Hello! Today my group and I began looking for music to put into our film opening. Two weeks ago, I reached out to both the Universal Music Group and Billy Joel in search of a temporary license to use part of his song, "The Stranger." I reached out multiple times via different means, first direct messaging both parties on Instagram, then calling the corporation on the phone; however, I have yet to receive a meaningful response. I've attached an image of two of the messages I sent out below:
Now, while I do understand that it is a bit too early to throw in the towel, I would rather not waste valuable time and put all of my eggs into one basket waiting for something that might never come through. Hence why my group and I resorted to searching online for royalty-free music so that we could stay on track and have something to fall back on if it came down to it. Using our trusted friend and close advisor, Google, we got straight to work. Once we began exploring, we did come across a number of different websites that all offered royalty-free music, but after running into a few paywalls, it was clear that most of them were dead ends. All was not in vain, however, as we did find Mixkit and Pixabay, which offered a number of valuable resources. The songs we found on the two websites included, but were not limited to, "Piano Horror" by Francisco Alvear, "Vertigo" by Eugenio Mininni, "Sun and His Daughter" by Eugenio Mininni, "Global Warning to Glasgow" by TheFealdoProject, "Everything You Know is Wrong - GLBML" by GeoffreyBurch, and "The Black Lake" by TheFealdoProject. All of said songs had relatively slow pacing which paired well with their dissonant, unsettling undertones, and consistent deep and booming basses, which we feel directly relates to our opening and the feelings of tension and suspense we wish for it to emanate.
Whilst conducting our extensive search, we did discover something interesting. We managed to uncover the fact that all song recordings released prior to 1923 have officially entered the US Public Domain as of this year, making them free for communal use. With that being said, since our opening does relate to the traveling between realities, and we don’t want our audience to be aware of whether or not time travel is involved, we do believe that an older song might be appropriate to incorporate so that out opening can have an additional “creepiness” factor. Using the “Public Domain Information Project” website, we found a number of different songs that we believe fit that label, such as "House of The Rising Sun" by Tom Clarence Ashley and Gwen Foster and "I Ain't Got Nobody (And Nobody Cares for Me)" by Spencer Williams and Dave Peyton. We did also find out that one of the songs we had been considering from the beginning, "Rockin' Robin" by Bobby Day was also available for free public use, which was exciting news, to say the least.
At this current moment in time, we have not come to a concrete conclusion regarding which song we will be using exactly, as we would like to make the ultimate decision once we reach or near the editing phase of our final task. If we do not opt to use one of the above online choices or others that we come across as we continue working on this project, we are toying with the possibility of potentially dabbling in the creation of our music for the film, most likely through Garageband. My groupmates and I believe that choosing to go that route would not only enable us to add in more eerie elements, like humming and whistling, but that it would also provide us with the creative liberty to make the perfect fit for our opening, since we would be designing it with the film in mind.
Today was definitely one of our more productive days and since we did get a lot done, so after the busy day I've had, I feel like this song matches just how I feel because I think it's time to "Celebrate good times, come on(!)" (Kool and The Gang 1980).
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