Media kit: Visual Memory Index 2026

Press summary

Stockfilm digitizes twentieth-century home movies and licenses them to filmmakers, producers, and researchers. The Visual Memory Index is its recurring research publication built from that work: a measured account of what survives in the archive (162,603 searchable clips from 1,615 cataloged physical reels), what 5,145 on-site searches asked for, where demand outruns the surviving record, and which subjects actually get licensed. All published numbers are aggregates; raw queries and customer data are never released.

Approved headline findings

• 41.9% of the searchable catalog was shot in the 1960s, the peak of home-movie survival; the archive effectively ends in the late 1980s when video replaced film.
• 19.9% of archival footage searches name an exact year and 25.7% name a specific place; demand for the visual past is time-and-place specific.
• The clearest supply gap is a craft element, not a subject: title cards and film leader draw 0.9% of searches against 0.3% of the catalog (gap index 2.88).
• 6.1% of searches return no results at all.
• School and graduation footage is licensed at 2.4 times the catalog base rate; licensing does not simply follow supply.
• 46.1% of searchable clips carry a candidate match to one of 1,615 cataloged physical source reels; the match is made on year and place and is not a digitization record.

Each finding's underlying table is in the edition report; each figure's N and window are printed on the figure itself.

Figures: download and embed

Figures are available as SVG downloads and as responsive iframe embeds. Embeds carry a visible source line and a link back to the report, and set no cookies.

<iframe src="https://stockfilm.com/embed/research/visual-memory-index/2026/survival-by-decade" title="What survives, by decade (Stockfilm Visual Memory Index)" width="100%" height="420" style="border:0;max-width:760px" loading="lazy"></iframe>

<iframe src="https://stockfilm.com/embed/research/visual-memory-index/2026/demand-by-theme" title="What people search for (Stockfilm Visual Memory Index)" width="100%" height="420" style="border:0;max-width:760px" loading="lazy"></iframe>

<iframe src="https://stockfilm.com/embed/research/visual-memory-index/2026/coverage-gap" title="Where demand outruns the surviving record (Stockfilm Visual Memory Index)" width="100%" height="420" style="border:0;max-width:760px" loading="lazy"></iframe>

<iframe src="https://stockfilm.com/embed/research/visual-memory-index/2026/licensing-by-decade" title="What actually gets licensed (Stockfilm Visual Memory Index)" width="100%" height="420" style="border:0;max-width:760px" loading="lazy"></iframe>

Aggregate data downloads

• supply-by-decade.csv
• supply-by-country.csv
• demand-by-theme.csv
• coverage-gap.csv
• licensing-by-decade.csv
• release.json

License: CC BY 4.0. The aggregate data files, figures and text of the Stockfilm Visual Memory Index are licensed under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0). You may copy, redistribute, adapt and build on them for any purpose, including commercially, provided you credit Stockfilm Research and link to the report. The license covers the published aggregates only; it does not grant any right to the archive's footage, frames or metadata records, which are licensed separately.

Suggested attribution

Stockfilm Research (2026). The Stockfilm Visual Memory Index 2026, version 1.0 (stockfilm-vmi-2026-v1.0). Stockfilm. https://stockfilm.com/research/visual-memory-index/2026

BibTeX

@techreport{stockfilm_vmi_2026_v1_0,
  title        = {The Stockfilm Visual Memory Index 2026: What Survives in Home Movies, What Storytellers Search For, and What Gets Licensed},
  author       = {{Stockfilm Research}},
  institution  = {Stockfilm},
  year         = {2026},
  month        = {7},
  type         = {Research report},
  number       = {stockfilm-vmi-2026-v1.0},
  version      = {1.0},
  url          = {https://stockfilm.com/research/visual-memory-index/2026},
  note         = {Aggregate data released under CC BY 4.0. Demand window 2026-02-27 to 2026-07-14.}
}

Badge (Markdown)

[![Data: Stockfilm Visual Memory Index 2026](https://stockfilm.com/research/vmi-badge.svg)](https://stockfilm.com/research/visual-memory-index/2026)

In running text: "according to the Stockfilm Visual Memory Index" with a link to https://stockfilm.com/research/visual-memory-index. Chart embeds already include the source line.

Methodology in brief

• Supply: the searchable catalog of 162,603 published clips, snapshot dated 2026-07-15.
• Demand: 5,145 on-site searches, 2026-02-27 to 2026-07-14, mapped to a versioned taxonomy with deterministic rules; themes under 10 searches suppressed; raw queries never published; click data excluded this edition.
• Licensing: lifetime marketplace outcomes per clip; no revenue published.

Full detail: methodology. Archive standards: Archive Integrity.

Footage behind the findings

For coverage that needs the footage itself, these entry points map to the report's themes. Screeners and licensing questions: contact Stockfilm.

• Family life and children82,704 clips
• Christmas and winter holidays6,964 clips
• City streets and urban life23,154 clips
• Cars, driving and road trips24,496 clips
• Nature and the outdoors52,427 clips
• Birthdays and parties9,010 clips