How to Find Great Stock Videos on Shutterstock

If Shutterstock is your provider of stock footage, you may want to have some tips about how to find that ideal stock video clip faster. Here are some practical steps that you want to take to find the stock video clip you need in their massive video library.

Why Shutterstock Video?


Why would a creator want to buy stock footage from Shutterstock? Here are 3 reasons why.

Shutterstock has an enormous library of high-quality videos. They add over a 10 thousand new videos each week, covering a wide range of topics and styles. So there's a good chance you'll be able to find exactly what you need.

Shutterstock's search tools are very powerful and user-friendly, making it easy to find the right video for your project. You can search by keyword, sort results by popularity or relevance, and filter by a range of criteria such as resolution, duration, and subject matter. You can even use Shutterstock's AI-powered search tool to get recommendations based on your project objectives and intended audience.

Shutterstock's licensing options are flexible and affordable, making it easy to use their videos in your projects without breaking the bank.

They offer both royalty-free and rights-managed licenses, and you can buy individual clips or subscribe to a plan for access to a larger number of videos at a discounted rate. Check out their video pricing plans here.

How to Find Perfect Video Clips on Shutterstock


Shutterstock offers a diverse array of search tools for finding the perfect video. It’s a good thing too, considering the site adds thousands of new clips each week.

Search by Keyword


Have some ideas about what you need? Searching by keyword is a great place to start on Shutterstock Video. You can enter anything that comes to mind and begin browsing videos that contain matching terms. Too many results? Try entering more keywords to narrow down your search.

Pro tip:

Need a specific video? If you know the video ID number, you can enter it into the search bar to navigate right to that video. Look at the similar videos below the main one to get a feeling of what else you can find on the site.

Sorting Results


Results can be sorted by:

  • Popular - shows most licensed first
  • Fresh Content - shows newest content first
  • Most Relevant - show most popular content first
  • Random - shows a mix of content


Filters


You can also filter the search results with the advanced search tools shown above your search results:

  • Maxim resolution -  select the video quality you want results to reflect (you can choose among 4K, HD, SD)
  • FPS (Frames per second) - choose from the available FPS: from 23.98 to 60 fps and beyond
  • Aspect ratio - choose between all, 4:3, 16:9 and other
  • Duration -  choose from short or long videos
  • People -  shows videos with people and withouth and narrows down by the number of people in the videos
  • Artists - show videos by a specific artist or artist location
  • Select video - include or exclude Select videos (Select is Shutterstock's premium footage)
  • More: you can select different categories of videos, exclude keywords, switch Safe search on and off. Plus, you can exclude Editorial footage from your search here.


AI-powered Search (Image Only)


If you have an active subscription plan, you can take advantage of Shutterstock's powerful data-driven insights to make informed decisions about which videos will work best for your project. This is valid for image search only, but can be insightful if you plug in the same search term on the Image side.

Once you’ve narrowed down your search results, click on the AI logo inside the search bar to set the objectives and intended audience for your project. 

Click “Apply” and your results will be reordered, with the assets most likely to deliver on your goals at the top. Hover over the AI logo on the thumbnail to get additional insights into why a particular asset is predicted to perform well against your goals.

Grab the image or its preview and use it on video search. Shutterstock allows searching videos by image. That will be another additional layer to your video search on this site.


Reverse Video Search


Unfortunately, Shutterstock does not have reverse video search yet. But you can definitely extract 7-8 frames from the scenes you have in your current video and use them in video search by image, like we explained above.

In conclusion, Shutterstock's combination of a vast video library, powerful search tools, and flexible licensing options make it a great choice for anyone in need of high-quality stock videos for their videos and films.