Looking for an artist

In order to make a successful music video for our coursework, there are specific things we need to take into account when choosing what soundtrack is appropriate to complete our music video.

Copyright 

As we are not allowed to use copyright music for our music video, it is imperative to use the music from artists that are not very well established or are unsigned to a label to avoid prosecution from record labels on behalf of the artist or removal of our work from online networks such as Youtube. With this in mind, we must be careful and logical of where to look for potential tracks to use and develop a music video for. Examples of illogical artists to use music off can be; Beyonce, One direction, and Taylor Swift. This is because it is unlikely that we would be able to contact these artists and gain permission to use their music and create a music video for it. 

Where to find music

It is essential to preserve time and thus look for soundtracks in appropriate places. It is often found that on large scale online music hubs such as; Youtube, certain artists on Soundcloud and websites that represent well established artists in specific genres it is unlikely to find music appropriate for our music video. Therefore, it is practical to find tracks on websites that are not dominated by established and signed artists, where we will be more likely to assess practical tracks and view artists that are not well known or unsigned and its more likely to gain position to use their music. Practical websites that we can use to find music are;

- Soundcloud

- Reverb Nation 

- Unsigned.com 

Ideal Track

The ideal track to use in order to complete our music video has certain features that we must take into account when looking for music. It has been suggested that the length of an ideal track is between 3-5 minutes, this means that roughly our music video should exceed 3 minutes however not really venture further than 4 minutes. This allows the music video to be impacting and sharp where the soundtrack would not be drawn out and long-winded which can sustain the audiences attention. It is also important to have a good tempo to our music which can open the door to strong visuals to correlate with the tempo of the soundtrack in our music video and leave space for relevant and effective editing. However, it is also essential to not use a soundtrack that has adopted too much of a high tempo as we are assessed on lip syncing and a fast track with a lack of lyrics can result in a weak amount of lip syncing and can affect our grade. 

Genres to avoid

To avoid unwanted complications, it is recommended that some specific genres of music are avoided to make the process of completing our music video easier and to meet the criteria we will be assessed on. There are a few genres that fall into this category for various different reasons ranging from location and the place we live in to technical aspects such as lip syncing ability and lack of flexibility when looking to make a video.  The following genres are the ones that we are looking to avoid;

1. Rap - rap music is often very fast paced and may be challenging when lip syncing and editing a music video for the rap music genre. Furthermore, location ideas for rap music videos are often limited where it is normally a group of males rapping to the camera with subtle change of locations.

2. Country - The location in which we live is not very accommodating for the country genre where there is not much open grassland and it is quite Urban. Taking this into account and approaching our task from a practical perspective, we are going to avoid the country genre. Factors that relate to this can consist of things such as the fact that none of us have the ability to drive or own a car to get to these different locations.