Contributor Tips, Inspiration

Contributor Tips: 4K Footage, Cooking Clips, and Other Media to Create

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This month, we’re putting the call out for more quality 4K footage, along with creative video from the kitchen, internationally inspired music, and holiday-themed photos and illustrations. Read on to see what you should be creating for you Pond5 portfolio in the coming weeks.
 

4K Submissions Wanted!

Future proofing your video content in terms of resolution has never been so easy. A few years ago, filming in 4K was still considered a luxury, but today it’s a new standard in the media world. We love how versatile 4K footage is for our filmmaking community, allowing much more then 1080HD in terms of post-production flexibility. We believe that capturing 4K is the easy way to extend the shelf-life for your video content.

4K Apricot Flower Blooming Time Lapse by ivanves
 

Video: In the Kitchen

Being in the kitchen is about so much more than coffee grinders and lit-up stovetops. There’s cutting, chopping, cleaning, braising, sautéing, mixing, blending, drizzling, washing, stirring, boiling, and beyond. Look at how dynamic and engaging this shot of salmon about to be cooked is, for example. You could shoot a piece of fish being laid across a pan in numerous ways, but here the camera follows the delicate action, the lighting is precise, and we can see every little delicious texture and feature of this meal-in-the-making. The footage is as delectable as the food is. Let’s see the process of these meals – and these works of art – come to life!

Salmon And Chilli Delicately Placed Onto Frying Pan by m2films

Of course, there’s something very familiar about the action of turning on a gas stove or brewing a cup of coffee, but at this point we already have many similar clips of kitchen close-ups like these in our collection, and we highly encourage you to explore other scenes and actions in the kitchen to document and sell to your customers.

Kitchen Gas Stove by opa4opa
 

Music: Leaving Rio

With countries like China and the United Kingdom performing well at the Rio Olympics, tracks that are traditional in nature and country-specific will be in demand as the results continue to come in. Keep your eye on the finish line and get inspired to create music representative of different countries and cultures.

River (Chinese Traditional) by EclipseFilms

Thank you all so much for your submissions of various Brazilian music. It was such a treat to dive deep into the rich musical history of that country, and our buyers thought so too! We’re going to pause on accepting most Brazilian music for now, as we got an overwhelming amount sent in over the past few months.

Brazilian Batucada by EpicDrums
 

After Effects: Celebrating Sports Heroes

Also with the Olympics in mind, thematic templates for winners and non-winners alike will be a great hit as people create videos to give tribute to all their athletes.

Awards Show Pack by MartinSivak

However, with the games ending, templates shouldn’t be focused on the sports themselves anymore, but rather on those who participated.

Football by Nic_Design
 

Photos: Plan Ahead!

Christmas — it might seem strange while summer is still on in many parts of the world, but sales of Christmas-related content starts increasing from August. Try to avoid clichés such as gift boxes isolated on white backgrounds (there are 14,000 of those in our database now) in favor of authentic, personal holiday imagery. Let all those smells, tastes, and feelings come through in your photos. Or maybe escaping Christmas is your topic — there are just over 100 of these images in our collection now, so we could definitely use more.

Christmas Hat Hangs On A Branch Tropical Tree
Christmas Hat Hangs on a Branch by Molbert

Light is essential for photography. When there’s no light, there’s no image. And when the light is bad, there aren’t many way to improve it in post0processing. Work with the light as an essential part of creative process. Use its character to bring out the best of the scene. And maybe just put your camera aside and enjoy your meal when the light is low or boring.

Bowl of Rice
Bowl of Rice by Pat1984
 

Illustrations: Cat Day and Other Holidays

Just like photographers, illustrators should also take advantage of all the big holidays coming up in the fall-winter period — especially our personal favorite, Cat Day (coming up on October 29). Buyers are looking into this kind of content months in advance, so start rolling out the festive artwork now.

Halloween Invitation Vintage 2D
Halloween Invitation Vintage 2D by aurielaki

Although it’s getting pretty late to submit and sell artwork for this season’s Back to School season, you can still draw inspiration from the phenomenon of lifelong learning. Look into alternatives to the traditional education system like e-learning, a theme which is relevant all year long!

Distance Learning
Distance Learning by Julia_Tim

Looking for more ideas and inspiration? Check out Contributor Tips from previous months here.

Top image: Salmon by tycoon101