Sound can make or break a film. It might seem like a cliche thing to say, but after seven years of making and watching 48HOURS movies, I can honestly say that some of the worst to get through are those with big, dead silences, either where music or key sound effects were missing.
But if you don’t have a band and foley studio on-site, where the hell do you get music and SFX elements from for a 48HOURS movie?
I’ve been a sound editor for the past six films I’ve made with teams Two Big Tools and Tomorrow Today, and that’s meant I’ve had to have a lot of go-to tips at hand for the inevitable rushed sound edit when picture lock takes too long.
Read on to learn some quick info on copyright law, and where to get music and SFX for your 48HOURS film.
Quick read: Understanding copyright
There are tonnes of royalty-free audio clips out there just waiting for you to use. However, from my experience their licenses vary as greatly as the creators themselves.
You need royalty-free, whether music or SFX. Even Googling “royalty-free (SFX/music)” will get you a list of potential sources. These are likely going to be clips you can use without paying ongoing royalties, although some websites do charge an up-front fee – like Shutterstock, for example. I won’t be suggesting any sites like these today. Only free ones.
The next thing to understand is a Creative Commons (CC) Licence. Creative Commons is a non-profit organisation that provides free licenses for creative professionals who want to share their work with the world, and are happy not to be paid for the privilege. However, not all CC licenses are safe to use for a 48HOURS film. That’s because you’re technically creating a commercial work, that is, it might get used in a manner that earns somebody money. Sometimes these films are screened on TV or put onto a DVD to be sold.
Take a look at this list of safe/unsafe licenses. Only download the safe ones!
- Attribution: SAFE. You can use, share and remix, even in a commercial setting. However you MUST attribute the creator in the manner of their choice in the credits of your film, and indicate if changes were made.
- Attribution – NonCommercial: NOT SAFE. It’s royalty-free, but not for commercial purposes. The creator must be attributed.
- Attribution – ShareAlike: SAFE. Acts like the first license, except if you remix the work, it must be shared with the exact same license (and attributed correctly).
- Attribution – NoDerivatives: SAFE. Like the first license, but if you remix or change the work, you can’t redistribute it. Simply using it in your film is OK, though.
- Public Domain: SAFE. You are free to do as you please with the work, and you don’t need to credit the creator.
There are a couple of other licenses, but they all use the terminology above so you should understand it so long as you understand the list I’ve just written out.
Where to find royalty-free music
- Incompetech: Probably the most famous royalty-free music website out there. The creator, Kevin Macleod, is like a god to those of us who love free music. Some of the older stuff sounds very, very ‘royalty free’, but a lot of the newer music is incredible for something that’s freely available.
- Free Music Archive: The FMA is very hit and miss. While there are lots of commercial-safe works on the site, I’ve found a greater proportion with a non-commercial license. There’s LOADS of amazing music here, but make sure you check it first. Each artist chooses their own license.
- Musopen: Musopen is a website dedicated to classical music. You can browse its music library by instrument, period or composer, but the quality varies between tracks. However, much of it is truly excellent.
- YouTube: I’ve had a lot of luck just going on YouTube and searching “royalty-free X music”, where X is a genre or style. You always have to triple check the licensing restrictions because some of it is hazy af, but under all the crap is an equal pile of great stuff.
- Purple Planet: This is a lesser-known site I stumbled upon while trawling through Google for music. Its free download collection is available for commercial, attributed use, and has a wide variety of genres available.
Where to find sound effects
- YouTube: Once again, just searching “X royalty free sound effect” where X is the sound you need can yield surprising results. Again, you will have to wade through some crap, but I’ve used lots of great SFX from YouTube with success.
- Freesound: This is a database of sounds released under a CC license. It’s not the most intuitive to navigate so far as I have found, but if you know what you need then the search bar will suffice.
- Sound Bible: This is a pretty similar deal to Freesound. Lots of free sound bites, allowed for commercial use (but always check the license in case I’ve led you astray), and a search bar to help take you to the right clips.
Got some great music and SFX tips of your own? Post them in the comments or let me know on Facebook so I can share!
Good luck with your film 🙂