Music Montage for Teacher « Videomaker Community Forums

neckbreakerb
Member

Hi everyone, I've been asked to put together a tribute video (15 min. long) for a retiring athletic director for a high school district. I'm shooting some talking head interviews with his co-workers, and I've been given a lot of still frames to add in as well. Anyone have some suggestions for some songs to use? I'm drawing a blank! Thanks in advace!

Posted 1 year ago #
pseudosafari
Member

You might have copyright issues if you use a CD and just copy the music in your video, but what about some of the high school band performances? That particular sound adds a lot to high school sporting events, and speaks volumes by itself. Really sets the mood. Plus, although you'd have copyright issues with, for example, the high school band performing something by Guns N Roses, you probably wouldn't if they were performing the Star Spangled Banner. Just a thought.

Posted 1 year ago #
birdcat
Moderator

I'm not an attorney but I would think Pseudo's suggestion is very good.

I know my kids band director pays for all the proper performance licensing and since they compete (against other marching bands) in places where commercial video recordings are produced and sold to parents, this may be covered as well.

In my non-lawyer opinion, the only thing you might get hit with using band recordings (even of Guns & Roses) would be compulsories, and I doubt that would come into play.

Of course, you could always go down the royalty-free route - Do a forum search as there have been many threads listing all types of RF music - from expensive to free and everything in between.

Bruce Paul
7Squared Productions
http://www.7squared.com

Posted 1 year ago #
flip43
Member

Like birdcat, I'm not a lawyer but I have been making programmes a long time albeit in a different jurisdiction. Based on that qualification alone, I think the OP will find there are copyright issues with using anything but RF music. Even if the bands were recorded privately any licence to record will almost certainly not extend to re-using the music in a programme.

However, given the subject of this programme (and you don't say if the resulting tribute is to be sold or merely shown) I would be surprised if all the various copyright holders wouldn't release their material for the specific purpose. I think a polite request might surprise you.

Posted 1 year ago #
2ten
Member

I think flip43's response here has more merit than most may think. I have been working on a project that will be shown at a church for some time. Because we wanted to use a song in the film from a commercial artist I wanted it to all be legal. I wrote the record label and the recording artist and told them what song was to be used, how it was to be used, the nature of the film (not for profit, not distributed, shown for free once) and I received permission to use the song for a fee of $15.

There are a lot of posts that deal with this on this forum and other and it always seems to be about how to get around the law. If you simply ask the record label (and artist because the right to the song and the actual recording of the song are two different things I discovered) you may be surprised how cheaply you get something like "Music Services Inc - Videogram Synchronization license" which is what they sent me, or similar.

Travis

Posted 1 year ago #
pseudosafari
Member

Good points on the copyright stuff. I just can't imagine I'd sleep well knowing I made a video and put it out there for the world to see and share, wondering when I'll get caught for copyright infringement. That, plus the fact that I'd be stealing someone else's hard work. The point of this business (to me) is to be creative. You don't do that by stealing other peoples' works. It's too easy in this day and age to find legal stuff to use. It's all over the internet! Plus, in this post, getting permission to record and use the high school band performance might fit the film perfectly (and help you sleep at night).

Posted 1 year ago #
HJB Productions
Member

You should also consider Smartsound; royalty free and you can play around with the sound settings. Footage Film is also giving out production music and sound effects for the cost of shipping.

HJB Productions

Posted 1 year ago #