For the financially challed film producer, Good Music often is out of reach. There are many so-so sources for CDs full of royalty free music (we own a huge library of those and hardly ever use it - unless we need something cheesy).
Then there are places where you can preview and download music for a fixed fee per piece (Shockwave Sound and Q Music being my preferred ones), and then there is our dear Kevin MacLeod. He offers his collection of music free, as long as he gets credit in the film. If, for some reason, you cannot or do not want to credit him, you can pay a little fee (30 USD).
And now music artist Moby has made his own mini-website where he published over 60 tracks that can be used free of charge for non-commercial productions (commercial productions have to pay a standard fee, the full amount of which will be donated to a good cause). Here’s the incredibly blurry announcement:
This weekend I got to see a fun film about the film business, The Last Shot (and don’t let the first 5 minutes of the film misguide you). Joe Devine pretends to be a movie director, and gets Steven Schats to believe that his film will be produced. At one point this dialogue entails between them:
Joe Devine: Have you actually seen a person die, watched them bleed to death, seen them take their last breath? I’ve seen that… many times. Steven Schats: Why have you seen that? Joe Devine: I used to produce music videos.
Which is especially funny if you have worked on music videos. Or pop promos as they are often referred to in the industry.
The types on a pop promo set
Pop promos are a totally different type of films from all the others; most notably there often isn’t a story, no one seems to worry about continuity, and generally there are 4 to 6 types of people on set: (more…)
Avid investors prepped for Apple surprises at NAB - …”the ‘talk on the Street’ is that Apple is planning an event for April 15th at the National Association of Broadcasters (NAB) conference in Las Vegas”
Back in the 80s my favourite band was the British avant garde group The Art of Noise.
Art Of Noise are not a band. Never were. They are an organisation, a distinctly non-rockist creative, post-modernist collective. Starting out as a mysterious, Trevor Horn led experimental studio outfit, the primary contributors to the adventure were Royal College Of Music graduate, Anne Dudley; producer/arranger J.J. Jeczalik and songwriter, instrumentalist and engineer/producer Gary Langan.
When I first got on the Internet - at a staggering 9.6 kilobits - one of the first things I checked was naturally The Noise. I found a small discussion group where we talked about which records we liked best, etc.
After the internet came with force, and eBay a household name, I occasionaly skim both for further info on my ex-favourite band. That way I’ve come accross a number of special records that I didn’t know of in the 80s.
Now with broadband and YouTube, a whole new world opens. I came across all those videos I had heard of back-when, but never saw (we did have 2 TV channels to chose from at that time, and they showed a half hour of music videos per week. And none of them by The Noise.) (more…)
