P1 Use of Music in Film - Legal Considerations

1. Right of Use

What's the difference between publishing right and recording rights?

You must be licensed in order to use music, you need two licences:

Publishing License - Received from the people who own the rights to the piece of music i.e. lyrics and composition. You should remember that for this kind of copyright, copyright exist only when the music or words have been recorded or written down.

Recording License - From the people who performed the version of music that you want to use. For example, sound recording copyright exist in a pianists recording of one of Beethoven's sonatas.

How would you go about clearing a piece of music for use in film?

When looking for a soundtrack to use for a film, you need to research into who made the music; for example there isn't really much point in trying to get rights to a song by Beyonce, as there would be no chance of getting granted with access. But if there was a recording of the same song by a local band or singer, you could ask if they had it for sale anywhere, but only before asking the for use of it in your film.

You should also look into copyright of the soundtrack to see who owns it. If it was by a local singer or artist, you could offer to buy them out. This would mean offering them a one off fee to buy their track. It would mean the track would officially be yours to use.

Can you use music in your sequence if the composer has died?

If the composer died over seventy years ago, then the original copyright for the music is extinguished. However you still need to consider who owns the rights to the recording of the music. This will usually be the record company. You will need to approach them for clearance to use the recording in your film.

What is incidental music?

Incidental music is music in a play, tv program, radio program, video game, or film. It is often background music, and adds atmosphere to the action.

Below is some incidental music from the Prometheus Soundtrack

2. Creative Commons

What is creative commons?

Creative Commons (CC) is a non prophet organisation devoted to expanding the range of creative works available for others to build on legally and to share. 

Why does it exist?

The organisation has released several copyright licenses known as creative commons licenses free of charge to the public. These licenses allows creators to communicate which rights they deserve and which rights they waive for the benefit of recipients to other creators.

Explain the 6 different types of CC Licenses

CReative commons licenses consist of four major condition modules: Attribution (BY), requiring attribution to the original author; Share Alike (SA), allowing derivative works under the same or similar license (later or jurisdiction version); Non-Commercial (NC), requiring the work is not used for commercial purposes. No Derivative works (ND) allowing only the original work, without derivatives. These are combined to make six Creative Commons Licenses

1. Attribution (CC BY)

2. Attribution Share Alike (CC BY-SA)

3. Attribution No Derivatives (CC BY-ND)

4. Attribution Non-Commercial (CC BY-NC

5. Attribution Non-Commercial Share Alike (CC BY-NC-SA)

6. Attribution Non-Commercial No Derivatives (CC BY-NC-ND)

Sources from: http://www.bbc.co.uk/filmnetwork/filmmaking/guide/before-you-start/music-rights

http://www.bbc.co.uk/filmnetwork/filmmaking/guide/before-you-start/legal-faqs#musicvideo

3. Your Choice Of Music

Music Choice #1

http://www.freesound.org/people/ERH/sounds/163485/

This piece of music is played on the piano. The artist is known by ERH on freesound.org, and has described it as 'Piano with a free approach to scale and rhythm.'

This piece of music is in the introductory sequence of my film when duke is walking into college; It is important to make the music as accurate as possible in order to set the scene, and establish the main character. This piano piece is very light and mellow. It shows that the weather is good, and it also reflects the ambient sound of the birds chirping, and the light breeze of wind. 

 This is the page where I got this piece of music from; in the bottom right, you can see that the creative commons license states, 'This work is licensed under the Attribution Noncommercial License'

Music Choice #2

http://www.freesound.org/people/SkAiRPiGG/sounds/161998/

The second piece of music that I used for my film was a loop which I also found on freesound.org. This piece of music is used at the start of the second scene in my film during the voiceover montage;   
The artist is known as 'SkAiRPiGG' on freesound, and the loop is called 'Drums with Shuffle.' 

This piece is very up beat and has a fast tempo; this reflects scene two, as it is representing the start of Dukes time at college, which is exciting but is also a scary challenge for Duke.

   

This is the page where I got this piece of music from; again, you can see that in the bottom right of the page the Creative Commons License states, 'This work is licensed under the Creative Commons 0 License'

Sources from: http://www.bbc.co.uk/filmnetwork/filmmaking/guide/before-you-start/music-rights

http://www.bbc.co.uk/filmnetwork/filmmaking/guide/before-you-start/legal-faqs#musicvideo

Foley Sound and SFX Research

What is a Foley Artist, what do they do and why are they needed?

