Music Video CW - Securing the rights to music (7/9/14)

Rights To Music 

The first part of the process into making a music video from scratch means securing the rights to a track. This is often faced with difficulties and involves countless hours scouring various websites from facebook to soundcloud to find a artist who is willing to sacrifice there work for the sake of your project. For myself I had different concepts and ideas into the type of genre that I wanted to work with. At first I hinted at contacting my cousin who has a small indie band in Ireland. However this would mean managing logistics that would involve my cousin and there band either coming to London or me going to Dublin to shoot. Its here that I would encounter my first genre convention. As they are a indie band what type of video would I shoot? Andrew Goodwin's dancing in the distraction factory associates indie music with either a narrative driven video or a performance. Shooting a narrative driven video within the confines of Dublin city centre I thought would be ideal in projecting a narrative especially amoungst the bohemian settings of temple bar. If I shot a performance this would be less probalamatic and however it would restrict my marks unless I edited well and used a variety of different shots. Though neither would be possible due to scheduling this has served as a platform for the type of video that I want to deliver. 

I then turned my attention to UK underground rap artists. I figured that UK hip hop is a emerging scene with a unique sound and I think that certain tracks would complement well with a video. Soundcloud is a particularly useful tool for finding new and undiscovered talent. What soundcloud provides is a service that embeds music with social media allowing for you to message the artist yourself and try and establish a relationship with that artist for the means of the track that you want. Soundcloud artist profiles also serve you with contact details so you can try and speak with a artists management team, follow them on twitter and instagram etc. Based on my knowledge of the underground scene I unsuccessfully made contact with several artists who did not reply to my email. The image abouve shows the type of email and style that I used when addressing the artist for his music and below is the artists Soundcloud page where I found him. Located his twitter account and it was there was his managers email address is on display which enabled me to contact him.

Like Jesse James several other artists failed to respond. To keep my options alive I used a rapper that my stepfather knows by the name of Byron Chadwick from Slough. I contacted him via Facebook messenger for his track 'kids' which had already had a video and had featured on a prominant UK hip hop site called Link Up Tv, he himself had already toured both Australia and America. His video featured a mixture of montage shots of his area Slough and performance from himself mimicking the lyrics to the track. Looking at Byrons video gave me an insight into how a grime track is done. Websites such as Link up tv, SBTV and Grime Daily serve as an important influence into different types of visuals and editing that is used by the directors. As seen the image screenshot shows me making contact directly with the artist who agree's for me to use his track.  

   
So having made contact with Byron I continued to look for different artists. It was not until that I encountered a website by Digital hip hop magazine which showcased new and emerging unsigned UK talent that I discovered London Rapper Fab Soares. I liked the sound of the track Underdog music as it hit the elements that I wanted and the vocals and instrumental went well with the video that he had made. I found a link to his soundcloud which enabled me to message him regarding the rights to the music. He liked the idea and replied within a day to confirm that I could use his music. So soundcloud helped me instigate conversation with Fab who kindly let me use his music. From here I sent him a document which I made that just confirms that the purposes of using his music is for my A level course and nothing commercial. I thought that it would be appropriate to create the document for the purposes of the task and to avoid any sort of infirngement that could in the unlikely event be bought up against the school. Below shows the conversation between me and Fab who agree's and further below is the legal document. 

Having secured the rights to a track that I want and I like has helped me formulate my idea's and concepts better. This has taught me on how to be self suffcient and instead of relying on others to find the music for me. It has also developed my research skills on how to properly use the internet and facilities such as soundcloud to garner the right results for the benefit of my project. I feel with this track I can deliver a excellent video both conforming and adapting the conventions of music videos that are associated with the Hip Hop genre. One concern however that I do have with the track that I am using is that it does contain profanities. This I will overcome by bluring out the swear words that are in the track so that it doesn't affect the outcome and delivery of the finished video. Below is the track and video by Fab Soares entitled Underdog music that I will use to make a alternative video.