What is the Best Way to Use Stock Footage

April 29, 2022

Stock footage can really enhance any type of video. Especially if you don’t have the budget to film bespoke content specifically for your content.

To put it simply, stock assets are visuals (usually stock footage or images) that are licensed from content creators, either for free or for a cost. 


They can also save time and resources when creating your video production. Read on to learn how.

Use as B-Roll

One of the most common uses of stock footage is as supplemental footage or what we call ‘b-roll’. 


For example, stock footage of a city or landmark to establish a geographical location, or a sunrise or sunset to establish the time of day or a certain emotion or feeling.


Free Stock or Paid Stock?

We produce videos all the time for our clients that are entirely stock based. This can be a challenge but there’s some great sites out there these days (as well as free ones like Unsplash or Pexels) which we use a lot when budgets are tight. They also have a pretty good selection (including some random and funny visuals!) and rival what you can find on paid sites like Shutterstock.

But if you need to show something really specific in your video, it’s always best to use stock assets from paid sites, as they offer much more choice and also diversity if you need to show lots of different people. 


Using Stock in Promos and Adverts

Stock can be used in adverts and promo videos as a way to save time and resources that otherwise would have had to have been spent on casting actors or shooting on-location. With stock footage, these problems are eliminated and the most optimal footage for the advert can be selected.


Other Ways Stock is Useful

Sometimes stock footage/images/assets can simply serve the purpose of acting as an attractive background for information being delivered either via text on the screen or via a voiceover narration. It can also be used on website pages to add a visual interest to information, or something visual to fill time before an event begins.

Another useful way to use stock assets can play a part is when time or budget is short, we pay for ‘asset packs’ of various icons or infographics, subtle effects like floating particles or lens flares, camera transitions - all of these things help to add an extra layer of sparkle to our video content we produce for so many of our clients!


Get your Video Content Off the Ground

With a ton of creative expertise here at CH Video, we can help get the ball rolling and plan the best content for you. Say hello, give us a call or drop us an email.


Share this post:

Recent posts

Fast Turnaround Videos, How To Make Them Work

By Emily Blanden • June 3, 2026
Fast turnaround videos. What we do and what our clients do to make it work. Our Managing Director, Emily Blanden, shares what we’ve learned from creating fast-turnaround videos for our clients - without the panic stations. From getting the brief nailed down early to keeping feedback clear and speedy, Emily talks through the little things that make a big difference when deadlines are tight.  My team might not thank me for writing this. We’ve just completed two motion graphics projects on extremely tight turnarounds. A three minute video briefed in and delivered within six working days. A five minute video done in four. Sharing how we did this might result in us getting even more last minute briefs, sorry in advance to my team! Short lead time work is stressful. We’d always love more time. But over the years we’ve developed a process that makes it possible to create quality work, fast and I think it’s worth sharing, because a lot of it comes down to what both sides of the relationship do along the way.

EVCOM Top 50 Update

By Madeline Moores • May 12, 2026
We're #23 in the UK Top 50 Big news from us! CH Video have climbed 7 places in the EVCOM (Event & Visual Communication Association) + Moving Image UK Top 50.

CH x Euronics: Going the Extra Mile

By Aidan Patterson • May 12, 2026
When Euronics came to us with a brief, it was a good one: take a true story about an extraordinary delivery and turn it into something worth watching. The Brief Joe, a Euronics delivery agent, had been tasked with getting a chest freezer to a customer in rural Wales. The road ran out. He carried on anyway, on foot, through fields, across rivers and over hills. The customer was delighted. The story deserved to be told. Euronics asked us to produce a short comedic video retelling that journey. The challenge was finding the right visual language to match the scale of the tale. The Concept We pitched several approaches centred on a comic-book aesthetic, bold, energetic and a little tongue-in-cheek. It felt like the right fit: a story that was equal parts heroic and absurd, told in a style that leaned into both. The concept paired real interview footage of Joe with AI-generated visuals to bring his journey to life. Where a traditional shoot would have required location days across Welsh countryside, generative AI gave us the tools to illustrate the story scene by scene. Creative Wrangling We filmed Joe against a studio blue backdrop, letting him tell the story in his own words. His delivery did a lot of the heavy lifting (puns intended!), dry, matter-of-fact and quietly brilliant. The AI-generated visuals were built around detailed multi-angle reference sheets for Joe, the Euronics van and the chest freezer.
All posts