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Robert Harding's latest service improvement following its acquisition of Specialist Stock is the Comprehensive Research Facility (CRF). Run by Julie-anne Wilce, it provides a one-stop footage research facility to TV broadcasters, NGOs, News, Publishers and educational clients. Julie-anne has years of research experience in a variety of high-level positions including being Greenpeace's photo librarian. After that she joined marine expert Tom Walmsley at Specialist Stock in 2006. After the library was acquired by Robert Harding World Imagery this year, Julie-anne continues to bring her wealth of experience to benefit clients.
"We are able to offer our varied customers a huge array of footage under one umbrella, which saves costs and time," Julie-anne says. "We are of course particularly strong in the environmental area and have exclusive representation of International NGO archives such as: Greenpeace, Save the Children, Christian Aid." But not only do we have the Robert Harding and Specialist Stock footage collections, but we are also able to pull in material from a range of satellite suppliers. Robert Harding's network includes amongst others BBC Motion Gallery, NHNZ, Footage Search, SKYWORKS.”
What they offer is a free search of their own footage, with additional searches of their satellite suppliers, low-res selections and hi-res material delivered to the client in the format of their choice, all for one invoice. Julie-anne points out that Robert Harding enjoys special relationships with their suppliers and therefore clients need not worry about minimum fees eroding their budget.
The CRF has a track record of contributing to prestigious programmes including Whale Wars - Animal Planet on Discovery Channel, River Monsters - Animal Planet on Discovery Channel, Light the Ocean - National Geographic, Nature Shock - National Geographic, Natural World - BBC Natural History Unit. Clients return regularly with new projects as they have been pleased by the high quality of research delivered by this service.
No research assignment is ever completely straightforward. Julie-anne cites difficulties with copyright clearance as the low point of her job. Most of the work is editorial and clearing rights is not too troublesome but there can be challenges to be overcome when the end use is for a commercial or concerns sensitive subjects like whaling. New markets are opening up for video material for the latest generation of eBooks, smartphones and tablets and Harding expects to be able to supply footage for these as required.
Julie-anne says,"I love the customer contact, and fulfilling an ambitious brief on time and budget. We supply professional research at a lower cost and this is important to clients in the current economic climate."
Julie-anne Wilce, Video Researcher / Editor
E: julie-anne[.]specialiststock.com.
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julianj[.]totalise.co.uk 
