Six months after delivery, the client’s new marketing manager writes: “Could you send us all the raw footage from the shoot? We’re bringing video in-house.”
The proposal said nothing about footage. So now you’re working out what it’s worth, which files they mean and who pays for the drive, with someone who wasn’t there when the job was priced.
It’s easier to decide before the shoot and put a short policy in the proposal.
In short
- Ask why the client wants the footage, since a re-edit or an archive needs far less than the camera originals.
- Pick a default (not included, included, extra fee, selects only or after full payment) and write it in the proposal.
- Price the handling and the license to reuse the footage as two separate lines.
- Name the files: camera originals with sound and LUTs, proxies, or selects.
- Project files stay out unless the client buys them, and licensed music and stock stay out too.
Why clients ask for the raw footage
Ask what they plan to do with it, because the reason changes the answer. Most requests come down to one of these:
- They want to re-edit: a cutdown for a trade show, a quote for LinkedIn, a version with the new logo.
- They want an archive. They paid for the shoot and feel the footage belongs on their shelf.
- They’ve hired an in-house editor who needs material.
- They’re moving to another studio, and the new one asked for “everything”.
A re-edit usually needs a few good takes, not three hours of interview, and an archive is happy with files that play on any laptop. Only the in-house editor and the new studio really need the camera originals and the sound.
What the footage is worth
The client sees the cost of the shoot: the crew day, the gear, the travel, two hours of the CEO’s afternoon. They paid for that, so to them the footage is already theirs.
Your framing, light and direction are in every frame, though, and so are the takes you’d never show anyone: the fumbled lines, the CEO checking her phone, the wide where the boom dips in. Choosing what stays out is part of the job.
Once the footage leaves, someone else can cut it badly, and people who know you shot it will assume the result is yours.
The releases signed by the people on camera and by the location cover one video, and reusing the footage elsewhere can go past them.
Ownership depends on your contract and your country. In the US, copyright starts with whoever created the work and passes to the client through a signed written agreement, either an assignment or a work-made-for-hire clause (17 U.S.C. § 201 and § 204). None of this is legal advice.
Five ways to answer
Pick one as your default and write it in the proposal:
| Option | When it fits | What to write |
|---|---|---|
| Not included | Most one-off videos | The footage stays with you, and you’ll quote a copy on request |
| Included | Events, in-house teams, clients who plan to re-edit | Which files, in what format, by when |
| Extra fee | Clients who might want it later | A handling fee, plus a fee for reuse |
| Selects only | Clients who want material for future cuts | Who picks the takes, how many, how much handle |
| After full payment | Any of the above | The footage ships when the last invoice clears |
The fee has two parts that are easy to blur. Handling is your time copying, checking and labeling files, plus the drive.
The footage is a separate line, a license to reuse what you shot, and one way to price it is against what the client would pay to shoot that material again.
The last row combines with the others. Footage that ships after the final payment can’t be the reason that payment slips, the same logic as holding the master until payment.
Originals, proxies or selects
“Raw” means different things to different people, so name the files.
Camera originals
Camera originals are what came off the cards, untouched. Copy each card’s whole folder, since some cameras keep metadata in sidecar files that editing software expects.
Footage shot in a log profile looks flat and grey until a LUT goes on, so include the LUT with a note. And if sound went to a separate recorder, hand over its WAV files too, or the client edits with the scratch track from the camera mic.
Originals are big. Apple puts ProRes 422 HQ at about 220 Mbps for 1080p at 29.97 fps, close to 100 GB an hour, so two cameras rolling for three hours each come to around 600 GB. That goes on a drive.
Format it exFAT so it works on Mac and Windows, copy with a tool that verifies checksums, and keep your copy until the client confirms the files play.
Add a text file listing the shoot dates, cameras, frame rate, color profile and what isn’t on the drive.
Proxies
Proxies are lighter copies, one H.264 or ProRes Proxy file per clip, and they play anywhere. They suit an archive, or a client who wants to find a shot and then ask you for the original. Nobody should grade or master from them.
Selects
Selects are the good takes, exported with a few seconds of handle. They fit on a transfer link (sending large video files compares the options).
How long you keep each one is a separate promise, for the proposal and the delivery email.
What stays out
The project file stays out unless the client buys it. It won’t open properly without the same media, fonts and plugins, and it shows exactly how you work. Quote it as a separate buyout (the proposal template has wording).
Licensed music and stock stay out too. A stock license covers the track or the clip inside your edit, for whoever bought it, and a client holding the WAV usually can’t use it without a license of their own.
The same goes for anything that didn’t come from this shoot, like shots from your own library or aerials you licensed.
Some requests for “just the raw footage” are really new work. “Can you pull the five best shots of the factory for our reel?” means watching, choosing and exporting. The scope creep post has a test for telling the two apart.
Wording for the proposal
Two versions to adapt. They’re a studio’s wording, not legal advice, so have a lawyer read yours once.
Raw footage (not included). The fee covers the deliverables listed in section 3. Raw footage means the camera files and sound recordings from the shoot, as recorded, without editing, color or music, and it is not included. After final payment we can supply it on a drive for a handling fee of [price], plus [price] for [Client]'s use of it in other productions. We keep it for [number] months after delivery.
Raw footage (included). Within [number] business days of final payment, [Client] receives the camera files and sound recordings from the shoot on a drive and may use them in its own productions. The releases signed by people and locations cover [the uses in this proposal], and new releases for other uses are [Client]'s responsibility. Music, stock and project files are not included. Videos edited by others from this footage are not credited to [Studio].
Whichever version you use, keep the sentence that defines raw footage. Without it, a client can reasonably expect graded, organized clips.
How this works in RecReview
RecReview is where cuts get reviewed, approved and delivered, and it isn’t built to hold camera originals. Uploads are capped at 2 GB per file on Creator, 5 GB on Pro and 10 GB on Studio, so the cards from a shoot day go on a drive.
What RecReview covers is the files that come out of the edit and the record of who took them.
It doesn’t know when an invoice is paid, so the nearest thing to “after full payment” is approval.
On the review page, the download button shows for client contacts who can approve, once they’ve approved the version. In the client portal, a video can be downloaded once its task is delivered.
Turn on “Allow download before approval” for a client and both open earlier, with each early download logged and your team notified. The player can still play the original file, so this controls the download button and doesn’t lock the picture.
Portal downloads go into that contact’s history, and the share window’s Recent activity lists who opened the link and how many times.
When a client moves to another studio, generate a new review link and the old one stops working.
Anyone who opens a video they can no longer reach gets a form to request access, and the person who uploaded it can let them in or decline. More on access and security.
