Producers Library

Film Stock Footage House Streamlines Access to
Video Footage with NetXposure
Faster, Easier Access to Stock Footage

 

Founded in 1957, Producers Library is the country's oldest independent stock footage house, delivering rare Hollywood film footage, current and archival stock footage and stock photography to professional filmmakers and creative producers. Based in North Hollywood, Producers Library's collection includes over 5,000 hours of film clips, including millions of feet of black-and-white nitrate footage from the turn of the century through the 1940s, as well as 16mm, 35mm, High-Definition video stock footage and photographs.

 

In 2007, Producers Library proudly celebrated 50 years of providing film footage and photography to the entertainment industry.

 

Challenge - Keep Pace with the Competition
In 2005, Producers Library began the process of converting all of its analog footage to digital files. With its database of digital assets growing rapidly, Producers Library realized the need for a cost-effective, easy-to-use and low-maintenance solution for streamlining the organization, management and accessibility of those assets via a centralized, web-based management application.

 

Improving accessibility to assets and streamlining customer requests was critical to Producers Library's success as a small business in a highly competitive market. Historically, fulfilling customer requests was time-consuming and cost-prohibitive. For example, filmmakers would call Producers Library and describe the footage they were looking for: "Can I get a few different black-and-white clips of a 747 jet landing at Heathrow?" Researchers at Producers Library would then search their in-house database and pull tapes from their vault from which to assemble a DVD screener - clip by clip, to send to the customer for review. To remain competitive, Producers Library needed to expedite this process and reduce costs. Now these clips can be accessed and viewed instantly online by the customer, and downloaded directly to their computer.

 

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY Industry: Digital Stock Footage Organizational Profile: Founded in 1957, Producers Library is the oldest independent stock footage house in the United States, delivering rare Hollywood film footage, current and archival stock footage and photography to professional filmmakers. Challenge: Producers Library needed a way to and streamline access to thousands of hours of film footage and stock photography. Solution: A NetXposure's core Digital Asset Management Solution NetXposure Modules: VIDEO FOCUS, ECKit Mac OS X. Benefits: Reduction of search times from hours to minutes Increased customer response rates, increased sales Lower production and distribution costs Expanded customer access to sales inventory

"Our competition was using the Web as a key distribution channel, enabling faster and easier access to footage," said Jeff Goodman, President of Producers Library. "We knew we needed to move our library online to compete but we also needed to find a company that could implement this for us on a budget we could afford."

 

After careful evaluation of custom development services and stock photo management software, Producers Library chose NetXposure, a provider of digital asset management solutions and industry pioneer in developing Rich Internet Applications (RIAs) to improve the organization, management and accessibility of its digital library.

 

Utilizing NetXposure's DAM software, Producers Library has transformed an analog repository into an online resource, migrating data and assets to an indexed, searchable environment. In addition, they added unique timecode marker features and Clip Bin features specifically tailored to their clients, making accessing and distributing its collection of film footage and stock photography easier and more efficient.

 

NetXposure Solution
Producers Library is using NetXposure's DAM software as the primary repository for its digital library of video files and stock images. Video management tools including video key frame display, downloading capabilities and thumbnail support for a wide variety of file formats helps Producers Library improve organization management and respond to customer requests more efficiently and effectively.

 

Built-in metadata management capabilities including customizable metadata fields enable powerful organization, archival and search capabilities. Metadata templates ensure seamless metadata transfer when migrating data to the DAM repository.

 

Embedded search engine technology delivers cutting-edge search performance, even for the largest of databases. Producers Library employees can execute precision searches, sorted by specific keywords, file categories, metadata attributes, date, file format and file size with lightning-fast response times, further streamlining accessibility.

 

Additionally, Producers Library worked with NetXposure's Professional Services team to develop an online Time-Code Marker that allows customer to view and order video clips at the Producers Library Website. Website visitors can search video clips by keywords, dates, or and any other data criteria that existed in the Producers Library archive database. Clients can request subsets or sections of clips with an intuitive "mark-inand- mark-out" feature. The video segment can be added to an online order form that allows Producers Library to estimate costs per specific request and expedite the order.

 

Benefits - Faster, Easier Access to Stock Footage
Combining NetXposure's powerful video asset management capabilities with a unique online user experience complete with advanced video search and editing capabilities, Producers Library is realizing the following benefits:

• Improved productivity through reduction of search times and lower costs. - Using NetXposure, Jeff Goodman estimates the amount of time it takes his employees to copy requested clips for customers have been cut from hours to minutes; and courier, production and shipping costs have been significantly reduced.
• Increased customer response rates that positively impact sales potential. - Producers Library subscribes to Footage. net, a stock, archival, and news footage network, where ad, film, TV and new media professionals can submit requests for footage from a network of over 50 providers. The provider that meets the requests fastest usually makes the sale. NetXposure helps Producers Library respond to customer requests more efficiently and effectively.

 

Looking to the future, Jeff Goodman and the Producers Library team hope to take advantage of NetXposure's statistics reporting and analysis capabilities for evaluating performance optimization opportunities for their website, and take advantage of NetXposure's language localization for international markets.

 

"When it comes down to it, what sets us apart is our rare content and footage. NetXposure is helping us give more customers easier and faster access to our offerings."

 

About NetXposure
NetXposure makes software products that empower organizations to efficiently create, manage, distribute, and market digital content. Founded in 1995, NetXposure is headquartered in Portland, Oregon with offices in Tokyo, Japan and Bangalore, India. For more information visit NetXposure's website: www.netx.net or call 503.499.4342.