4 posts tagged “video”

Having edited a few videos in my career, I feel confident saying that picking music can often times be the most difficult part of the process. Something you find something that fits perfectly and other times it's a major struggle.

I'll definitely be utilizing some of these sites as I'm trying to rely less on my iTunes library and find more legitimate music sources. Thanks to Collide Magazine for compiling such an awesome list of resources for us church media creators.

If you’re a video producer in the church, chances are you don’t create your own music nor do you own a massive library of audio tracks. Enter the world of stock audio. Whether you’re looking for a simple electronic beat or a complex orchestral arrangement, stock audio has you covered. With the help of stock audio websites, finding that perfect audio track for your video couldn’t be easier. So we’ve compiled a list of some of the top stock audio sites for you to utilize.

Audiojungle.net
AudioJungle is one of the newest stock audio sites out there. This uncomplicated Web 2.0-looking site allows you to browse by category or use their simple search to find what you’re looking/listening for. Listening to audio samples is quick and easy, as long as you don’t mind hearing the word “envato” said every 5 seconds (as an audio watermark). However, being that AudioJungle is still new, its library isn’t the most extensive.

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Average Song Cost: $8
Audio Quality: Mp3 and Wav – varies per song
100% royalty free

Firstcom.com
Firstcom has been in the stock audio scene since 1980 and was the first company to provide music downloading via the Internet. Basically, Firstcom is the industry standard when it comes to stock audio. While their Flash-based site creates an attractive interface, first-time users may find the site a little hard to navigate. Because the site contains an extensive library of more than 140,000 tracks, the search function is powerful and, at time, confusing. Overall, Firstcom has the best selection of music but not the most user-friendly interface.

Average Song Cost: subscription based – contact Firstcom for details
Audio Quality: Wav
100% royalty free

Ibaudio.com
While ibaudio.com may not be the prettiest site out there, it does offer a quality selection of music at a decent price. What really sets them apart, though, is the fact that they write and produce all of the audio themselves. Simply browse the music by category or use their search to find the perfect song. Song previews open up in separate windows making it easy to continue searching while demoing a particular song. The smaller library may be a set back, but the quality makes up for this shortcoming.

Average Song Cost: $27.25 or unlimited downloads $195/yr
Audio Quality: WAV – 16bit, 44.1khz
100% royalty free

Istockaudio.com
Istockphoto.com is most likely the first place you look when in need to stock photos, but did you know they now sell stock audio? In fact, istockphoto.com has an extensive selection of stock audio and music to choose from. Each song has detailed information including key and bpm for those that need this info. However, being that the two sites integrate with each other, searching for audio clips can be a little frustrating. Unfortunately, even the categorical search only brings up photos and not actual audio tracks.

Average Song Cost: $22 (15 credits)
Audio Quality: WAV – 16bit, 44.1khz
100% royalty free

Revostock.com
Revostock.com is full of profession stock media including video, motions, and After Effects files, but it also has a large stock audio library as well. While the simple search function may not produce the best answers, the category search and advanced search should help you find what you’re looking for. Simple mouse over a song and it begins to play a short demo. Like most of the stock audio sites, you have to put up with an annoying audio watermark, but thus is life in such a computer literate age.

Average Song Cost: $10-$50 (depending on popularity and license)
Audio Quality: WAV – 16bit, 44.1khz
100% royalty free

Stockmusic.net
Stockmusic.net happens to be one of the most balanced stock audio sites out there. Their intuitive navigation system and simple search functions make it easy to find that perfect song. Search by collections, genres, moods, and instruments and simply roll over songs to play a sample. The site will even let you download a full demo of the song, of course with an audio watermark strategically placed through it. Over all, stockmusic.net is one of the easiest stock music websites to navigate with a quality library.

Average Song Cost: $29.95
Audio Quality: Mp3, aiff, or wav
100% royalty free

This past Sunday we played a video in service that I wanted to share with you.

I was inspired to create something that would encourage people to focus on Jesus as their provider and to place total trust in Him. There's so many other things in our life that can steal our focus and distract us from what's most important. The current economic crisis can be a mountain or storm in our life but Jesus is a "mover of mountains" and our "calm in the storm". His "limitless love" is a greater place to put our complete trust.

Pre-Production
The video started as a brainstorm between me and Andrea (she volunteers on the Media team doing service graphics).
Here's the first attempt at getting an idea for what we wanted it to look like visually.

Videothumbnails3

I just remembered that I wanted to blog about a video I shot with Travis for their current series, "What The...Hell?".
I was inspired by the TV show Miami Ink. They do something like this for their narrative interviews so I thought it would be cool to try to replicate it.

Anatomy of this shoot:

• Large section of  white "Poly-Cyc" from Rosebrand. It was left over from the current set design
  
• Borrowed video projector. To rear project video onto the Poly-Cyc creating the video background.
• Connected one of our SSP equipped computers as the video source.
• Rented lighting kit. (1) 1K Fresnel, (2) 650W Fresnels, (1) Chimera
  
• 15 yards of black metallic Mylar
• The glossy black plastic on the floor reflects the video from the background
• Rosebrand carries this same stuff for around $70/roll + $70 shipping
  
• I found it at a local party supply store for $30 and sent an Intern to go get it.
• Sweet burning video titles from Apple Motion.
  

WTH still

About three months ago I started posting Rock Church videos on You Tube. So far it's going pretty well, I've only had to delete 3 distasteful comments from the Diet Coke and Mentos video. By the way this video has received 820 views in 3 months. Not too bad, huh? Back to my point of this blog. So today I was making the rounds and catching up on some of my favorite blogs when I came across this article about You Tube and thought I'd share. Enjoy!

A few notable statistics on YouTube at the time of the acquisition:

• Fastest growing website in Internet history
• On average 100 million videos streamed per day
• 65,000 new video clips are uploaded every day
• More than 13 million unique visitors per month. An average user spends 30 minutes on YouTube and most uploaders are repeat visitors themselves.
• 58% of Internet videos are watched on Youtube
• 20% to 30% of traffic volume is from the US
• Wide range of user demographics, however the largest segment of users is the 18 to 35 year-olds.
• 30% to 40% of the content is copyrighted. There is a clear correlation between eyeballs and copyrighted content.