Recapping 2020 at Artlist and Artgrid

Almost there!

It’s entirely possible that when the clock strikes midnight on December 31st, the entire human race will breathe a collective sigh of relief. Few years in recent memory have become as notorious.

This was no ordinary year for any of us, so before you go merrily into 2021, you have a personalized 2020 music and footage recap waiting for you on Artlist and on Artgrid.

Just sign in to your account and start your personalized experience.

For Artlist users, check out who your favorite Artlist musician was this year, what your dominant musical mood was, and get a personalized collection of new songs based on your musical activity.

For Artgrid users, see who your favorite cinematographer was or the dominant theme of the footage you downloaded, and get a collection of recommended clips based on your activity.

You can also check out collections of the most popular songs downloaded this year by Artlist users. Hop on to the Spotlight section and listen to best-of collections organized by some of our search filters – the moods Cinematic, Powerful and Uplifting, and the video themes, Commercial, Travel, Uplifting, Vlog and Wedding.

Resilience in the face of COVID-19

This was the year of COVID-19. Being at the forefront of both the filmmaking and music industries, we saw the pandemic’s effects firsthand, and their full extent has yet to be realized.

With that said, these trying times only strengthened our belief in content creators worldwide, who showed how resilient, adaptive and creative they are.

It began with the Home B-Roll Challenge, a contest we launched to challenge creators to shoot their most creative b-roll inside their home while using Artlist royalty-free music. There were 3 winners, and 1st place Sune Chee from Sweden received lifetime subscriptions to Artlist and Artgrid Pro and Spiffy Gear Lumiee lights.

Check out our reaction video to all winners of the B-Roll Challenge:

Shortly after, launched the Showreel Contest, and we received hundreds of exciting and slick-looking videos that featured your best filmmaking work to the soundtrack of Artlist songs.

The winner, Kieran Hodges, got an MSI Prestige monitor and lifetime Artlist and Artgrid Pro subscriptions. Check out his video:

In the summer, We had our biggest competition ever, with the Artlist & Artgrid Edit Challenge. It was divided into 3 categories: Music Video, Movie Trailer and Ad. With 3 winners in each category plus a Judge’s favorite, 10 filmmakers got $30k worth of prizes, including 3 Blackmagic Pocket 4K cameras, 3 Zhiyun gimbals and DJI Mini Mavic drones and much, much more.

Check out our reaction video to the Edit Challenge winners here:

New products and features

2020 was also the year where we launched our new SFX library on Artlist, which offered high-quality sounds with a universal license that doesn’t expire.

New features came out to further streamline the editing process of music and footage into your videos. Artlist launched the ‘Exclude’ filter, which helps you rule out songs with a mood, genre, instrument or theme that you don’t want.

Artgrid came out with the aspect ratio tool, that can show you how the footage you’re thinking of downloading will look like in vertical and square.

Another big feature launched on Artgrid is the curated collections section, where you can find handpicked collections curated by themes like seasons, cities and even geometric shapes.

On the business side, 2020 definitely ends on a high note with the acquisition of the digital asset marketplace, Motion Array. Adding to our offerings overlays, video effects, templates, plugins, motion graphics and more, Artlist has taken a step closer to becoming a one-stop-shop of creative stock assets where content creators find quality, affordable products with a universal license that never expires.

Staying creative

On the creative side, a partnership with FaceApp and EBSynth’s created a fun aging effect, and we reached for the proverbial moon with a fake moon landing commercial.

We are happy and proud to be there for independent musicians and filmmakers in this challenging time. They see Artlist as a financial resource that has become even more critical to their livelihood with the live music scene all but non-existent and getting cinematography work more challenging.

And since It’s difficult to really sum up such an eventful year, we’ll let some of our music and cinematography partners, as well as creators, talk about what 2020 was like for them.

See you in a creative 2021!