Who Owns Your Video Footage? And What Do You Actually Get When You Ask for the Rushes?

Two questions where the answer is not always as clear cut as you might think. And two questions that reveal quite a lot about how a video production company actually operates.

 

Who Actually Owns Your Footage?

When we produce a film or video project, we always assume that anything you’ve paid for belongs to you. If you’ve commissioned us to make something, every bit of footage is yours to keep and use as you please.

That might sound obvious, but not every video production company works this way.

Legally, unless your contract explicitly states otherwise, copyright law says the footage and the final film belong to the video production company, not the client. So it’s worth checking, before you sign anything, whether your contract addresses this directly.

When we’re formally contracted, clients often include a clause stipulating that commissioned footage belongs to them. We have absolutely no problem with that. If we were in their shoes, we’d do the same.

When it’s a more informal agreement, we simply do what we believe is honourable and decent. If a client has commissioned us and paid us, the footage is theirs to do with as they wish.

Legally, we might own the footage. Morally, you do. And we’re sticking to our morals.

 

What Happens to That Footage in the Real World

It’s not unusual for footage to travel further than anyone originally planned. When the acclaimed photographer Spencer Tunick got thousands of people to strip naked and paint themselves blue and green for the Sea of Hull project, we were the official film team, commissioned by KCOM and The Ferens Art Gallery. Our footage ended up in news programmes across the world. We didn’t receive a credit and we didn’t expect one. We were proud that footage we’d shot was working hard for our clients, showcasing their event internationally. That was more than enough.

Whenever clients ask us to share clips with TV broadcasters, partner organisations, or internal teams, we’ll do that. We never insist on a credit for Nova.

 

What People Actually Mean When They Ask for “the Rushes”

Ah, the infamous question.

Strictly speaking, “rushes” is a film industry term for the entirety of that day’s shoot, sent back at the end of the day for checking. It’s a making-movies thing. In practice, nobody has ever actually asked us for that.

What clients mean when they say they want the rushes is the useful footage. And more often than not, they want it in the simplest, easiest format possible, something they can actually work with again later without needing an edit suite.

 

The Reality of Raw Footage

A camera operator rarely just points and shoots. Before we get that perfect frame, there is a lot of work involving lighting, exposure, sound checks, and composition. Sometimes shots are abandoned or require several takes. When we return to the studio, we sift through a mountain of clips—some are too shaky, others have lighting issues, and in some, nothing happens at all. Our job is to find those specific moments that make your final edit sing.

Take our work at Hull’s Freedom Festival as an example. We use a ‘street-shooter’ approach there, meaning we never quite know what we’re going to get. We are on the ground to capture the vibrancy of the event, spontaneous joy, and the diverse crowd, all set against Hull’s architecture.

If you watch the Freedom film, you’ll see the final result relies entirely on the pace of the cut, the timing of the music, and the fractions of a second that capture a specific glance or movement. While filming for Freedom is a great chance to produce visually exciting content, the ability to interpret that emotion and select the right timing is the essential work we do for every film we produce.

There is also the sheer volume of data to consider. A two-minute video can easily result in 100GB of footage. This is why, if you ask for the raw files, we will always gently check if that is truly what you need or if a curated selection would serve you better.

 

What Most Clients Actually End Up Wanting

More often than not, the best solution is this: we take all of the B-roll we selected for the film, grade it, and put all the clips together in one long timeline, which we export as an MP4 or QuickTime file and send via WeTransfer or as a Vimeo download. A kind of B-roll reel, ready to be cut and used again.

We’re already making those selections for the film you commissioned, so the work involved is minimal. The footage arrives graded, clearly formatted, and in a file size that’s actually manageable.

If you want higher resolution versions or genuine raw files, we can arrange that too. Just ask.

 

When Raw Footage Is Actually Worth Having

There are times when getting the fuller footage makes real sense:

• Archiving for future use or reference
• Creating ongoing social content throughout the year from a single shoot
• Passing footage to internal teams or third-party agencies working on related projects

When clients know this upfront, it shapes how we plan the shoot. It’s always worth raising at the start of a project.

 

Quick FAQs

Can I sell the footage to Netflix if I own it? Sure, go for it. (And please invite us to the premiere.)

Is your camera operator really just messing around before filming? Well, kind of. We call it “being creative.”

Still have questions about rights, rushes, or anything else video-related? Drop us a line. We’re here with straight answers and minimal eye-rolling.