Documentary Films have a different process than a fictional narrative.  Most of the time, the filmmaker has a story outline they are trying to tell, but as shooting commences, life happens!  Unexpected events arise and what was going to be the dramatic climax is eclipsed by something more interesting or unusual.

To use music to score the film, you can hire a composer to start developing a library of musical themes for the story.  This is something I’ve done several times and it works quite well.  Because of the fluid nature of documentaries, you can provide the only constant to the whole process which is a consistent emotional tone with the music.  Documentaries come together in the editing process and by having a library of thought out music to tell this story is extremely helpful.

You can also do this by carefully selecting similar pieces of music in a production music library like 300 Monks.  Sometimes you can get great results by using several different pieces by the same composer or even different sections of the same piece.  By the way, you can tell if a piece is by the same composer by the visual icon which are assigned to each composer.

You can also wait until a rough edit of the picture is done and then score the piece with a composer or by choosing from our music library.

Ways to Use Music In a Documentary

• Create a memorable theme that becomes the audio mnenomic and branding for the film.  This is what every television series and commercial tries to do, why not you?
• Create musical themes for characters to unite the storytelling
• Create musical themes for sections of the story
• Background emotional shading – music is pure emotion and can often lead the audience to a heightened feeling that was impossible without it
• Foreshadowing of something to come
• To unite a montage of pictures, video
• Covering up the sound of bad production audio
• Masking location audio which you have no rights to, such as the radio is on in the background
• Ironic or strange juxtapositions – You can do what Quentin Tarantino, Martin Scorsese and Cameron Crowe famously do, put music emotionally is the opposite of what we would expect.

Here’s a video that goes over some of the basics of music for a documentary.  He forgot to mention that you can license music through a website like ours for affordable and legal clearance.

Unfortunately, we don’t see the shot with and without the music, but listening to the discussion gives a broad overview of how composers and music supervisors approach storytelling aspect. I always think of scoring film as sort of like taking a big gigantic AUDIO HIGHLIGHTER through the script which I use in multiple colors to draw attention and manipulate the emotions of the audience.

This is mostly about the relationship aspect of making a film work with building a good creative team which includes Director, Producer, Composer and Music Supervisor.

I must say this is an awesome video creation tool. Using just a few still photos, 2 short video clips all shot on point and shoot cameras and then the map creation and text to speech capabilities of Stupeflix, I’m pretty impressed. It did take a little longer as I think the server went down over the weekend and I had to wait to finish. Tell me what you think below.

Feeling It – By Andrew Ingkavet

These are just a few of our Patriotic selections.  Make sure you check out the whole collection.

The Gift -perfect for a graduation moment or a regal celebration.

Inside Our Hearts - This ones is more contemporary radio pop feel.  Feels like a stadium with lighters aloft.

Roses – Sweeping, grandiose, cinematic and driving.

Mission of Honor - Serious, solemn, heroic, stoic.  Sounds like Gladiator.

Boldly Forward - Driving, positive, orchestral

The Prez - warm, acoustic, positive Americana

Olympic Opening - regal, motivational, grand, moving – this piece was featured at the Beijing Olympics.

If you look right under the title of any song or track in the production music library, there’s a link called Download Music Preview. This will allow you to download any of our music files (with audio watermark) and insert it into your presentation, or video or film or website –so you can get your client approval (or your significant other!)

This makes life much easier so you don’t have to guess whether the timing is right or if it works well to your project. Then, when all is worked out, and the client has said “You are a Creative Genius!”
you can come back and purchase the clean version, insert it and voila, you’re done.

Here’s some handy steps:

1. Search or Browse for the music based on genre, or a band or artist you like, or even by the mood of the music
2. Listen to the preview music tracks
3. Download the associated music preview file for comping into your design or video edit
4. Show it to your client or partners and get their approval.
5. Come back here and search by typing in the name of the track or the product ID (same as the file name of the music preview file)
6. License and Download

Here’s a handy graphic that says a thousand words.

