One of the big developments in the next generation of stock footage may be the arrival of more sophisticated standalone VFX elements for sale as stock. That's the idea behind ActionVFX, whose founders say they saw an opportunity when they realized that filmmakers were using the same pieces of VFX stock footage were being reused ad infinitum.

"One can only see the same explosion effect so many times before snapping," wrote company founder and CEO Rodolphe Pierre-Louis in a blog post introducing the new company last year. 

ActionVFX is providing some new alternatives with a plethora of new effects plates in categories including fire, explosions, smoke, gun fx, and debris and impact. The "Bullet Hits" category, to choose one exapmle, includes 45 different dust and concrete elements that can be composited into a shot to suggest bullets hitting hard surfaces.

Effects are generally shot with the Red Epic Dragon or Sony FS7 and are made available in the Apple ProRes format at varying levels of quality (often 10-bit ProRes 4444) and at 2K or 4K. Some sound effects are also available as WAV files, and a few free FX are available for download, including bullet shells, dust waves, dirt overlays and smoke plumes at 2K and HD resolutions.

The company is currently in the process of rolling out new, just-completed collections at a rate of one per week. On tap in the near future are Falling Ashes, Grinding Sparks, Wicks/Fuses, and Blood Mist.