DSLR videos often have great visuals. Great visuals must be matched to great music to make awesome films.
Moby – a composer and artist who supports independent work – has made many of his tracks available for film makers at no cost. I find his music visually inspiring and, like many others, appreciate his work and perspective on digital art in today’s world. It’s amazing to find music of this quality offered for free to help other artists.
Here’s an ‘unboxing’ video captured as I go through the process of accessing the music of Moby on mobygratis.com.
Click through the video or click here to watch in HD.
Moby has made this music available for free if you use it in a non-commercial film. If you want to use it in a commercial project you pay a nominal fee which he donates to the Humane Society.
The only downside in my experience is the turnaround time. If you need music for a project now this is not the place to go.
The site says that you’ll receive an email with approval within a few days. I made the video as I subscribed on March 30, 2010. I received my email with permission to use the music and a link to download it on April 10, 2010. This was no problem for me as I did not have a deadline for my project.
If you need music for a project with an immediate deadline you’ll need to go to regular stock music site.
Another thing to be aware of is that you will only be able to download the file one time. On a regular stock music site you typically have an account showing everything you’ve ever purchased with the ability to download a track again if needed.
Here’s a screen capture of the download page as I grabbed the .aiff file. The quality was very high and it should be great in my project.
On the positive side, Moby’s music is visual and thematic, making it perfect for DSLR video projects using all the great shot-making features of these cameras. Extremely short depth of field shots with rack focus, tight shots with bokeh backgrounds, shots from dimly lit scenes and other mood filled scenes all benefit from music like this.
It’s spring time in Florida and that means lots of people outside enjoying the weather. I’ve been shooting people jogging and exercising outside and plan to use this music for a short film playing to the strengths of DSLR video. I’ll post it here when it’s done.
In the meantime, check out mobygratis.com. It could be the perfect answer with a sound track to kick your project into high gear.