Just added 7 great tracks from Nicky Needle.  We are so fortunate to have so many great Acoustic and Americana options in our royalty free music library.

Check them out:

Cold Miracle A minimalist bluegrass piece that sounds straight out of T Bone Burnett and Cold Mountain. Price: $27.00

Desert Minor Haunting slow acoustic guitar blues. Beautiful. Price: $27.00

Open D Slow passing of time. Electric and acoustic guitars. Pensive moody. Price: $27.00

Song for my Friend Beautiful acoustic guitar solo. Lullaby-like and comforting. Price: $27.00

Tangled Cables Slow acoustic guitar solo. Thinking through the events leading up to this moment. Price: $27.00

Here’s 20 great ideas for great music to use in your podcast openers and stings.

1. Big Dipper - Conservative.  Upbeat, melodic piano instrumental with electronic elements that give it a mystical and spacey sound.  By Robert Wayne Johnson
2. Biker Punks – In Your Face. Fast, rocking, punk, guitars with great upbeat hooks. Perfect for a sports or high energy corporate presentation. By Robert Wayne Johnson
3. Explodopop – Energetic.  Great drums on an alt rocking track.  By Tom Curiano.
4. High Velocity – Technology.  Upbeat yet urgent, pulsing, electronic orchestral. Exciting for a chase scene without the dark tinge of so many electronica pieces. Maybe useful for a commercial – think Jason Bourne chasing someone whilst wearing his $100,000 watch.  By Doug Sparling.
5. New Dawn – A Powerful and inspiring rock track with layered guitars that create a passionate feel. Great for many different projects.  By Dan Phillipson.
6. An Upbeat Country Diddy – Americana, Down Home, Backyard, Country Living, Lifestyle.   A great acoustic country hoedown. Short and sweet and perfect for a television intro, podcast intro music or website.  By Mike Stidolph.
7. American Reject – Quirky, modern pop rock that starts with a light and humorous vibe that leads into a big, rocking chorus.  By Robert Wayne Johnson.
8. Best Years of Our Lives – Instrumental. Bouncy, optimistic, bright, happy mellow rock with piano. Folky, fun and perfect for a commercial.
9. Happy Cars - Bouncy!  I always thought this would be great for a weather/traffic report or a return from the commercial sting.  By Rob Hann.
10. Hoodoo Barbecue. Fun and retro.  Rootsy, old time, guitar driven rock ‘n roll. Sounds like Bo Diddley.  By Robert Wayne Johnson.
11. Amazon Hunt 1 – Looking for a jungle motif?  The next Steve Irwin?  Aggressive, Energetic, Ritual and Sacral For Film and TV Ethno drums , jungle voices , flutes
12. Ingka – Jazzy and bluesy.  Swinging, popping and grooving. Composer: Andrew Ingkavet
13. Phi – Technology.   An upbeat tempo with a distinctly technical sound mixed with good old bluesy funk on fender rhodes, acoustic bass and some hot loops.
14. Signal 8 – Technology and Pharmaceuticals.  Smooth, organic yet pointy. This piece may work well for pharmaceutical, technology and other business presentations.
15. Bitstream – Technology, Finance.  Sounds like Moby.
16. Crazy Techno - Technology, Entertainment.  Like the title says.  Upbeat!
17. I Drink The Sunshine – Technology, Art, Entertainment.  Very cool.
18. Current Affairs - Technology, News, Science, Entertainment.
19. Dinner With Dave - Retro, Funny, Old Fashioned, Silent Film, Newsreel.  This is a great solo piano piece.
20. Macondo.  Latino.  Energetic, bouncy, short, horns with percussion.

And you can always just search royalty free music using keywords here.

Wake up the board room and get your ideas amplified with a soundtrack for your Powerpoint or Keynote presentation.  These 5 tracks all by Robert Wayne Johnson are perfect.

