You don't have to be a BBC cameraman to get outtakes from the World Cup. Stock-footage houses, which rake in millions of dollars a year peddling archival images, can provide one for you. But what if you're Microsoft, and you need video of a generic soccer player to drop into a constantly morphing CG background? Ribbit Films is ushering the stock-footage industry into the digital age. It's amassed a vast library of hi-def clips of actors in front of a green screen, doing almost anything you can think of - running, dancing, gesturing. Just pick an action and a character type (say, a businesswoman holding up a product box), then insert a background. Companies like Microsoft, IBM, and DirecTV are snapping up Ribbit footage for their commercials and program identifiers. So much for truth in advertising.
- Thomas Jamieson
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