Media credits

Media credits are a written record of the sources behind each clip in a video, listing where every piece of footage, map, or graphic came from. They are a form of attribution: they name the archive, rights holder, or origin of each visual element so viewers and platforms can verify what is real footage and what is not. Credits turn an untraceable video into one with checkable provenance.

Why it matters

Without media credits, a viewer cannot tell whether the footage in a video is authentic or produced by a model. That distinction decides whether the video can be cited, reused, or trusted for research. A channel that publishes sourced clips can defend its content when a platform or a viewer questions it; a channel that cannot name its sources has no answer.

The practical mistake people make is treating all short-form video as interchangeable. If you pick a tool that generates visuals from a model, you get no provenance to show, and that closes doors later: newsrooms, educators, and licensing partners ask for sources first. Knowing this term before choosing a workflow means you can demand a credit file as part of the deliverable instead of discovering the gap after publishing.

An example

A vertical documentary about a maritime disaster might use 12 clips in a single Short. With media credits attached, each of those 12 clips carries a named source, so the finished file ships with a credit document alongside the video itself. ViewMade does exactly this: every render includes a media credit file listing the source of each clip, which is why its output is described as real archive footage rather than generated visuals. The credit file is part of the deliverable, not an optional extra.

Terms people confuse this with

• Stock footage: licensed clips from a commercial library; media credits are the record of using it, not the footage itself.
• Archive footage: historical material from news or institutional archives; credits identify which archive supplied each clip.
• Public domain footage: material free of copyright restrictions; credits still record the origin even though no license fee applies.
• Generated footage: visuals produced by a model; these have no real-world source, so a genuine media credit file cannot exist for them.

Where this shows up in ViewMade

Every ViewMade render ships with a media credit file naming the source of each clip.