Are you an ace at using Green Screens? Can you offer time-saving tips on editing techniques? Have you mastered the use of After Effects or cracked the code for social media marketing?
We’re looking for industry experts to feature as guests on the Pond5 blog and YouTube channel. All topics relating to film production, stock media, video editing, production techniques, visual trends, and content creation are needed.
Articles should be about 1,000-1,500 words, and if you choose to accompany your article with a video, vlogs should be between 1-3 minutes. All content should focus on your area of expertise, be user-centered and benefit the audience by teaching them something, providing entertainment, or informing them about industry trends or topics. Link back to your Pond5 content as examples using your unique referral links to increase the exposure of your content.
Send your article to marketing@pond5.com, and if we use your submission on one of our channels, we’ll add $200 to your next payout! If you have any questions or want to run a topic idea by us before you begin creating, reach out! We’re happy to help you get started.
Creative Brief: Let’s Get Spooky
Special Keyword Code: HALLOWEENP5BRIEF
Chilly nights, changing leaves and long sleeves are approaching! We’re looking forward to embracing fall with blankets, smores, and scary stories around the bonfire. However, our buyers are already looking for Halloween campaign content!
While demand is centred around Footage and Music, this is a callout for all Pond5 Artists! Get inspired by our spooky creative brief centred around Halloween themes. Here’s what to submit:
Footage and Photos
Footage and Photos are close enough to each other to have a shot list that is similar. Our buyers are looking for authentic footage and photos cleared for commercial use, that are going to be used in online and offline campaigns, social media, as well as illustration photos on blogs. Avoid stocky-looking content and get creative with your staged content.
Shot List Thought Starters
- Real horror scenes – screaming people, scarecrows, scary old buildings, forests, etc.
- Costumes cleared for commercial use – our buyers want to see real horror costumes and cosplays – please be aware of 3rd party intellectual property as such clips may be marked as editorial
- Your take on Halloween – origin pagan take of Halloween – Samhain. Halloween traditions around the world such as Dia de Los Muertos, Samhain, or Kawasaki Halloween parade. If you know anyone who’s left the “commercial” aspect of Halloween to pay respect to the original tradition, we’d love to see that!
- Witches – rituals, using spellbooks, sorcery, potions, setting up an altar, using tools such as pendulum, bells, crystals, candles, smokers, stones, herbs and blossoms, etc.
- Mythical creatures – elves, vampires, ghosts, werewolf, bats, goblins, boogeyman, skeletons, demons, dragons, etc.
Pro Tip: Consider shooting the same scene both during daytime and nighttime.
Evil Clown In Dark Scary Halloween Horror Scene, Frightening With Balloon by Imagine_Media.
Halloween Music and Sound Effects:
Here’s a huge opportunity for our Audio Artists as well – we’re recording an increased demand for Halloween-themed music and sound effects.
Submission ideas – Music
- Goth rock, Halloween Punk and similar microgenres
- Eerie EDM subgenres, such as witch house, dark psytrance, darkcore jungle, etc.
- Horror movie cinematic genres – suspenseful music
- Dark ambient music
Submission ideas – SFX
- Spooky weather: Think of thunder, stormy wind, heavy rain
- Mystical creatures: Werewolf howl, ghost sounds, evil laugh, skeleton bones sound
- Horror sound effects: machete swoosh, torn cloth, squeaky door opening, footsteps, scratching, … etc.
- Animals: Crows, howls, bats, hissing
- People sounds: screaming, fearful breathing, etc.
Halloween After Effects
After Effects are a very important media type on Pond5 during Halloween time. People are looking for lower thirds, transitions, slideshows and alpha mate/alpha channel elements with a transparent background that is layered over the footage.
Submission Ideas
- Change your graphics to 2022 – replace your existing submissions on Pond5 with an updated 2022 one.
- Motion graphics – experiment with classic shots of bats flying at the camera, skeletons, cemeteries, witches, etc. Backgrounds and loops will be high in demand as well.
- Lower thirds – use Halloween themes and fonts
- Transitions for video editing software – flying bats and witches, tore screen, etc.
- Halloween social media templates – graphics for Social Media stories, YouTube ending screen, Twitch overlays, etc.
- Green screen clips – bats, witches, cemetery, skeletons, ghosts, zombies, skulls etc.
Halloween Illustration
On Halloween, illustration and 3D model artists will not be forgotten! Illustration is easy to follow – blog posts, YouTube thumbnails, static social media graphics, overlay templates for YouTube, Twitch and Facebook broadcasts, profile picture frames, social media stickers, halloween party invitation templates, and much more!
Submission Ideas
- Isolated Halloween traditional themes – zombies, ghosts, vampires, etc.
- Halloween icons – pumpkins, cauldrons, brooms, candy corn etc.
- Profile picture frames in rectangle / circle shape
- Halloween party invitation templates – emails, flyers, posters, etc.
