In this guest post, Media Production Intern Qiaojun Yan introduces the University’s Open Media Stock Footage collection on Media Hopper Create and Pexels. 

Open Media Stock Footage is a collection of open licensed media clips created by our Media Production Team and shared on Media Hopper Create, alongside the Open Media Bank. In January 2023, we also shared this collection on Pexels to bring these resources to new users and audiences. As of today, our open stock footage has been viewed over half a million times on Pexels alone.

This open stock footage is shared with the public under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence, meaning that anyone can incorporate them in their videos at no cost, just as we do with the MOOC videos we make, which also incorporate lots of Creative Commons licensed stock footage filmed by other people. This type of content is completely free, easy to implement, and is widely used in all types of video and film productions.

Our stock footage is mostly filmed in Edinburgh, showcasing our university buildings and views of the city. Having such clips incorporated in numerous other videos helps increase the reach and exposure of both the city and University of Edinburgh to the public.

Another upside is that our stock media doesn’t require too much extra filming effort, since most of the footage is originally filmed for specific videos, such as a background for a speech, a view of a university building, etc. This makes our stock media production highly efficient, and since all the videos are originally recorded for specific MOOCs and lectures, they are all high standard and high quality. Originally this footage would be stored on local databases and only re-used when we find need for them again; however by sharing it openly with the public, this footage has far greater reach and potential, maximising its value.

In the future, we will continue uploading more stock media footage under the same Creative Commons license and we also plan to expand into more video platforms.

Visit the University of Edinburgh’s stock media footage: 

Media Hopper Create: https://media.ed.ac.uk/channel/Open+Media+Stock+Footage/
Pexels: https://www.pexels.com/@university-of-edinburgh-328305910/

University of Edinburgh stock media footage on Pexels.

Header image captured from Students on Campus, CC BY-SA, University of Edinburgh.