How to sell time-lapse stock footage

Selling time-lapse footage: what the agencies allow

A time-lapse is built from photographs, and agencies are wary of videos made from photos. None of them publishes a rule dedicated to time-lapse, but each one shows where it stands.

Shutterstock never names time-lapse in its still-photo standard, but its other pages are clear. The clip length article gives a time-lapse of a team brainstorming meeting, about 19 seconds long, as an example of acceptable length, and among its tips for keeping clips within 5 to 60 seconds lists: “Consider shooting timelapse or hyperlapse video.” Its VR article shows a time-lapse shot through an extreme fisheye lens as acceptable.

Pond5 says the most about demand. Its creative brief of December 2023 calls “Timelapse” “a considerable and noteworthy evergreen category on Pond5,” adds that buyers are always looking for fresh takes, and suggests city, urban, nature, progress and close-up subjects.

Time-lapse, slideshow or Ken Burns: where the line is

The difference is how long each photo stays on screen. In a time-lapse, each photo becomes one frame and the sequence plays as continuous motion. In a slideshow, each photo holds for many frames. The Ken Burns effect pans or zooms across a single still. Shutterstock rejects a video “comprised solely of still photographs with basic zooms or pans” and still photographs “without camera moves, such as a slideshow.” It does consider cinemagraphs, advanced composites and stills with a parallax effect, and asks you to name the technique, a cinemagraph for example, in the title and keywords.

Two cases sit close to the line. A digital pan or zoom across a full time-lapse sequence is still a time-lapse, but no agency addresses it; a move made in camera, on a slider or a motorized head, avoids the question. And stretching a short sequence by holding each photo for two or more frames makes it play like a slideshow. Adobe’s best practices list uploading video “with limited motions (for example, still frames)” among the don’ts.

Frame rate, length and resolution

Render the sequence at a rate every agency lists: 24, 25 or 30 fps are the usual settings, and 23.98 or 29.97 work too. 48 fps would block the clip at Adobe Stock. Why each rate matters is in the stock footage frame rates guide. The frame count then fixes the length:

All three agencies accept 5 to 60 seconds. Adobe recommends 10 to 20 seconds and edit handles of 1 to 5 seconds at each end, so keep shooting a little before and after the change you want to show.

Resolution is where stills help. A 24-megapixel frame (6000x4000) is larger than any 4K size, so the sequence is cropped from 3:2 to 16:9 and scaled down, which is the opposite of the upscaling agencies refuse. The crop removes about 16 percent of the frame height, so compose with that in mind. Then pick the output size:

• Adobe Stock lists horizontal sizes up to 4096x2304 and accepts clips “up to 1920 pixels wide, or full DCI 4K at 4096 pixels wide.”
• Shutterstock lists sizes up to 4800x2700, including 4096x2304 and 3840x2160.
• Pond5 recommends sizes up to 8K (7680x4320 and 8192x4320) and caps 8K files at 6 GB.

A 3840x2160 render passes at all three. Export one version per sequence: Shutterstock counts the same subject shot at different clip lengths as similar content, which would cover a 10-second and a 20-second cut of the same time-lapse. More in similar content rejections.

Flicker: the main rejection risk

Shutterstock rejects video that “contains flicker, whether constant or intermittent,” and its post-production standard asks you to be mindful of digital flickering and rendering errors. Its exposure standard adds abrupt or irregular exposure changes, distracting changes in light intensity or color temperature, and excessive changes caused by auto-exposure. Adobe asks for correct white balance and exposure, with color grading that stays consistent across frames. In a time-lapse, each of these comes from a difference between consecutive photos:

Shutterstock’s wording targets exposure changes that are abrupt or irregular, and its example is a clip whose light changes drastically as clouds pass the sun. Before upload, play the clip at full size and watch flat areas such as sky and walls, where flicker shows first. Watch for dust as well: a sensor spot stays fixed while the scene moves around it, and Shutterstock rejects visible sensor spots and lens dust. The other causes are on the video quality rejections page.

People, property and logos in a time-lapse

Speed does not change the release rules. A recognizable person in a commercial clip needs a model release at Shutterstock and Adobe Stock, and footage shot on private property needs a property release. Pond5’s brief makes the point for construction and renovation time-lapses: “Don’t forget the property release from the owner!”

City time-lapses are the hard case, with crowds, storefronts and billboards in frame. Adobe refuses logos, trademarks and brand names. Shutterstock can accept a clip without releases as editorial, but Adobe “doesn’t accept traditional editorial content at this time,” so a busy street with readable signs or recognizable faces has fewer outlets. The details are in model releases for stock video.

Titles and keywords for time-lapse clips

Say what the clip shows and what changes in it: the subject, the place, the span of time and the technique. Shutterstock asks you to describe camera movements in the caption and keywords, and to explain an unusual clip length in the description.

• Pick one spelling. “Timelapse,” “time lapse” and “time-lapse” share a stem, and Shutterstock treats the same word or word stem repeated across keywords as spam. At Adobe, each keyword should appear once, with the most important in the first 10.
• Name the change. Pond5’s brief suggests pairing “timelapse” with words such as city, sunrise, sunset, construction, clouds, stars, cityscape, night, plant grow and day to night.
• Name the motion. Hyperlapse, slider move or static shot tells the buyer how the frame moves.

The same brief asks contributors to add the code TIMELAPSEP5BRIEF to their keywords so Pond5 can promote the clips. It dates from December 2023 and does not say whether the code is still in use.

The full method is in how to keyword stock footage.