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Hi, I am Casey

Casey Lees

Visual Researcher

I’m a Vancouver based Visual Researcher & Archive Clearances Specialist with a Master’s degree in Library and Information Studies (MLIS) in Archival Studies from McGill University.

With over 5 years of experience working as a Visual Researcher on documentaries, films, websites, and television broadcast media, let me expertly and efficiently source the additional images and footage your project needs. Whether you need material that’s visually impactful to wow clients, cheap or free to meet shoestring budgets, historically or contextually accurate for factual authenticity, or fast and easily licensable to make those tight deadlines - I’ve worked with producers, directors, editors, and researchers to help identify and satisfy their unique research needs.

Experience

1
Visual Researcher & Archive Clearances Specialist
Freelance

April 2018 - Present, Remote

Responsibilities:
  • Conducted visual archive research and clearances for documentary films, television, and websites.
  • Identify, locate, and contact copyright owners for the photos or footage. Negotiate licensing fees and bulk rate discounts.
  • Prepared archive timecode logs, budgets, and suggestions.
  • Organized licensing paperwork and documentation for legal review and records.
  • Fair Use and Fair Dealings research, advice, and diligence report writing to submit for legal review.
Forensic Genealogical Researcher
HeirSearch.com

September 2018 - September 2019, Vancouver, BC

Responsibilities:
  • Identified, located, and proved heirs for legal estate and trust matters.
  • Utilized online proprietary and genealogical databases with sensitive personal information on a daily basis to conduct research and locate individuals.
  • Contacted clients and heirs regarding research needs and sensitive matters.
  • Wrote research summaries, reports, and affidavits with the thorough diligence and writing quality necessary to be accepted as evidence in court.
2
3
Visual / Archive Researcher
CMJ Productions II Inc.

January 2014 - April 2018, Montreal, QC

Responsibilities:
  • Conducted online research skills to find requested visual material for TV documentary series, identify copyright owners, contact them, and negotiate licensing.
  • Maintained archive database and tagged descriptive metadata for production’s b-roll, archives, research materials, and stock video.
  • Created documentation of episode timecode logs, archive budgets, notes flagging content with legal or sensitive concerns, and final documentation binders.
  • Was consistently contracted over 4 years by CMJ Productions II Inc. for multiple series.
  • Credited on 7 TV shows (over 100 episodes in total).
Archive Intern and Consultant
Canadian Jewish Congress National Archive

2012 - 2013, Montreal, QC

Responsibilities:
  • Appraised, described, and catalogued archival material to RAD standards.
  • Filled research inquiries by locating requested material.
  • Consulted on donation acquisition and acted as the donor-archive liaison.
4
5
Digitization Project Assistant
Rare Books and Special Collections, McGill University

2012 - 2013, Montreal, QC

Responsibilities:
  • Digitized and handled fragile old rare books, quality checked OCR.
  • Coded XML metadata for bibliographic description in EAD standard.
  • Co-wrote reports, academic papers, wrote text and visual content for project blog.

Portfolio

Filmography - Visual / Archive Researcher
IMDb Page - https://www.imdb.com/name/nm8531919/

Bibliography

Sharon Rankin and Casey Lees, (2015), “The McGill Library Chapbook Project: A case study in TEI encoding”, OCLC Systems & Services: International digital library perspectives, Vol. 31 Iss 3 pp.

Permanent link: http://dx.doi.org/10.1108/OCLC-07-2014-0030

Education

McGill University
2013
Master of Library and Information Studies - Archives
McGill University
2011
B.A. - Humanistic Studies and History (Double Major)
Vanier College
2007
D.E.C. - Liberal Arts Honours Program

Testimonials

I would recommend Casey for archival research for any film, documentary or series project you are working on. Casey worked on one of the hardest series, showcasing two hundred years of history on the west coast with a vast majority of racialized archives and hard-to-fill stories. Her vast breadth of knowledge and history, and her meticulous caretaking of each relationship and vendor can save you so much money in the long run.

Leena Minifie - producer 'British Columbia: An Untold History'

Casey is great to work with. She is efficient, professional and dedicated. I would not only recommend her but I would hire her again in an instant.

Services

Visual Researcher
  • With over 5 years of experience working on documentaries, film, websites, and television broadcast media, let me expertly and efficiently source the additional images and footage your project needs. Whether you need material that’s visually impactful to wow clients, cheap or free to meet shoestring budgets, historically or contextually accurate for factual authenticity, or fast and easy to license to make those tight deadlines - I’ve worked with producers, directors, editors, and researchers to help identify and satisfy their unique research needs.
  • In addition to my connections I’ve built up over the years, The Visual Researcher Society of Canada has negotiated preferential rates with many footage and images sources available exclusively through their member researchers like myself.
Archive Researcher / Producer
  • Leverage the public domain! This is my favorite way to help projects bring down stock and licensing costs. Not just for historical projects, let me help you navigate the growing world of free, creative commons, and public domain contemporary stock video and photography websites. You know how expensive the monolithic stock sites like Getty, Shutterstock, and iStock are getting. Just replacing a couple of stock items from those sites with public domain material will instantly save you hundreds or thousands of dollars – savings that can sometimes more than cover the cost of my services with only a few hours of research.
  • As a dual American/Canadian citizen, it’s slightly easier for me to make federal, state/provincial, local, and FOI record requests for public documents from either country.
  • I create episode archive timecode logs, budget reports, and replacement suggestions.
  • Got a database full of B-roll, archives, and stock that needs organizing? I can help do all that nitty-gritty boring tagging stuff so your team can find what they need more efficiently!
Clearances
  • Identify, locate, and contact copyright owners for the photos or videos you want to use in your project.
  • Negotiate licensing fees and bulk rate discounts if possible.
  • Organize licensing paperwork and documentations for legal review and records.
  • Fair Use and Fair Dealings research, advice, and diligence report writing for legal review.
  • Flag additional copyright issues or other sensitive legal rights that may need to be secured for your project (appearance release, location release, music/performance rights, trademarks, etc.).
Fact Checking & Research
  • Want someone to double check your documentary for inaccuracies? Let me be a second set of eyes to help with factual accuracy on your project.
  • I’m a nerd with a wide range of interests and expertise – from graduating high school with the top marks awards in both Biology and Media - to my multiple degrees in Information Studies, History, Liberal Arts, and Humanities.
  • I take pride in the accuracy and professionalism of my research very seriously. As a forensic genealogy researcher, my reports and affidavits had to have the thorough research diligence and accuracy necessary to be accepted as evidence in court.