Foley is a film sound technique which was invented by Jack Foley in 1927; It is the art of putting sound effects to films, TV, advertisements and also video games; a Foley artist will recreate sounds that either cannot be recorded, or that would sound better than the original sound, for example if a foley artist wanted to recreated the sound of one man punching another man in the face, they may use different types of materials and textures to create the sound. One way that  foley artists use to recreate punching sound effects is putting celery inside a pillow case, and hitting it with a rolling pin. Foley Artists recreate the sound scape in films to assist in making the sound more dramatic and engaging; they will only really use foley for physical sound such as textures.

During a film shoot, the main priority of the sound is to get the audio of the actors, which means there is less focus on the sound effects that will be needed for the film. Adding foley sound in later helps solve this problem.


Explain the order in which the Foley artist creates the sound

Foley artists crate footstep of all the main characters, then the back ground characters, then they will create sound for objects moving in the scene


What are the key skills and qualities foley artists must have

A Foley artists uses an arsenal of wacky items to match the sounds in a film.
Key skills include good imagination and creativity, the ability to collaborate and work as a team, good sense of timing, rhythm and hand-eye coordination. Some physical strength and stamina are also good, as you may have to use heavy objects, or hit objects fast.


What is the advantage of using real objects to create sound effects rather than using digital production or sound libraries?

Using Foley sound rather than digital production allows you to create sounds that are more engaging to the audience by creating dramatic sound fx. Also using sound libraries doesn't really give you a wide choice, and can limit the action on screen. Foley sound can be individually suited to any specific action on screen.


Using specific examples, describe how key sounds are created

The sound of the lasers in Star wars was created by hitting a metal cable with a hammer.
No synthesisers or digital equipment was used to create the sound of the blasters in the all of the Star Wars films. It was simply created by hitting a straight metal cable with a spanner. Hitting the cable at different angle would create different pitches and were effective as the sound effect.

The sound of the dinosaurs in jurassic park were created using a mix of animal noises which consisted of Whales, Horses and Koala Bears.
These effects were complied digitally and would have been enhanced with technology to become deeper and more scary.

Rough Cut Appraisal

My rough cut is not an accurate representation of my final cut; it only shows the first scene when Duke meets Dan for the first time. no visual effects are shown either.
My rough cut is basically a basic overview of the first scene.
There is dialogue which is clear and makes sense. It accurately introduces Duke, Dan, and Katie, who are the obvious main characters in the film.
 My rough cut is missing a few minor details; after Duke walks around the corner by the cars, there is meant to be a shot of Dan showing off his powers, by holding a large flame in his hands; this will be added later for my final cut and will be achieved in after effects.
 
No colour correction has been added either; the tone of my sequence is supposed to be very washed out and bland to show Dukes sheltered personality. This can be added in premiere.

Overall, my rough cut obviously isn't an accurate representation of my final sequence and there are a lot of additions and changes that need to be made.

4/2/14 Lesson 3

In the final lesson, I spent most of my time editing the footage together. This mainly consisted of compiling the shots together in premiere. I also spent a good amount of time focusing on the music that will be played during the montage, and i think it fits really well

4/2/14 Lesson 2

In our second lesson, me and Reece went out and filmed the remaining establishing shots that we needed for the film, all being shots of the college that are shown during Duke's voiceover montage.

4/2/14 Problems

Today, we had a bit of a problem regarding two of our actors; Dayna forgot to wear her costume to college which meant that we couldn't film with her, and Charlie had a driving test which meant that he wasn't present for most of the day.
 This was a huge problem, as we had planned to film the rest of our shots, and hopefully have finished all of our filming. Obviously this meant that we couldn't film the shots with Dayna or Charlie.

To prevent this from happening in the future, we can notify our actors about when they need to come into college in their costumes, and make sure that they don't forget by telling them the day before.
 Obviously there wasn't much that we could do about Charlie's absence, but we can always film with him on another day.

As Charlie wasn't present and Dayna didn't have her costume, it meant that Reece and I had do the filming on our own; there were some problems with our camera's SD card which delayed us in filming, but we still got to do all of the shots. In order to prevent camera problems from happening, we will remove all of the footage from the SD card after we have finished filming.

4/2/14 Lesson 1

In this lesson, I have continued to edit the footage for the film into premiere; the majority of what I've been doing in editing has been adding footage, and trimming it down.
I will continue to do this with all of the footage that we have so far.
I may also experiment with music as well.