Journal Entry

The trailer sound contest

So this week I created a trailer for Sly Mongoose, something I put together to just keep on the book’s page for fun, and release into the wild sometime soon.

Just one problem, I just don’t have the time to find the right audio for this, I’m having trouble finding a royalty free type of music that I can add to it. I can pay a little bit, so if anyone knows how to fix this or hunt down the right music and point me to who I would contact for rights, etc, I’d be much obliged. Enough so that I’m offering a $50 Amazon gift card to whoever helps me make that connection, and the chance to get an early copy of Sly Mongoose (when I get the advance copies) before anyone else.

So here’s the video, silent.

My dream layover track would be the first 1.39 of Trent Razner of Nine Inch Nails “Just Like You Imagined” (if you have it then just play that along with this video), or even the instrumental version of “Hyperpower” that he has (and you can download for free) at remix.nin.com.

(I would have had this posted at 1pm, but YouTube was being glitchy and it took 3 upload attempts, sigh…)

[Link to the trailer's YouTube page if you want to spread it around]

Filed under the topic My Writing on December 21st 2007 at 3:24 pm. You can subscribe to the RSS feed for this entry to keep track of comments. You can also use to trackback.

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14 Responses so far

  1. 1. SMD

    Are you looking for orchestrated type music or music with words (rock music, etc.)?

  2. 2. tobias buckell

    If it fits I’ll consider it. I’m not stuck on any one thing, no.

  3. 3. spo

    Sorry I can’t help you with the music. But at 1:20, it should be “scavenge”.

  4. 4. Tobias Buckell

    spo: nice catch, will fix! I make typos everywhere, good thing my books have copy editors!

  5. 5. John(GraspingfortheWind)

    Looks awesome. A little too much text though. I would’ve like more imagery, perhaps NASA images of Jupiter, or some such?

    I caught the scavenge to, but spo beat me to it.

  6. 6. Philip Brewer

    Very nice work. I think trailers for books are becoming more common (yours is the second I’ve seen this month, which roughly matches the number I’d seen in my entire previous life).

    For my last film, I ended up using one of the loops that comes with Garage Band as the music. There’s a searchable library built into Garage Band, so you can pretty quickly see if there’s something there that will work for you. Another possible source is freeplay music. I used their music in my previous film, when they were a lot more generous with license terms than they seem to be now, but it’s worth at least looking to see if what they want to charge is affordable.

  7. 7. SMD

    Well, I found some stuff. I don’t know if any of this is what you are looking for. I think if you just ask the guy if you could use one of his free download songs for your little trailer he probably wouldn’t ask for a royalty, so long as he gets credit. I can’t see why he would want to charge you for it either.
    The website is: http://www.edgen.com
    Enter the site, go to music and the following songs I thought might work out, or could be cut a little to work (or maybe cut some together…):
    IT Realm
    Katana OST
    A Tale From Woodland Hills
    Kings of Kingdoms–Minden’s Quest
    GPS – The Movie (ATV track)
    Kings of Kingdoms–Annihilation
    Kings of Kingdoms–Dragons
    Kings of Kingdoms–The Hunt
    Art of the Saber

    And if you don’t like those, there are a bazillion songs he has up for free DL…
    Hope that helps :)

  8. 8. Mark Terry

    There’s this guy I know, his name is Pete Terry, and he might be able to pull something together on a computer in about ten minutes. Or maybe, you know, ask him about some of his earlier computer music or percussion music, like Dreams Of The Unborn or Dance Music II.

  9. 9. Sean Markey

    Hi. I don’t know how quickly you want something put together, but if you have a few days I could make you a custom piece of music to match the trailer’s visual cues.

    I recently did the music for the shimmer magazine trailer’s pirate issue. if you go to the website (http://www.shimmerzine.com) you can what I did.

    Like I said, I can give you something custom and brand new, but it’ll take a day or two. let me know~

    -sean

  10. 10. viv

    Hi Tobias, do check out http://www.opuzz.com/ for royalty free music.

  11. 11. Chris Gerrib

    Very cool trailer! What software did you use to make it?

  12. 12. Mike

    The trailer looks very cool. The song you mentioned by NIN is one of my favorites. I’d love to put something together for you.

    I got a few things up on my myspace: http://www.myspace.com/spiralpath If you want to hear a few things.

    I also did the opening for Jim Hall’s Cult-Pop show. http://www.cult-pop.com

  13. 13. Wyman Cooke

    I pasted it to my MySpace page. Follow my blog and you’ll find it.

  14. 14. Greg Gunther

    Tobis, you sly mongoose.

    You’ve given me a grand idea. Obviously ‘book’ trailers are cool. More and more authors are going to want them for their upcoming work. Maybe even the publishers will join in.

    I’m going to add it to my list of multimedia services. Do a few examples, build a new webpage, and get the word around. With my Flash and AfterEffects skill it would be easy and fun. If I hit it hard maybe I can become the go-to guy for authors looking to get one done.

    And who doesn’t love a good trailer. GG.

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Tobias is a Caribbean-born SF/F novelist who lives in Ohio.

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