Fuzz Attack - Energetic and great in your face rock track.  Sounds like Blur’s song 2.

Eat My Dust - Fast and furious rock. Sounds like the Offspring, Motorhead, Sum 41, Green Day, Blink-182 etc. Nascar, extreme sports, action-packed determination. Rock Music, Speed Metal.

Bitter Pill - Modern rock track with lots of attitude, emotion and teen angst.

Off The Hook - Melody meets mayhem in this fast and intense pop punk track. Perfect music for a chase scene, big road action scene or any production that needs a shot of adrenalin. Sounds like Green Day, Blink 182, The Buzzcocks etc.

Biker Punks - Fast, rocking, punk, guitars with great upbeat hooks. Perfect for a sports or high energy corporate presentation..

And lots more where these came from – Music for Sports Themes, Punk Rock,  Rock and Heavy Metal and the entire Robert Wayne Johnson catalog.

Need to use these music tracks on the company website too?  How about on YouTube?  Or on a corporate sales DVD?  We got that covered too – just select the usage at the bottom of each track description.

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300 Monks has been providing award-winning  custom music, music licensing and music supervision to advertising agencies, film studios and independent producers worldwide since 2004.

All around you it’s there.  Physical objects, systems, organizations, processes, buildings, machines – all manifested from ideas.  And the originators of these ideas are blessed with profits, security, fame, glory, awards and a golden retirement.

That’s the ideal at least.  For those who create things that are less than concrete, it gets tricky.

I was reading this morning’s NY Times and came across this article about inventors and auctions. The main focus of the article was about the difficulties of the little guys to compete with the big guns.  Sounds just like the music business!  There was also brief mention of a new company called Rational Patent Exchange.

“The long-term vision at Rational is to become a marketplace or clearinghouse, perhaps the way ASCAP is for copyrighted music, collecting fees and distributing payments to artists.” says Randy Komisar, a partner at venture capitalist firm Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers.

Whoa.  That’s a big idea. The article also talks about how big guns can also buy up competing patents as a defensive mechanism.  This too sounds familiar -  like the Hollywood producers who option a screenplay and  shelve it for years so they can bring out their own pet project that bears an eerily similar plot to yours!

“The goal is to be a place where the patent-holder is fairly compensated [hmm, just like the music biz?] but the corporate users have access to technology with minimal transaction costs.  It has the potential to make innovation more efficient and less risky for both sides.”

I’m all for innovation and friction-less commerce and heartily applaud this idea.  In fact, I would love to see this idea applied elsewhere as well.  How about visual designs?  Logos?  Animations?  But here’s the caveat.   The concentration of power in a new organization may not actually help ALL the “little guys.”

Even though composers/ writers have 3 performing rights organizations in the USA (ASCAP, BMI & SESAC), collecting performance royalties and distributing them to its members – how this done is far from transparent.  In any organization there’s a concentration of power at the top and the “members”  have very little say over how much or how little their royalties should be.  How any clearinghouse organization distributes its funds needs to be transparent.  For example, commercial soundtrack composers, have little or no representation even though our music is used for television commercials, web spots and more.  In my experience as a BMI member, I have to jump through multiple layers of bureaucracy to ensure I get paid for performance royalties on music composed specifically for use in a commercial.  There are many that just give up.  And yet, the clearinghouse organizations go out and routinely collect multi-million dollar fees for blanket usage of ALL the music in their catalogs.  They’re supposedly looking out for their members, but try calling any of these organizations unless you already have a hit record.  At ASCAP, I’ve heard that the pay-rate on underscore is much less than for music with lyrics.  Why would that make sense if the organizations licensing the music pay one blanket rate?

I’m not asking for a government bureaucracy, but some kind of decency/moral standards?  As we continue to move to a society of “knowledge workers” (thanks Peter Drucker)  intellectual property is  increasingly what we ALL do.