Alexandre Rotenberg's Brutally Honest Guide to Stock Photography & Footage

A few weeks ago, following my Dutch Sunday Roast with Hugo Kurk, I came away with several things to think about, one of them being his suggestion that I should apply to BlackBox as a stock footage contributor. So I did. Read on to the end and I’ll show you the result of my application.

If you missed Hugo’s reasoning, jump to around 16:00 in the video below:

What is BlackBox actually looking for?

BlackBox makes it pretty clear that acceptance is extremely competitive. That’s a good thing. Just look at microstock, which lets any old trash in and, in return, pays, on average, pittance. I’d rather join an agency that only accepts premium content to be licensed for premium prices, at least that works in theory.

In their own words, they are looking for creators who can produce professional, diverse and distinctive stock footage using a variety of shooting techniques, subjects and points of view.

And, crucially, they want clips with some sort of “WOW” factor. Sounds like I’m auditioning for a game show.

They also stress that your demo reel should contain actual stock footage, rather than client work, corporate videos, wedding footage, vlogs, real-estate videos or other commercial productions. So far, so good.

Technically, the footage needs to be excellent: properly exposed, sharp, steady, well composed, properly colour graded and free from noise, banding, wobble and other digital artefacts. So far so good.

Lastly, the demo reel should be no longer than two minutes, ideally made up of short clips lasting around three to five seconds each.

Building my first BlackBox demo reel

While I had some downtime shooting a live poker tournament, I started digging through my footage archive, including some clips going back to before I even had a drone.

I grabbed a selection of clips that I thought showed some variety, dropped them into a timeline, added some background music and put together a two-minute reel. This was my wonderful submission:

Would you have accepted me based on that reel?

No cheating by scrolling down first.

Drumroll…

BlackBox came back to me remarkably quickly.

It took about one day and the answer was…

Rejected. At least they provided some specific feedback.

Sorry but the DEMO REEL provided is quite general and generic. We are currently looking for creators who can make stock footage that is of very high quality, diverse and distinctive. You can re-apply in 30 days. If you apply again please pay close attention to the info prompts regarding the DEMO REEL criteria. Thank you for your interest.

This is actually useful feedback because it highlights something that is becoming increasingly obvious across stock photography and footage. Being technically good is no longer enough.

There is already an ocean of technically competent footage of cities, beaches, landscapes, people walking around, drone establishing shots and pretty sunsets. The agencies don’t necessarily need more of it.

They need something that gives a buyer a reason to choose your clip instead of the other 50,000 clips sitting beside it.

Looking for inspiration

After receiving the rejection, I contacted Hugo and told him the bad news. He was not so surprised and sent me the showcase reel he had submitted to BlackBox, which was accepted on a first attempt. You can see it here:

Watching his reel immediately gives me something useful to compare against mine. His selection feels much more deliberate with a stronger focus on his “changing world” theme and the voiceover is a nice professional touch.

Mine, in hindsight, probably looks like:

“Here are some nice travel clips I have shot in nice light.” Probably the stuff the have in abundance

Back to the drawing board

The good news is that BlackBox allows me to apply again after 30 days.

One possibility is to forget about trying to demonstrate every different type of footage I have ever shot and instead build the reel around commercial proof.

For example, as a starting point I could simply take perhaps my 10 or 15 best-selling footage clips of all time (which aren’t generic) and build the reel largely around those. After all, those clips have already passed the most important test: somebody actually paid money to license them.

Another option is to lean much harder into my main (competitive) niche: travel.

I’ve flown my drone in six countries and filmed terrestrially double that. So I could create something much more focused around strong travel storytelling, cities, landscapes, infrastructure, transport, coastlines, industrial areas and distinctive aerial perspectives. I can always shoot new stuff.

I’ll think about it and get some feedback from Hugo before pressing the send button.

However, the most important lesson of all came as…

What about Amazing Aerial?

This is a brutally honest blog, even though I promote Amazing Aerial I need to look out for my best interests. If I were to be accepted at Blackbox eventually it would inevitably pose an interesting strategic question of where to upload my stock footage. Picking favourites is never easy since both require exclusivity.

Both models have advantages, let’s look at the pros and cons.

With BlackBox, the distribution fee is around 15%, but I still need to handle much of the preparation and metadata side myself.

With Amazing Aerial, the cut is considerably larger at 50%, but their workflow is extremely slick particularly the AI-assisted keywording system. Pretty much click and drop after inserting some basic information.

I’m getting ahead of myself, let’s get accepted first. By then, I should also have another month of sales data from Amazing Aerial, which should make the comparison considerably more interesting.

Conclusion

So, my first attempt didn’t quite have the WOW factor BlackBox is looking for. Fair enough.

Will it be enough the second time around? We’ll find out.

And if they reject me again, at least I’ll have another blog post. But one thing is for sure, I’ll never give up.

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About Alex

I’m Alex, eccentric, based in Lisbon, and on a mission to explore every corner of the globe while capturing stock images and footage along the way.

For the past 12 years, I’ve been grinding as a travel photographer/videographer and freelance writer. Along the way I’ve also written The Brutally Honest Guide to Microstock Photography, a book packed with war stories and practical tips for anyone crazy enough to enter this business and more recently, The Brutally Honest Guide to Drone Laws in Europe.