For the last two or three years I have been selling my drone footage on Blackbox. BlackBox is a website that makes it easy for you to upload and sell your footage to various stock video footage platforms.
Using BlackBox saves me a lot of time going to individual web sites and uploading my drone clips. At the BlackBox user interface I am able to write my clip title, description and keywords all in one place.
BlackBox will upload your clips to the popular stock video outlets such as Pond5, Adobe Stock, Shutterstock, etc.
I have made sales that supplement my income. I’m not at a stage where it could ever be a full time job, but it’s enough money to enjoy a couple of days out without having to dip into the monthly wage packet.
I would always recommend drone users to upload any footage that they have used or that they have backed up on hard drives. If you are able to cut your footage into clips that show stable and constant flying it could really make a little bit of extra cash for you without any major effort from yourself.
All types of drone clips have sold for me, from simple footage of waves crashing against some rocks, to epic wide angles of the Canterbury Cathedral. I’m never sure what is going to sell from week to week. For instance, this week alone, I have sold clips showing the Canterbury ring road, an orchard in Chartham, and a train leaving a village train station.
So if you have got some old drone footage that can be cut up into six to twelve second clips, I would seriously recommend uploading it to BlackBox and see if you can earn a bit of beer money for the weekends.
Of course, there are a few drawbacks from using BlackBox. Blackbox will take a 15% commission from any sales you make, and you won’t have you own account with the stock footage web sites. All your content will be uploaded to the BlackBox Global account. For me, the ability to upload my clips once and then forget about them, more than makes up for the 15% commission.
