DarkeSword Posted December 10, 2011 Share Posted December 10, 2011 The Recruit & Collaborate forum is a place where people can recruit artists of all types for various works for the purposes of collaboration. This includes (but is not limited to): a partner for a remix collaboration remixers for an album artists to draw album art live musicians to play in your remix composers for original music for a game you're making composers for original music for a video, podcast, etc. Specifically, the Recruit & Collaborate forum is for advertising what you need, not what you can offer. If you're a composer looking for some work, don't post a thread saying "Here I am! Give me work!" Poke around the forum and see what's available. If you want to market yourself, you can use your forum signature/biography for that. Threads advertising your own services will be deleted.When posting your recruitment thread, make sure to give as many details about what you're looking for and what you're working on as possible. When you're commissioning original music, you'll also want to be upfront about whether or not you're willing to pay for work and how much.When replying to recruitment threads, be courteous. Don't criticize the recruiter for starting an album project for a game that you don't like, or for a game that already had an album project previously, or for any other reason. If there's a fangame/remake project, don't be that guy that always starts talking about cease & desist letters. If someone is posting a job listing or interested in commissioning work, don't use their recruitment thread as your own personal soapbox to rant about the nature of for-hire work. Basically, if you don't have something nice or helpful (in the "I'd like to help you" sense) to say, don't post.By the same token, if you're recruiting, follow the same basic rule: be courteous. You won't get any help from anyone if you're a jerk, or if you place weird criteria on the kind of people you want to collaborate with (i.e. "no white rappers"). Also—and this really should go without saying, but I'm going to say it anyway—don't criticize OCR's staff, music, albums, judging process, etc. when posting your thread. We provide the Recruit & Collaborate forum to you so that you can connect with the people you need; don't bite the hand and all that.Anyway that's all I've got for now. I may edit this in the future. If you have questions, feel free to ask. TheChargingRhino 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rozovian Posted February 27, 2012 Share Posted February 27, 2012 We recently began enforcing the guidelines of the Recruit & Collab board a little more. To make sure you guys don't feel like we're hating on you for offering your skills to ppl, here's a few thoughts on what you can do to advertise yourself and your skills: Imagine someone browsing ocr's forums, passively looking for a skill you offer. How would they notice you, and why would they choose to work with you? -sig- Have a link in you sig to your work. Make it look good. Decide on a style for your sig, just something as simple as centering can make the sig look a lot more professional, as can using the right colors, choice of words, style, punctuation, etc.. For example, just putting the word deviantArt, YouTube or SoundCloud doesn't necessarily mean much to someone looking for a specific skill. Be concise, but don't be afraid to be personal. Consider the following, see what appeals to you. "My arrangements on YouTube" vs. "Check out my arrangements on my YouTube playlist, link here" "Looking for someone to sing in your remix or original? I'm available, samples here." vs. "I sing - samples here" "I make music, need any?" vs. "I'm a composer, available to work on your projects." "Awesome music here!!!!!" vs. "my music" Art in reference to what you do can help, whether it's an atmospheric picture for your atmospheric sound design or a badass logo for your badass guitar skills. If you do video, using film perforations in your sig may be a cliché but it gets the idea across - you do video. Likewise music - having waveforms, notes or instruments isn't be the most innovative, but it gets the point across. Overly big or obnoxious sigs may make ppl less likely to want to work with you, so choose/make/order your sig pics with that in mind. The site has a limit of 250px for a sig, but tall sigs can get in the way of reading the forums, so I would recommend something thin and wide instead... just don't go crazy wide, consider that some ppl view the forum on smartphones. -samples- Have samples of your work easily accessible. This is important, this is what ppl looking for someone to work with use to judge whether or not they think you can provide what they want. This is easy for graphics artists who can just link to their deviantArt page, or video artists to their YouTube channel. Music artists can use YouTube and SoundCloud, tho I would suggest - for everyone - to also have a page on your blog for easier access and more room for notes. Those of you who are posted remixers here have a slight advantage in that one of your works will be available on ocr. While it's hardly the breakthrough moment in your career as an artist (the one leading to all the fame, girls and record deals that steal your money), it does show that you've met ocr's standards... which looks good. -visual arts- Especially if your work is in graphics of any kind, have one of your pics in your sig, and make it link to your gallery. it may be a good idea to have a text link to the gallery as well, not everyone tries to click on sig pics. Web design is something ppl occasionally need. If you do web design, link to your website (and make sure it's well designed). Typically, a web designer has a portfolio of web sites they've designed easily accessible on their site - whether the designed sites are real or not doesn't matter as long as they're well designed. Video skills are easy, link to a YouTube playlist of your most applicable works. Can you do trailers for albums? Can you do music videos for tracks? Can you film or animate your own material? -audio skills- For music skills, linking to a demo reel on YouTube or SoundCloud may work, as can linking to a playlist or a page on your blog that serves as a gallery of your works. Artists those that specialize in a specific skill (eg vocals, trombone, arrangement) without having all the skill in the toolbox to make a great and complete demo track may have to get some help in producing more complete demos of their work. For example, if your skill is arrangement, talk to those that have good production skill and resources and collaborate on a demo together. One artist writes a great arrangement, the other produces it. There's also the profiles on the forum. While not as visible as your sig, ppl coming here to look for specific skills (eg banjo) can find everyone who's listed banjo as one of their skills. -network- Make friends on ocr. Album project leaders are pretty much always looking for ppl to join their project, and often want and/or need art and a website when the project is approaching completion. Contributing to an album project means your name will be on it, which can introduce others to you work. Music artists may need cover art and a trailer video for their album. While the album is being made, they may be open to collaborate. Because ppl can be rather secretive about their personal projects, you probably won't see them recruiting until they really need something, but they might mention it to their friends. For that matter, you may need a specific skill yourself for one of your projects, and one of your friends may be willing to do it quickly and for free. Also, don't be an ass. It hurts your networking. -contact- Contact information. While ppl can use PMs on ocr or other communities you're on, some prefer email or IM. If you use any form of IM service, link it. Social Networking pages and profiles may also be a good way to let ppl get in touch with you - and you can put that in your ocr profile to save sig space. -be yourself- Generally, ppl don't believe robots or accountants are particularly creative, so don't be afraid to show your personality. Just keep things appropriate where necessary. Odd things stand out. While a pic of a giraffe typically isn't related to any skill I imagine being advertised on ocr, it may get you more attention than a keyboard + artist name pic. Nothing says giraffes can't be used to advertise your skill here. Just keep them within the sig height limit. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Meteo Xavier Posted February 27, 2012 Share Posted February 27, 2012 I wasn't able to read that thoroughly, but I don't think I saw anything in there in regards to newbies posting on advertising themselves as composers. What is your position on that? Frankly, those posts irk me to the 4th level of Hell. They show that the "composer" has almost zero respect for the site and the community by treating it as nothing more than free ad space - not even taking the time the understand this is a video game MUSIC community, not a video game indie community. As we have music people here who make efforts to the community by making remixes and contributing to projects and site maintenance, I feel these newbies coming in and using the forums for free ad space is appalling, quite frankly. Ooh, bookends. Anyway, what are your thoughts on that? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rozovian Posted February 27, 2012 Share Posted February 27, 2012 It's right there in the first post, has been for quite a while. We added that we'll delete self-advertising threads that appear. I've locked the most recent ones and deleted a few single-post threads. Any new ones will be deleted. The main change is that there's now more mods around. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Meteo Xavier Posted February 27, 2012 Share Posted February 27, 2012 I didn't think to look that far up there. Awesome. Keep up the good workz. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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