When making a film that’s reliant to some degree on archival footage, Pettengill advises that it’s important to give yourself a long lead time. Building relationships with archival sources can take years, and it can be more cost-effective to negotiate footage rates early in the process. If you only start as you’re nearing the end of the process, it tends to be more expensive because you’re putting out fires instead of making a long-term rate plan for your budget and staying on top of it as you go.

Rotondi agreed: “The more you develop relationships with the archives, it makes a big difference — many archives have minimums, and then they’ll start to negotiate, but that can be a long process.”

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