By Andrew Bloomenthal.

This article is a paid advertorial. We were commissioned to review the following website, but the opinions stated are ours.

VideoBlocks is a members-only site offering a one-stop shop for stock video.

Our members enjoy access to our Unlimited Library and our Global Marketplace.

For a monthly fee of $79, VideoBlocks (www.videoblocks.com) offers customers unlimited downloads of royalty-free stock footage, motion backgrounds and after effects templates. And while presumably the service is primarily aimed at film editors looking for quick and easy access to B-roll footage, the material available may equally provide creative inspiration for screenwriters. So Creative Screenwriting checked out the site, to see how it works, and what it offers.

Still from Digital Flow

Footage

The core of the site is its stock footage, and this may be browsed through the following 15 categories:

• Aerial
• Animals
• Business and Professions
• Effects and Lower Thirds
• Food and Beverage
• Historical and Archival
• Holidays and Celebrations
• Nature
• People
• Places and Landmarks
• Slow Motion
• Sports and Recreation
• Technology
• Time Lapse
• Transportation

Each of these categories is then sortable via the following filters:

• Most relevant
• Highest rated
• Most downloaded
• Most recent
• Trending now
• Undiscovered

Still from Eye with Tears

Each category displays 40 color thumbnails per scrollable page. All images are captioned with vivid descriptions, such as “Slow Motion Money on Fire”, “Dolly Shot of Scientists Working in a Laboratory”, “Divers Watch Big Sea Turtle Swim Away”, or “Computer Circuits”.

The selection in each category is vast, so that you will almost certainly find footage for most situations. For example, the keyword search “Lion” pulled up at 78 lion thumbnails. These were not only of the expected land animal, but also sea lions, and indeed, a search can often yield unexpected rewards. For example, searching for “Duck” yields 145 results, but they’re not all just of mallards; also found were “Daisy in the Florida Everglades”, “Cute Ducklings on Grassy Riverbank”, “Sunset over Pine Trees”, and “Dogs on Boat Passing Pelicans”.

Every stock footage clip features useful technical specs. For example, the clip called “Lion Lays Down in Shade” lists the following information:

HD MOV: (MJPEG), 1920 x 1080 – 287.2 MB

HD MP4: (H.264), 1920 x 1080 – 17.9 MB

Frame Rate: 29.97 fps

Duration: 0:11

Filename: lion-lays-down-in-shade_ZJH3bPFlH.mov

Model Released: No

Property Released: No

Downloads: 375

Rating: Five out of Five Stars

Still from Clock

After Effects

Although the After Effects function is not the main feature of the site, it is nevertheless well worth a mention, as it is an excellent  way of creating dazzling animated titles. To use it, you simply enter your title into any of the various templates.

For example, with the “Logo Pieces” template, shards of metal shower down and come together to form your title:

Logo Pieces

“Particle Swirl” resembles Tinkerbell drawing the Disney logo:

Particle Swirl

And the “Armored” template stamps your title in riveted metal:

Armored

Free Trial

Still not sure whether or not VideoBlocks is for you? Have no fear, for you can try before you buy, with a free 7-day trial membership. This does require a credit card, however, and if you don’t go on to buy a subscription you will need to proactively cancel your membership.

The Final Word

VideoBlocks is useful and easy-to-use application. If you are looking to build a pitching reel, then it will be an invaluable asset. It has a huge range of footage, whilst we particularly enjoyed using the After Effects templates. And even if you’re just searching for inspiration, a subscription will certainly give you a lot to look at.