In a hectic environment with millions of content makers, and enormous amounts of videos coming out every day, it may come as a surprise to find out how many things people need to be careful about, when posting videos. Guidelines and rules are constantly being updated, therefore a filmmaker or a vlogger must always be well-informed and up-to-date with any legal novelties in the world of videography.
Imagine spending hours, weeks or even months, brainstorming ideas, making concepts, finding perfect locations, taking videos, filmmaking, editing and then… Getting your video taken down on YouTube. Or even worse, getting sued. If you’re wondering why this could happen, the answer is simple: copyrighted music.
Undoubtedly, music is one of the most powerful tools for creating an environment or an atmosphere of the video. Sometimes, it’s the thing that makes all the difference, compared to videos that have the same thematic, meaning or message. Background music is what makes us emotional, and what can easily grab our attention or make us continue scrolling. What differentiates fantastic video from great ones is their uniqueness and originality. This is why choosing the right music is so crucial. But, what should you pay attention to when choosing the music for your video projects?
From legal requirements to the perfect genre, this is not an easy process. Luckily, we made a list of tips to help you reach your videos’ highest potential.
How to find the perfect royalty free music for your video project? Read more to find out!
1. Find the Right Source
This is the most important thing to start with. Although there are thousands of website sources that offer different types of music, it’s crucial to find the one that would meet your artistic criteria but at the same time provide you with excellent music with no legal limitations. This means that you wanna make sure your music is high-quality, unique but also copyright free. After you’ve chosen a renowned music source, you can visit its library and choose the songs you like the most. You can choose to pay for the license and therefore pick only the songs that fit your budget or you can go with royalty-free website sources where you will either get offered a free license or you’ll need to give some credits to the composer. Either way, the right source will give you a lot of possibilities and it will help you relax and focus on choosing the right songs, without worrying about copyright infringement.
2. Prepare a List for Each Project
When you’re trying to choose the right song that would match the content in your video, it’s much better to choose the genre, the tone and the atmosphere you want to create, rather than finding that one perfect song. You maybe think that having that one special song will make the difference, but in reality you may end up spending hours and hours searching for the right one, trying to incorporate it into your video, only to find out you don’t like it. Also, with so many options, it quickly becomes a chaotic process where you can actually miss the right songs that would make the best option for you. That’s why the best strategy is to choose at least 10 songs per video, and to always have a playlist from which you can choose several different songs so that you don’t spend extra time on looking for more songs later, when you’re meeting your deadlines and it’s too late for more editing.
3. Think About the Message You Wanna Send to the Audience
What emotions do you want to evoke? What’s the marketing strategy you’re using? If you’re selling a product, what’s the why behind the what? If you simply want to tell a story and make people think about a social phenomenon, then the right music will play a big part in that process. In some cases, you won’t need any loud or aggressive background music. In others, that’s exactly what you’ll need. For example, if you’re creating an exercise equipment commercial, you’ll most certainly need music with good beats or some good old hard rock. If you’re making a documentary about an artist’s life, you’ll need soothing music, either chill instrumental beats or classical music. But it’s not only about the topic of your project. It’s about the audience too. You have to differentiate the younger audience from the more mature one, make or female, business or entertainment. Just like marketing experts target a specific list of leads, you too need to consider who you wanna talk to and who you wanna share your message with. Luckily, on most of the websites today, music is divided into categories not only by genre but also by audience, tone, and mood. This could be helpful if you don’t know where to start.
4. Don’t Be Afraid to Try Out Stuff
A valuable lesson for all the content creators is the lesson they’ve hopefully learned at the beginning of their careers. This lesson is all about playing with the effects and editing rather than strictly working and trying not to make a mistake. Adding the music, cutting and coordinating, removing it, using several songs until you find the one you think it’s the best – all of this is the part of a creative process and it shouldn’t be underestimated. It’s what makes it valuable. Even after years of video editing, you may know exactly what you need to make the video perfect, but you’ll need to try out things, test out loops, shorts, filters, effects and other tech innovations to make sure you took the best out of it and made the best video you could. You can make a playlist that you clients like, but it’s still up to you to incorporate a song so that it can enhance the quality of the project. If you feel like you’re under pressure, chances are that the outcome will be worse. Relax, and play!
5. Match the Audio With the Imagery
We all get chills in our body when we see something that moves us. That’s why it’s important to connect what’s visually going on with the audio in the background. Combine beats in the song with cuts and transitions in the video. End a scene with a moment of silence then go with a loud sound for the new scene. Try to create a perfect relationship between the music and the images. This is what leaves an impression on the viewers and leaves them speechless. This is the effect you want to create. Engaging the audience can easily be done if you pay attention to details and coordinate every aspect of your project – the visuals, the audio, the message, the goal.
Video industry was and will remain an industry that has the greatest impact on engagement of the audience. It’s one of the best, if not the best way to deliver messages, attract people, increase sales and create whichever effects on the market. That’s why the demand for great video content is growing year after year. Just imagine millions of videos being created every minute. What will you do to make your video stand out? Start with the music. It will help you tell the story.
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