bit higher quality. It’s music that I would just put on in the car and listen to. I cant’t say that about every royalty free music service. The other main thing I use MusicBed for is to find wedding music. As wedding videographers, the song choice is crucial for the full experience, and MusicBed has the best wedding songs by far, in my opinion.
These are the top few services that I would recommend for royalty free stock footage and music. If you have any questions, we’d love to hear from you!