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Royalty Free Music for your Videos

One of the first things you will discover when uploading your videos to YouTube / Vimeo / etc is that if you have used Copyright music, you won’t be able to monetise those videos.  

You will receive Copyright infringement notices, and in some cases your videos will be taken down by YouTube as you don’t have the rights to use the music in the video.

Fear not however as there are many sources of Royalty Free Music on the internet.  Sites such as AudioBlocks can be a great source of sound effects as well as music.  Personally, I use Artlist.IO for most/all of my backing tracks as their selections are fresh and regularly updated, and at $199/year the price is right too.

Even better, if you sign up using this referral link, you’ll get 2 months for free! (and I benefit too!) .. which is not to be sneezed at!

So go check out artlst.io today and tell them we sent you! 🙂

 

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Backing up with Backblaze

Backblaze offers remote backup services.  The 3-2-1 rule of backup is an essential step to ensure your images and footage are kept safe

 

Why You Should Backup Your Files

In today’s fast-paced world, backing up your files is of the utmost importance. Typically music, movies, films, data files, projects, and photos are all stored in one place – your computer. Laptops and desktops have decreased in cost, and the amount of storage inside them has increased greatly over the last few years. Unfortunately having all of your data in only one place is dangerous.

Computer loss, theft, natural disaster, and accidental deletion, are just some of the ways that you can lose the data you’ve spent so long creating and accumulating. The only way to prepare for the unexpected is to have a good backup strategy in place. There are many different ways to backup your computers, and using multiple forms of backup will minimize the risk of ever losing your valuable files.

Get a Free Trial of Backblaze today

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Capturing Natural Light in Photographs

One thing that is important for Gorilla film makers and Travel Photographers alike and that is natural light.

In this series from SIlberPhoto, National Geographic photographer Bob Holmes talks about how he gets the best from natural light.

 

Awarded Travel Photographer of the Year 3 times over the last 20 years, Bob has a depth of knowledge some of us can only dream of.  

 


Sit back and enjoy as Bob talks about his travels, his work and how he captured these symbolic images 

 

 

Bob Holmes on Natural Light in Travel Photography

 

 

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Solving Mysteries the “Sherlock” way with Cinematography and Editing

How do you tell your audience what a character is thinking using only visual clues … namely cinematography and editing

 

In this article over at No Film School, Renee explains just how to solve mental problems in a visual medium

Perhaps the quickest way to tell an audience what a character is thinking as they’re solving complicated mysteries of logic is to just tell them;  just slap an internal monologue voice over on the timeline and you’re done. Now, even though I’m like the rest of the world who could listen to Benedict Cumberbatch speak non-stop forever with that “jaguar hiding in a cello” voice of his, that approach to dispensing information isn’t all that interesting cinematically.

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Getting your scifi script off to the right start

A trope is a figurative or metaphorical use of a word or expression or a significant or recurrent theme; a motif.

Sci-Fi is a wonderful genre, full of story–telling possibilities as endless as the stars themselves. This is true from both a science and fiction standpoint. Far too often however science fiction films rely on the same tried and true methods to keep the audience entertained. This in not necessarily a bad thing, it makes science fiction more accessible to a wider audience. A few years ago science fiction was not as mainstream as it is today. After the success of Star Wars (1977) that all changed

Matt Loggie at raindance talks about the 7 tropes you should use to get your SciFi script off the ground

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The complexities of sub text

Rarely do people actually say what they mean. A woman walks into the living room, says to her husband “I’m upset about what you said last night at dinner.” When does that happen? … Right. Now you’ve got a scene. The image of her pacing during the mundane conversation, biting her nails and playing with her hair will say a lot more than her words: this is about the character.

In this article published over at raindance.org, Baptiste Charles-Aubert talks about the complexities of writing sub text and reviews Writing Subtext, by Dr. Linda Seger is published by Michael Wiese Productions.

 
 Well worth a quick read if you ask me!
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4 Tips for Success on Film Sets

Brenden Shipman provides some useful insight and tips on how to survive on a film set, especially if this is your first time there!

In his article you’ll learn when to express an opinion, how important the right attitude is to getting the job done and how important it is to listen and when to ask questions.

Following these tips is the first step to elevating your status on set. Remember that popularity can go a long way in this business and you never know who has a job waiting for you one day. With experience comes the confidence of a hardened motion picture technician, worry not you will get there!

 

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Using your camera stabilisation feature

Image Stabilization, or IS, is somewhat standard on most newer cameras and lenses and allows you to shoot at slower shutter speeds (usually two settings slower) than you would be able to without it. However, what are its limitations, when should it be used, and in what shooting situations? In this short video from Adorama, photographer David Bergman explains how the image stabilization feature works on your gear, as well as what you should know about turning it on to make your shots more steady.

 

This article over at NoFilmSchool goes into the detail and cover some of the gotchas that you should look out for!

 

 

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Help is at hand to choose the right lens

Finding the right lens for your project just got a whole lot more interesting.

Have you ever looked at a photo and thought, “I want to shoot something like that! What lens did that photographer use?” Well, a new website called What the Lens is aiming to help you choose lenses based on images that you like. Created by photographer Willie C, What the Lens is a tool that allows you to scroll through their library of landscape, macro, wildlife, portrait, and travel photos, choose 20 of your favourites, and then uses its magic to pick a lens based on your preferences

Check out the full article at NoFilmSchool