Stock footage service VideoBlocks says VR is the future of video

About a year after Reston-based stock video subscription service VideoBlocks launched an on-demand marketplace, and several months after this partnership with the Discovery Channel, the company is taking another industry-leading stride — adding VR and 360-degree video content.
That’s right, starting today clips of 2D and 3D virtual reality, as well as 360-degree video, are available on the platform.
“The marketplace has just continued to catch fire,” VideoBlocks founder Joel Holland told Technical.ly. So far, the company has paid out over $2 million to creators who have uploaded content to the site. “So we took a step back to say, ‘What’s next?'”
And according to VideoBlocks, VR is what’s next.
“VR is pretty white hot right now,” Holland said. “And we think it’s here to stay.”
In keeping with the company’s general philosophy about making stock video footage accessible and affordable for the mass creative class, some of the new VR footage will be available in the “unlimited library,” and more will be for paid download in the marketplace. In terms of unlimited, VideoBlocks has partnered with two production studios — Ovrture (LA-based) and OFFHOLLYWOOD (Brooklyn-based) — to create exclusive footage for VideoBlocks subscribers.
Of course there will be lots more in the marketplace — VideoBlocks has partnerships lined up there as well and individual producers of VR or 360-degree video can upload their own content for sale and earn 100 percent commission.
Essentially, “we’re doing with virtual reality what we did with 4K seven years ago, and we’re doing it at an affordable and fair price that benefits the entire ecosystem, on all levels,” Holland said in a press release announcing the expansion.
And all this interest in VR? Well, it’s actually pretty simple for Holland, a guy who has spent so much of his life working in video: “This is an entirely new way to experience cinema,” he said. He’s just excited to be a part of helping the movement.