Directors, artists, and editors are constantly finding innovative ways to utilize stock footage to bring their ideas to life while saving a ton of time and money in the process. Stock footage can enrich a production while eliminating difficult and expensive shots.
The creative minds below took this process many steps further, utilizing vast amounts of stock footage to create unique art of an entirely new category. Read on for some of the most creative uses of stock footage in music videos.
1. “Go Up” by Cassius
https://vimeo.com/212722584
The inventive split-screen music video for “Go Up” juxtaposes unlikely combinations of stock footage to provoke and entertain. Paris-based director Alex Courtès undoubtedly spent hours poring over footage to find the inspired and unexpected pairings for this video. The clips match aesthetically while being diametrically opposed.
Other times they evoke the literal imagery of the lyrics in satisfying ways, like when a swimmer seemingly walks into the space occupied by a pregnant woman’s womb during the line “like a child’s balloon filled with helium.” Confused? Intrigued? We’re pretty sure Courtès wouldn’t have it any other way. The catchy French house song by duo Cassius is boosted by the precision of collaborators Pharrell Williams and Cat Power.
Check out Courtès’ latest work on his website.
2. “You Can’t Be My Girl” by Darwin Deez
Keith Schofield’s hilarious and endlessly watchable music video for the Darwin Deez single “You Can’t Be My Girl” is composed entirely of stock footage combined with Deez himself. The stock footage chosen is specifically curated to juxtapose Deez’s foreboding stares with the postcard happiness demonstrated by the women, couples, and families originally at the focus of the stock footage.
The singer croons and lingers in the background, watching these people unflinchingly smile through a variety of the most common stock footage scenarios, flipping this cheery and straightforward footage on its head. As the story evolves so will your appreciation of the cinematic wit on display. Hats off to Schofield, who executes some of the best use of chroma key we’ve even seen.
Follow Darwin Deez here, and check out Schofield’s equally impressive videos on his website.
3. “Bound 2” by Kanye West
Heavy-hitters like Kanye aren’t shying away from using stock footage – in fact, he and the director (fashion photographer Nick Knight) embrace stock footage wholeheartedly in their sensational music video for “Bound 2.” It cuts together sweeping landscapes and clips of galloping horses to create a highly specific vision, and then abruptly forces the established imagery to the background as the samples disappear, the track shifts, and Kanye himself arrives, deadly serious.
Heralded (admittedly with a tone of comedic enthusiasm) as “the highest form of art” by Alicia Lu over at The Blot, “Bound 2” carves out a niche for itself, revitalizing the medium of music videos with its use of stock footage and embracing irony as “esoteric contemporary art.”
See more of Nic Knight’s photos and films on his website.
4. “Up&Up” by Coldplay
You don’t get nominated for a Grammy for “Best Music Video” by accident. The stunning technical achievement on display in the music video for Coldplay’s “Up&Up” cannot be overstated. Directors Vania Heymann and Gal Muggia created a surreal and imaginative world by compositing stock footage together.
The visual extravaganza serves up a nonstop feast of surreal imagery, making literal giants out of the band as they tower 700 feet tall in the midst of mountains and fields. Stock footage is combined in truly dazzling ways: You won’t tire of seeing a crowded sea barge floating in a bathtub, or a gargantuan eagle spreading its wings in the depths of the ocean.
Head over to the respective websites of Gal Muggia and Vania Heymann to see more of their work.
5. “Nangs” by Tame Impala
Full disclosure: This isn’t the “official” music video for Tame Impala’s song “Nangs,” and the stock footage used is still splashed with watermarks (or, perhaps, the editor simply kept them in as an artistic wink to the viewer).
This “stock footage nightmare,” edited together by filmmaker Ben Aston, has been viewed over 35,000 times on Vimeo due to its mesmerizing and disconcerting take on the standard stock footage office workplace. Expertly combining prolonged slow-motion shots of office parties and confusing, uncomfortable scenarios, Aston’s deranged vision speaks to the sheer versatility of stock footage.
Navigate here to see more of Aston’s work.
When you’re working on your next project, browse Shutterstock’s vast catalogue of stock footage and get the shots you need without traveling the world, acquiring permits, and eating up your budget.