Glad to hear it resonates, Stu!

That's wild to think about. I am imagining what it'd be like right now to have this amount of footage from events a hundred (or a thousand) years ago.

We don’t shy away from important events and how/why filmmakers are covering them. The Capitol riot was an unprecedented event in our lifetime, with hundreds of filmmakers capturing on the ground, and one who went to great lengths to edit that footage together. Pagel explains above that while he has his own political beliefs like everyone, he tried to let the footage speak for itself without “interfering with the message.” If you have a criticism for his methodology or for my write-up, I encourage you to share your opinion here. That is much more interesting than pretending nothing weird happened over the last few weeks.

Everything you are referring to with your footage being stolen is obvious copyright infringement. So to be clear, if someone is using your areal footage because it is beautiful and they want it in their movie, but are just not paying you because they are cheap bastards, that is copyright infringement. If however, someone is making a film about, say, cinematography trends in global filmmaking, and want to use a clip of your areal cinematography as a prime example of a trend - whether because they think it's a lovely clip or because they think its garbage - they have every right to do so either way. You do not have the right to prevent them from using your work in their film if it serves a purpose of cultural critique. Whether you like what they say about you or not! So again, this is likely nothing that you are facing when you mention peeps stealing your footage on Youtube, a very real threat, but having nothing to do with Fair Use or this article. Fair Use is crucial to independent artists in American filmmaking, and has been hard fought for by revolutionary filmmakers. If other commenters are disappointed that this mostly applies to documentary, that is true. Doc is the realm filmmakers need to reference copyrighted footage the most to tell their stories. It could apply to a narrative film if it truly fits Fair Use conditions, but you don't see it very often.

It's always good to be skeptical and cautious. (Especially if the entry costs $$$.) I can definitely say the narrative grants above come mostly from institutions like Film Independent, Sundance, SFFILM, Cinereach and so on, and are very much legit. The catch is they are also fiercely competitive, so most of us never get there! A deep dive on the granting world would be great. Solid suggestion.

It's certainly good to be cautious. However, while individuals rarely get free money in our system, corporations get free money and bailouts all the time, often with little-to-no accountability. If small business owners have a chance to get relief in these times, and it may mean the difference between shuttering or staying afloat, I think you gotta try!

Also, the infrastructure for some of these funds comes from us, the taxpayers. Unemployment Insurance has long existed for this reason, and no one should be too shy to apply.