Music is often one of the last pieces to complete a film. As any filmmaker knows, music is critical to the storytelling process. Music can heighten suspense, make your audience care, and save many a mediocre acting performance. It can be tempting to use favorite songs or film scores from Hollywood films, but this violates Vanguard’s copyrighted materials policy and makes it impossible for you to screen your film for an audience. Here are a few ways to properly acquire music for your film.
Stock Music
Stock music is a convenient way to source instrumental cues for your film. Well-organized stock music libraries can be searched by mood, genre and other keywords. Stock music is typically affordable, and there are many companies and composers that offer stock music for free if you give them credit. Below is a list of a few resources for paid and free royalty-free stock music.
- premiumbeat.com
- incompetech.com
- mobygratis.com
- freesoundtrackmusic.com
- ccmixter.org
- partnersinrhyme.com
- pacdv.com/sounds/free-music.html
- publicdomain4u.com
- musopen.org
- beatpick.com
- audiofarm.org
- jamendo.com
- opsound.org
- openmusicarchive.org
- musicformakers.com
- freeplaymusic.com
- freemusicarchive.org
- soundcloud.com (ask the artist–see Licensing Music section below)
Original Music
Vanguard has many talented musicians that may be interested in scoring a film or writing an original song for the soundtrack. The Music Department is a great place to start looking, but you may also have friends or acquaintances that you want to work with.
There are two simple guidelines to working with a composer: Respect their time and work. No composer wants to work under impossible deadlines or have their work poorly edited after the fact. Make time in your schedule to ensure that your composer can receive a locked (no changes) cut of the film to work on.
Sign a contract. Make sure you and your composer have a legal agreement that allows you to use the music in conjunction with your film. You will need to prove you own the rights to the music should you enter a film festival or have your film acquired for distribution. If you use live musicians to create the final recording of the score, you also need releases from each musician for their performance. Check the Index of Forms for a Music Release form you can use.
Licensing Music
Licensing existing music is another option for your film. You have to obtain two types of licenses for any song–a sync license and a master license. These licenses are typically owned by two different companies. Music licensing companies or ASCAP can help you track down who owns what for any song you might be interested in using. Obviously, the more popular or famous the artist, the more the rights typically cost. While it can be expensive, there are often reduced rates for student filmmakers. ASCAP has a great guide to help you get started: https://www.ascap.com/help/career-development/how-to-acquire-music-for-films
You can also license music directly from independent artists that are not signed to a label. In these cases, the artist usually still owns the rights to the music, so you can negotiate directly with them. Small and local artists may even be willing to grant you a license at no cost in exchange for the exposure of being in your film. Make sure the artist has not signed any of their rights to the song to a third-party (manager, agent, label, etc) before you sign a contract. You can use the Music Release form in the Index of Forms.