We are building a 24x7 music video and animation channel for The Indie Beat and we need you!
This will be a consent driven channel promoting indie musical artists from across the Fediverse, as well as animators who want to share their animation art. (And who knows what else in the future?)
We will have a large chunk of airtime devoted to random play across styles and genres, as well as a few dedicated program slots for music in the electronic, jazz, ambient, pop, and rock families.
We will also have slots for NHAM, curated by Sam (@ethicalrevolution@climatejustice.social), and an Animation Array slot, curated by Roberta Fidora (@RobertaFidora@mastodon.social).
There is no cost or pay to artists. Each video will display artist info including a QR code onscreen back to the artist’s chosen link. Videos will air by artist consent only and can be taken back down by request. Opt-in, opt-out, at will.
If you’d like to get your music and video art on the air at The Indie Beat’s federated Owncast server https://live.theindiebeat.fm … keep reading!
How to submit videos for airplay on The Indie Beat TV:
We need and accept:
- Original music videos (no covers)
- Animations for the Animation Array program
- Short form eye candy videos (~10s - these play periodically between music videos)
- Short station ID videos / jingles (~10s - these play periodically between music videos - see below for suggested script)
- Short show titles (~10s - these play during the hourly programs to let viewer know what’s on air (pop, rock, etc.) – see below for suggested script)
If you already have videos showcased on NHAM and have given consent to air on TIB TV it is not necessary to upload the videos again.
We do not accept any illegal, copyright infringing, or explicitly NSFW material.
Please no “AI” or learning model generated materials. If you use smart tools in your process, that is fine, as long as the final work is predominately human made. Not really interested in generated materials.
We prefer not to air simple “visualizer” type music videos, unless they are artfully edited or otherwise human crafted in some way.
We prefer music videos in the 15 seconds to 15 minutes range as general guideline. However, very long videos will not be included in the hour long programs as they would dominate program airtime - they would instead go into normal random play under the “anything goes” hours of programming.
Exceptions to these loose rules may be made based on perplexing intangibilities like taste and intuition. The curators are human.
Submitted materials must be MP4 videos with 1080p max resolution, but streaming goes out at 720p and 3000kbps currently.
NOTE: Only submit original rendered video files. Do NOT submit MP4 files re-downloaded from Peertube or other platforms. Generally, these files will not work.
Submitted MP4 videos should include these metadata tags which will be shown onscreen including a QR code to the artist’s website:
- artist
- title
- album
- website
- cover art
You can use a tool like Picard (or MP3Tag) to add these. If you need help, we can do it. Cover art is not displayed currently but will be in future.
Submissions should be made using this form:
https://portal-6579606279.portal.massive.io/
or here:
Roberta Fidora - Animation Array
More information you might be wondering about:
Artists retain all rights to submitted materials, no rights, fee, or commission is claimed except non-exclusive right to air the material on the channel until the artist opts-out.
Submissions may or may not get airtime, no guarantees. We may take videos in and out of rotation based on how much material we gather and due to limited storage and airtime.
Artists are not charged or paid. Artists receive exposure via onscreen metadata and QR code link. The entire effort is non-commercial and consent driven. We may ask for community support to pay for servers, storage, bandwidth, etc. but we are volunteering our time and will never keep donations as “pay”. All donated money goes back into The Indie Beat channels.
Suggestion for station identification wording (but be as creative as you like): “You are watching The Indie Beat Television with videos by independent artists from across the fediverse. Find us online at the indie beat dot fm.”
Suggestion for show title wording: “You are watching The Indie Beat Television and this is the Pop hour.” Use: Pop, Rock, Electronic, Ambient, Jazz, etc.
If you want to provide station id or show title audio only and let us handle the video, reach out separately, we can still use your help!
+++ We plan to have slots for live performances if you want to do a show! Once we launch you’ll contact @mizkirsten@mastodon.social to request a time slot.
+++ We plan to have a few regularly recurring live programs. Watch for schedule updates at https://live.theindiebeat.fm/ and follow @streamer@live.theindiebeat.fm on the Fediverse (turn on notifications).
+++ We plan to support short promotional videos for new releases.
+++ We plan to support short promotional videos for other indie arts projects from around the fediverse that we hope to co-promote. More to come.