Finding and licensing music for your film can be a bit, well, let's just say that it makes violently tearing your hair out seem like a preferable alternative. Most music licensing sites force you to know what you're looking for beforehand, which makes it quite difficult, if not impossible, to spontaneously find the right music for your film. Marmoset is different, in that it's designed specifically for filmmakers who know how they want their stories to feel, but might not know which tunes or artists fit the bill. Read on to learn more about how Marmoset is revolutionizing the process of music licensing for filmmakers:
In order to understand how Marmoset does what it does, we need to take a step back and look at the work of our peeps over at Stillmotion, because they were instrumental (get it?) in the redesign of Marmoset's new music licensing platform. The Stillmotion App, or SMAPP, is a nifty filmmaking tool that takes user input about the intended emotional tone of a shot and provides technical suggestions for how to achieve that tone.
Marmoset does the same thing, only with music. It takes user input about your story, character, or project and allows you to add up to three highly specific modifying adjectives that filter the results. That section of the Marmoset search engine is called "Mood" and it looks like this:
The possibilities for customization of Marmoset's music search engine's don't stop there. In fact, the Mood modifier is just the tip of the iceberg. You can also filter your music by how much energy you'd like the tune to have.
The feature that sets Marmoset apart most is its ability to sort songs by their arc. Maybe you're looking for something that starts slow and builds to a crescendo, then ends slow. Or maybe you want something with multiple crescendos, or something with frenetic pacing. Marmoset can find that music for you without breaking a sweat.
The awesomeness of Marmoset doesn't stop with its amazing ability to filter its results. Many of the artists on Marmoset are willing to customize their songs just for your project. Want an instrumental version? Need to change a word or two in the chorus to make it perfect for your film? Marmoset can help facilitate that process.
Additionally, Marmoset's site features the ability to make mixtapes (for business reasons or just for personal enjoyment.) The site also remembers every song that you've ever listened to so that you never have a crisis because you can't find something that you had previously listened to.
Above all of these kick-ass features, the music on Marmoset is actually good. I've done several different searches just to test the site out, and not only are the various filtering modes absolutely fantastic, but the resulting music is exactly what you'd hope for. It's almost like it's tailor-made music for filmmakers.
Lastly, if for some reason you can't find the perfect music for your project on the site, the Marmoset folks are also really excellent musicians and songwriters who have been writing music for picture for quite a while. Chances are, if you can imagine it, they can make it happen. Here's their reel:
If you're not yet convinced that Marmoset is the music-licensing service of your dreams, then I urge you to go check it out for yourselves.
What do you guys think? Does Marmoset's unique search engine revolutionize the process of music licensing for filmmakers? Let us know in the comments!
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