Thursday, July 03, 2014

DVD Guide pt 2: Music to your jeers...

Continuing on from yesterday on our discussion of making less sucky DVD magic videos, let's talk about music. I touched on it yesterday about title cards (and on various other posts throughout the years) but today I want to talk about the use of music over all.

The best course of action everyone will tell you to cover your ass with is to use royalty free music the problem comes with that a lot of royalty free music sounds like... royalty free music. Especially if you get it from a free stock music website. There are places like Pond5 and Getty Images that have better music for sale but you run the risk of using a song that other people have also bought and used.

You do want to stray from copyrighted music if you are selling a DVD (even though realistically the chances of ASCAP or Columbia records coming after a small time magician are slim to none) but that doesn't mean you can't use "real" music. The world is full of independent artists that aren't tied to a record company and have control over who uses their music. Make nice with these people and see if they will let you use their tunes. Trade to do some shows for them or some such or even kick them some cash. (Results may vary depending on your country of origin)

Ah but what about the musically inclined of you who can strum a guitar like some douche sitting under a tree on a college campus? I'm not going to say not to put your own music onto your DVD but I will try and discourage it.

What really helps is to have a vision and feel for the over all project so you can decide what kind of music to use. If it's a card magic video, maybe hard core rock rap or dubstep isn't the way to go. Spooky bizarre magic? Maybe don't use folk music. If you are going to play music behind your explanations, go for something sedate and not obvious.

There is no "right" way to go about all of this but I bet you all know a few wrong ways. Tomorrow? We get to Authorin'!

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