How to Submit Your Film to a Cinematography Reference Library — For Free

You spent months — maybe years — getting the light right, finding the locations, cutting the edit down to something that finally breathes. The film is done. Now what?

Most platforms charge you to host it, gate it behind algorithms, or bury it in a feed that moves on in 24 hours. StillsLab works differently. If you directed, shot, or hold the rights to a film, series, music video, or commercial — and the work is visually strong — you can submit it to our library completely free through our Rights Holders & Creators page.

No subscription. No fees. No catch.

Why would you want your frames on StillsLab?

StillsLab isn't a streaming service or a social network. It's a reference library used daily by working filmmakers, cinematographers, art directors, and film students to study visual craft. When your work lives here, it sits alongside films by Roger Deakins, Hoyte van Hoytema, and Bradford Young — and it's discovered the same way theirs is: through lighting style, composition, color palette, and shot type.

Here's what that means in practice:

Your work becomes a reference point. When a DP is building a lookbook for a new project and searches for "warm tungsten interior" or "handheld close-up, natural light," your frames can show up right next to scenes from major studio releases. That's a kind of professional visibility no social media post can replicate.

Every frame gets AI-powered tagging. We don't just upload your stills and leave them in a folder. Each frame is analyzed and tagged — lighting type, composition, color palette, shot size, time of day, mood. This metadata is what makes your work findable by the people who actually care about how it was made.

Full credit to you and your crew. Director, cinematographer, gaffer, production designer — whoever you want credited gets credited. Your name stays attached to your work in a professional context, not buried under a username.

Permanent, high-quality presence. Frames are published in full resolution (ideally 4K), properly archived, and don't disappear after a week. Your work stays in the library and keeps getting discovered as long as StillsLab exists.

A global audience of professionals. StillsLab users aren't casual scrollers. They're the people who hire cinematographers, plan shoots, and teach the next generation of filmmakers. Being in this library puts your visual work directly in front of industry professionals who study frames for a living.

How the submission process works

We kept it simple — four steps, no account required.

1. Send an inquiry. Head to the submission form and tell us about your project. Your name, email, the title of the work, and a brief message about what it is. If you have an IMDb link or a website, include it — it helps us understand the project faster.

2. We review and reply. Our team looks at every submission. If the work fits the library — meaning it's visually accomplished and would serve as a useful reference for other filmmakers — we'll get back to you by email to agree on the details. We're looking for quality of craft, not genre or budget.

3. You get a private upload link. No need to create an account or navigate a CMS. We send you a personal, secure upload link where you can send your stills directly. If you'd rather send a video master (MP4, MOV, MKV, or MXF), we can extract and process the frames on our end.

4. Published with full attribution. We process and tag every frame, then publish the gallery with complete credits. If you'd prefer to remain uncredited for any reason, that's fine too — you decide.

What kind of projects qualify?

We feature work across all formats:

• Feature films and shorts — narrative, documentary, experimental
• Series and episodic content
• Music videos
• Commercials and branded content

The common thread is visual quality. We're not filtering by budget size, festival laurels, or distributor name. A beautifully shot short film from an independent filmmaker gets the same treatment as a studio feature. What matters is whether the frames will be genuinely useful as visual reference material — sharp, well-composed, with intentional cinematography.

A few technical notes

To keep the library consistent, we ask that submissions follow some basic guidelines: frames should be sharp and in focus, ideally at 4K or the master quality of the work. We accept JPEG, PNG, WebP, and TIFF for stills. If you're sending frames yourself (rather than a video master), we recommend roughly one frame every 15–20 seconds for narrative work, and denser intervals for fast-paced music videos. Chronological order helps, and duplicates should be avoided.

Full details are on the Rights Holders page.

Who's already doing this?

StillsLab's library already includes work submitted directly by filmmakers and rights holders alongside editorially curated content. The platform treats both the same way — identical tagging, identical search integration, identical presentation. There's no "indie corner" or second-tier section. Your frames live in the same search results, the same filter system, and the same discover feed as everything else.

Ready to submit?

If you've made something you're proud of and you want it seen by the people who understand what goes into making it — this is where it belongs.

Submit your work →

It costs nothing, takes a few minutes to start, and your frames get a permanent home in a library built by filmmakers, for filmmakers.