Fan Made Music Video Contests

[palenoue]

Another way to get more fans is when you have a popular show, get filkers like those on The FuMP (www.thefump.com) to write songs about the show, then upload those songs and have a contest where fans make music videos of the shows using those songs. If you get a lot of entries you could have different categorites, like "Best Comedy" "Best Drama" "Best Use Of Lens Flare Effect" and so on. Winners gets something spiffy (like props from the show?) and you get a whole lot of content to play between shows and put on DVDs as extras.

[Baphnedia]

Uh oh... you got referred here by a FuMP artist too?

[palenoue]

Yup! Tom Smith mentioned OWL on his LiveJournal and I checked out the link in time to make the live chat. Any science fiction/fantasy network that's fan-based will _have_ to have filk. And lots of it!

[Baphnedia]

So was I! Woohoo! We both read Tom Smith's LJ! Well Met!

Anyhow, yes, I think bringing the best of filk to the forefront, whether on TV or via another means, would be made of awesome. I haven't filked in a few years (got caught up in the whole needing a job thing), and of course, the only video of me filking was after I was somewhat inebriated. Had to be the only video. My luck is just legendary like that.

At least, no members of the media were misquoting me or anything else like that - like what Douglas Adams went through.

[SeleneSue]

Also here via Tom Smith's post.

One issue around fan-made music videos is the perennial headache of music rights, which gets audio tracks nuked off of fan-made music videos on YouTube when they catch them at it. On the other hand, music produced under a Creative Commons license is much easier to work with.

How about a promotion with a specific CC artist, like Jonathan Coulton or any of the FuMP gang? Pick a song and let people put it to visuals? I want to see what different people come up with for CODE MONKEY or DEATH SHEEP FROM HELL. Baaaah!

SeleneSue

[otherdeb]

You might also contact a fellow named Harold Stein, who has been obtaining music rights for archiving purposes, and for the recording of filk cds by various artists. I believe he can be found on lj as hms42.

[Baphnedia]

I think he would be known as hms42... aye aye aye..

[palenoue]

One way to avoid copyright issues is for OWL to actively encourage/recruit people to post songs on the OWL web site (and maybe sell through the OWL store?) under Creative Commons, with the understanding that fans are going to use that song to make music videos. The videos could be made from OWL shows, so they have the rights to post the fan music videos, include them as extras on the DVDs releases of the shows, and even sell them as a "Best Of" collection set if they want (though it would be a very good idea to cut the creators in for a bit of that

The thing is, fandom already does all of this kind of stuff even when the studios try to shut them out, so imagine what will happen if OWL actively encourages it!