Halloween 3D Models
3D Artists won’t be left behind as well! Our buyers are looking for 3D models of skulls, bats, brooms, spiders, and other typical Halloween elements. This artwork will find its use as a foundation for other works of digital artists.
Submission Ideas
- Human body parts – Skulls, bone, brain, etc. think of cut fingers and other eerie modifications
- Halloween creatures from vampires to mummies. Think of werewolves, full moon, zombies, ghosts, etc.
- Eerie tools – knives, axes, shovels, etc.
- Typical Haloween themes – tombstones, brooms, etc.
Keyword Ideas
Halloween, Samhain, zombies, ghost, mummy, vampire, werewolf, full moon, blood, eerie, scary, spooky, horror, gore, any keyword relevant to the music genre of the music etc.
Target audience
All kinds of customers – especially ad agencies, corporate clients, digital artists, etc.
Submission checklist
- Check out our marketplace for visual reference and inspiration
- Try to stand out and create something that pops out among the other search results
- USE THIS SPECIAL CODE IN YOUR KEYWORDS: HALLOWEENP5BRIEF
- Make sure your submission falls under commercial use.
Top Image: Scary Halloween Background With Glowing Jack-O-Lantern Pumpkins At Night by ComebackImages.
Content in the Wild – August 2022
Only Murders In the Building, Texas Crew Productions,
When Sharks Attack
Content in the Wild is a series about your success. Our marketplace combines all your talent and hard work into an essential resource for creators big and small to tell their stories. Every day you’ll find content licensed through Pond5 in feature films, video games, documentaries, ad campaigns, music videos, and more. Below are three recent high-profile projects featuring media created by you, our Artists community.
BLACKFIN Productions – Only Murders in the Building
BLACKFIN, founded in 2014 by director and executive producer Geno McDermott, is an industry leader in producing premium nonfiction content. As a company founded and driven by filmmakers and storytellers, BLACKFIN is a sought-after production partner for award-winning directors, producers, cinematographers, editors, journalists, and organizations looking to collaborate on groundbreaking projects.
Only Murders in the Building is an American mysterious comedy television series created by Steve Martin and John Hoffman airing on Hulu, starring Steve Martin, Martin Short, Selena Gomez, Cara Delevingne, and many more, airing on Hulu.
The plot follows three strangers obsessed with a true-crime podcast that decided to start their own podcast about their investigation of a suspicious death in their affluent Upper West Side apartment building, the Arconia.
BLACKFIN contacted us to help with several projects, including Only Murders in the Building. As we continue to support BLACKFIN with their content needs, we hope to provide content for many other shows in their portfolio, such as Devil In The Web, Mardaugh Mysteries, Order of the Exorcist, The Revenge of Robert The Doll, and The Cartel Among Us.
See more on: https://www.hulu.com/series/only-murders-in-the-building-ef31c7e1-cd0f-4e07-848d-1cbfedb50ddf
Pond5
Creative Partner Team
Texas Crew Productions
Texas Crew produces numerous series for premium broadcasters and streamers, including Peacock, Hulu, ESPN, Fox, AXS, Magnolia, Lifetime, USA Network, Oxygen, and A+E. Their work includes the NAACP Image Award-winning The 44th President: In His Own Words, a first-person documentary special about President Obama that aired on HISTORY and History’s Greatest Mysteries.
MUSIC’S GREATEST MYSTERIES investigates the most unique and enigmatic stories in the History of Music. The series covers topics that have altered or elevated the world of music, while highlighting the colorful characters that have indelibly changed the course of music history.
Pond5 worked with Texas Crew on providing content for numerous series appearing on Travel, Lifetime, the Oxygen Network, and others. The Texas Crew team loves the support, guidance, and inspiration they get from working with their Pond5 Creative Partners and have recently discovered the efficiencies of working with our research team. We’re excited to continue working with them on future projects.
See more of Greta Van Fleet here: https://www.texascrew.com
Pond5
Creative Partner Team
When Sharks Attack
From America’s coastline to exotic beaches worldwide, shark attacks turn dream vacations into nightmares.
When Sharks Attack is a terror-filled deep sea saga using underwater photography, gripping news archives & paralyzing testimony to investigate three mysterious and deadly recent shark attacks.
All3 Media leaned heavily on Pond5 content for this big sharks project. We hosted a web demo for Laurie Wright, the archivist in charge of this show, and provided search tips and tricks to help her navigate the website. As a result, they researched and found most of the content on their own through the use of our industry-leading search and curated collections. They also worked closely with our Curation team to obtain the rights to license content no longer available through the Pond5 marketplace.
See more on: https://www.natgeotv.com/za/shows/nationalgeographicwild/when-sharks-attack/.Pond5
Creative Partner Team
Don‘t forget to check out the other projects as well! >> Go to Content in the Wild category.
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