I’m working on the trailer for How to Win Friends and Influence Magicians. Since I don’t know many college students who could bend reality for me to film, I had to comb the web for clips to make you all think I do. There are lots of free ones out there, so I thought I’d give you my list of the ones where I found what I needed. There is a sort of delineation between sites that contain actors and those that don’t. Any footage with actors will most likely be more expensive, but will have more specific action if you need it.

Free sites

http://xstockvideo.com/ (This has a limited number of specific free clips, No actors)

http://archive.org/details/stock_footage (Lots of free clips)

http://movietools.info/ (free video effects, but no actors)

http://www.footagecrate.com/ (public domain video footage)

http://www.worship-backgrounds.com/ (Religious-themed backgrounds)

http://www.motionelements.com/ (You have to choose the “free” price option)

Inexpensive Paid Sites

http://www.pond5.com/ (Most videos $20-$40, with actors)

http://videohive.net/ (Most videos are under $10, a few with actors)

http://www.istockphoto.com/video (More expensive, over $30, but with a large amount of stuff I really wanted to buy for my video)

Some other good lists of sites online:

http://www.videomaker.com/downloads/stock-video/

http://blog.podcastalley.com/2009/08/11/free-or-cheap-resources-for-royalty-free-stock-video/

http://thecliparchive.com/

http://movietools.info/free-web-resources.html

http://www.partnersinrhyme.com/blog/where-to-find-free-stock-footage/

I also bought a video creation tool called Power Director 10. I looked all over everywhere to find a decent, free video tool that could blend my videos together. But there just weren’t any that didn’t want to put a watermark in my film. I ended up getting a pretty good deal at http://store.hermanstreet.com/. I was able to find the best-rated software on Cnet with reviews and even a free download trial. It ended up being $50, but i know I’ll use it a lot for future book trailers, and I was able to test it out to see if I could do what I wanted to do with it.