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Stock footage provides a great way for anyone, corporate or individual, to quickly and easily make a professional impression with video. ...OR if you're digging around for ideas, browsing through a stock footage provider can be your ideator.
http://mishmash.gettyimages.com/work/ZOT3SP
That's something that I mashed together very quick from stock footage during a contest that Getty Images uses to promote their extensive catolog of stock.
Go original or go stock? There are some downsides to stock footage/images. I just saw a TV commercial for a feminine product that used a stock shot that I recogonized....because I used the same shot in a health a wellness TV promo 3 years ago. That's one example. Another: have you ever developed a great print campaign, found aweseome images, then showed up to your conference only to see a competitors banner flying high over the showroom with the exact same image as its center piece? (One of my clients had this happen many years ago, it's not unusual.)
Personally, particularly for print, I like to use stock catalogs to get ideas. If you look at my website, you will notice that I'm a big fan of vector stock images. I like these because I can drop them into Illustrator and change them to suit my needs, while still getting that amazing look that someone else had the foresight to outline.
On the video side of things, sometimes I like stock and sometimes I don't. Video stock gets "dated" very easily. Who needs a purple Buick from the 80's driving down the highway in 2010? ...Ok, sometimes you want exactly that - - - - and THAT is when you should defiinitely go to stock for your video needs. If you're looking for current, cutting edge video, I recommend shooting it yourself. Plus, if you're lucky and do it right, you may be able to license your own footage and make a bit of money from it on the side.
A couple of stock catalogs that I frequent are iStockphoto.com and GettyImages.com
