Photography and music are significant when creating animated videos or any video for that matter. However, one issue most video content creators face is the lack of royalty-free and commercial-free images and soundtracks to use in an animated video maker. Most high-quality resources are either paid or commercially banned. The need to have more content available for emerging video makers is crucial for the sake of art and creativity.
You can’t create videos using an animated video maker without having a library of images and music as it’s part of the design process. The design process of creating an animated video requires having different resources to be able to produce a standard video. Some creative video-makers prefer to customize their images and music in order to stand out from the crowd. They believe having new images and music will attract more people than using streamlined resources.
Having distinct music will also allow viewers to remember the tunes and associate them with the video. This is a great marketing factor to be able to create a memory in your viewers' minds. Unfortunately, though, some content creators lack vision when dealing with music and images and tend to use tacky ones most people find cheesy.
It’s important to choose your resources carefully as human brains tend to process images 60 000 times faster than written content. High-quality images are essential for getting your brand and message across, therefore choosing images that reflect that is vital for your brand and what you would like people to perceive of you.
Music is quite similar in the sense that it can either make or break your work. Imagine working on your content using an animated video maker for days yet choosing the wrong track can literally break your effort and give a different vibe to your video. It can make an advanced video seem tacky and amateur due to cheesy soundtracks.
Besides images, music can also reflect the brand’s message. There are different genres you can work with within the animated video maker. Choosing the best one that compliments what your video and brand stand for is important to ease up the viewers' experience with the video.
So what can be done if you don’t have enough visual and audio material for your animated video maker? You either have to pay for more resources or get them for free. Paid resources can be quite expensive because you will need a generous number of images and music.
The only solution is to get them for free online. However, It’s important to note that not all websites that claim they offer resources for free are actually free. When you browse the internet for free images and music, you will see that many actually offer free samples you can use for your projects. Some of these websites might let you check all the resources and after choosing the ones you like, ask you for payment when you’re about to download them.
Fortunately, the internet is a vast space to explore more content. Numerous services actually offer access to royalty-free resources that can help you complete your video using an animated video maker. There has been a growing number of online websites with high-quality photography and music free of charge.
You have probably come across Royalty-free phrases numerous times when searching for either soundtracks or images to use in an animated video maker and for commercial purposes.
Royalty-Free license means having music licensing without negotiating licensing prices with the Performance Rights Organizations. It allows you to use copyrighted music without paying any fees for multiple uses.
The same concept is applied to images. Commercial-free images allow you to use images directly or indirectly in your videos for marketing and promotion purposes. It helps young designers and content creators that use an animated video maker to advertise their video without struggling to pay for commercial fees as they are free from copyright restrictions.
Most of these images are licensed under the creative commons public domain. It basically means you can use, copy and distribute your video with these images for commercial purposes without asking for permission. One thing to look out for in this case is images that ask for attribution. The latter will not prevent you from using images unless you pay but would rather require you to mention the artist or add a certain link whenever you use the resources.
The following are curated lists of websites that offer both images and music for free.
Pexels is an online destination for high-quality and 100% free images. It is licensed under the Creative Commons Zero license. The website is easy to browse and streamlined. All images are categorized and tagged using different known keywords. You can also easily search depending on whatever keyword for images depending on the theme you’re working on in the animated video maker including locations, emotions, professions...
All images are photographs of real people or real-life settings. The website allows people to upload their photos as well which explains the number of images and the different settings and scenarios they cover. The site’s curator will choose the best photographs to display.
Another great feature in Pexels is how they offer the possibility to edit their images with your own resources. For instance, they have a great selection of images with clear devices. You can then add your own content to the device so it seems as if the protagonist is actually browsing your content.
If you visit their website, you will find that they display the images according to themes and concepts. You can also find short video clips.
StockSnap.io also has a large collection of high-resolution images for free. You can search for specific content using a keyword to easily browse through the photos. The website tracks down views and the number of downloads. This way you will be able to use the most popular ones and which are indirectly recommended to users.
The website adds new content weekly as it also displays the date the images were uploaded with the number of views. Their goal is to have a community of photographers that are willing to share their own artwork with the world, similar to Pexels above.
Once you access their website, they have made it clear that their images are free from copyright restrictions. They also display their most popular keywords to use. The selection of images they display on the first page merges different themes and concepts which is different from Pexels.
Images available in Unsplash are donated by creative photographers for people to use in their animated video maker. They don’t have a massive collection but the curated ones are high quality with high resolution. They also provide keywords to easily look for images depending on your needs. The best way to look for images in Unsplash is to check their collections, a set of photos selected by other users into categorized themes. You can also contribute to collections by signing up and creating your account.
You can use Unsplash on Ipads as it has an IOS app. Contrary to the other two websites, Unsplash informs that it will be nice to add a small credit with a link directing to their profile out of courtesy.
Pixabay is probably the most well-known free stock images website in comparison to previous ones. The website is packed with more than a million public images. What stands out in Pixabay is that it also offers illustrations, vector graphics, and some videos. They particularly have a great selection of landscape photography. They also offer a handful of music and sound effects.
The website allows you to download images while choosing a suitable resolution: from 491×640 to 3456×4502 without even signing in. You will be asked to complete a captcha to download and you’re good to go! In case you’re not familiar with captcha, you can sign up for a free account and download images directly.
The quality of the images is not as consistent as Pexels, but the fact they provide illustrated images as well will be ideal for content creators who work with an animated video maker.
Soundcloud is a well-known website housing all types of music tracks for aspiring artists. The music is part of the creative commons license which means it can be used as long as the content creator follows the guidelines. These guidelines are set by the artists themselves.
The best thing about SoundCloud is the fact that you can find real, mainstream music rather than tracks used for background music or remixes of popular music. The latter has been used quite often and can tend to give a different feel to your video. You can also find different music genres for different themes. The streaming platform has around 200 million songs and counting. Soundcloud also offers hand-curated playlists, freestyles, and different sets.
CCMixter is a space for well-known independent artists to upload tracks that are legally free and can be available for use. They offer a Global Music Community of more than 45 000 musicians across the globe where they share music and passion. Even though tracks are free for commercial use, you need to attribute them whenever you use their music in your animated video maker.
You can use their 30 000 original music freely in either Youtube videos, remixes, or games. The only requirement is to attribute. You can do so by giving credit when working in the animated video maker. Attribute by specifying the title of the track, the artist, links to where it’s available, and include the type of license of the track.
Incompetech has a significant number of royalty-free music. The site also allows content creators to download music tracks for their animated video maker for free as long as they credit the artist and website. The tracks are displayed in collections according to their genre. One feature most people use is downloading tracks from the Film Scoring moods, which is a section with different movie themes related to tracks: Horror, comedic, bright, and dark silent films... The world section has different tracks from different countries in the world. The website classifies these themes for easy browsing.
Incompetech also has a section for the most recent music and most downloaded. You can check new and popular music based on other people’s choices.
They have two licenses to choose from; a standard license and an extended license for 20 Euros.
The Standard license is royalty-free, allows for commercial use, tracks are downloaded in an MP3, and is valid for a lifetime for any number of projects done in an animated video maker. However, attribution is crucial.
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