7 Great Websites For Amateur Filmmakers

16mm "S.O.S" Video Shoot | @ the Overlynn Mansion by "The Get Up Kid"

If you’re no stranger to the internet, then you’ve probably heard of these websites before, but they are such great tools for improving your amateur film that I just wanted to share them. What they have in common is that they are all places where you can find Creative Commons-licensed material, or free use material.

If you know of any other great sites like these please let me know in the comment section.

Music:

http://jamendo.com/

A great site for finding music for your project. Not all of it can be used, but quite  alot of it is licensed in a way that lets you put it in your film. On every album there is a “your rights on this album”-section on the right side of the page.

http://www.incompetech.com

A much smaller site than Jamendo, but I had to include it because of the quality. The site features the music of the talented Kevin MacLeod. The music is licensed under a creative commons attribution 3.0 unported liscense. If you like it, it is possible make a donation through Paypal.

http://www.mobygratis.com/

Have you ever wanted to have a million-selling artist on your soundtrack? Well, Moby has set up a website where you can download some of his music for non-commerical use. You have to register  before you can start downloading.

Sound Effects:

http://www.freesound.org/

This site is absolutely brilliant. Just search for the sound you want and there is huge possibility that it is there. Everything is licensed under the Creative Commons Sampling Plus 1.0 License.

Video:

I haven’t been able to find a good site for Creative Commons licensed video yet, so hopefully one of you can send me a link if you know of any? Stock footage of everything from sunsets to city exteriors could come in handy on different projects, so it would be nice to have a site like Jamendo for it. I’m sure it’s out there somewhere.

http://cc.aljazeera.net/

The Arabic news channel Al Jazeera has released som footage from Gaza under a Creative Commons license. If you’re making a documentary of some sorts, that might be useful.

http://www.archive.org/index.php

The American Library of Congress has the rights to a lot of old footage and has decided to release it into the public domain. If you spend some time searching the site you’ll most likely find great things to use, like if you need a speech made by Kennedy or some old propaganda movies for your project.

Still Images:

http://www.flickr.com/

Not everything here is Creative Commons licensed, but you can find high quality photos that are. Go to the advanced search options and you can choose the option to only search within Creative Commons-material and material to adapt or build upon.

And that is all that I have to share for now. If you know of any other sites like these, please let me know and I’ll add them to the list.