I'll preface this with "I am NOT an attorney", but I have dealt with Universal, Sony and others- the flaw in your logic is assuming the music companies are even remotely interested in wasting time on your project. I don't say that to put down your project, it might be breathtaking and be wonderful... Its just that it will take lawyers and money to get anywhere with them. Step 1. Just buy stock music with the licenses included, or purchase buy-out tunes, or get a composer to write the stuff for you with a work-for-hire. Getting a large music company to even begin negotiations requires, unluckily, a professional music supervisor and a good music attorney who know how to negotiate the byzantine paths of the music business. Secondly, even if you could get them to talk... the cost for a piece of music can easily be tens of thousands of dollars, if not more... plus of course the lawyer fees to do the contracts, and the accounting fees when they call to get a professional audit to see if you owe them money. Third, You're dealing with not only the SYNCHRONIZATION rights to the music, but you have to deal with the MASTER rights as well. That is you not only have to get permission for the recorded song, but the right to use the copyrighted underlying music as well. And doing a deal for a separate soundtrack is even harder... You can easily find yourself dealing with the Musicians, the publishers, and the record label. SO, just don't ... unless you have time, money and your project offers value to them.
Composing : Dealing with well know music for your film.... my suggestion: Hire a composer... by Georgia Hilton
Other topics in Composing:
Check out Trending Discussions
Register / Log In
1 person likes this
I wouldn't be so quick to say a composer will write music on a "work-for-hire" contract. I have never written under these terms. Unless you're hiring a composer as an employee (including holiday pay, pension, and benefits) the legal term does not really apply, especially to those outside of the USA. I think some of the benefits of using a composer versus library music is that a composer is able to write music that specifically fits your project, is edited to match perfectly, there's continuity throughout the score, and is able to provide both the sync and master rights that you mentioned! I'm not sure what the background to your post is, but here's a great article on working with a composer: http://www.screencomposers.ca/working-with-a-composer/
I'd also like to chip in as a composer, and say that there are many of us that are happy to talk about working within a small budget - compared to what you will spend on stock music a well composed score is very competitive if you can find a composer willing to negotiate. We are out there, and we don't all need big $ for every project...
Some of us (like me) will even offer a free trial of soundtrack scoring services, with profit-sharing agreements, credits, copies, etc. http://pjcorvus.com
My first short film was imagined for YouTube. I used two songs from the fifties era and snatches of some Stan Kenton for it's 10.5 minute length. Some months on YouTube passed and then it became unavailable for mobile devices. But by this time, I was pushed into entering the film into various festivals, and First Rites Films was establishing a YouTube presence, and also paid attention to it. So I followed all the on line instructions of how to locate publishers and request sync permission. Just sync. I carefully noted at what point in the film the material appeared and disappeared. I contacted three publishers on line (using their appropriate contact links) with my requests. About two months later, the mobile device block was lifted on YouTube, even though I had never personally heard from the publishers. Well, I thought, if this is how they communicate, then it's ok by me. Three months later, the mobile use was cut off again. I've never received any responses to my emails. By the way, i never accepted any advertising on youtube to precede my film. Is this a bit off topic as I'm not talking about Master rights? Or does this tell you something about the difficulties of doing anything directly on the Internet? Maybe it means I'll go back to doing card tricks for my dog.
Nice idea, but when you start living on social security, it's all about workarounds....
A free trial. I'll see you in court. I guess I should paste the url of the film...one may see my dilemma, or at least hear it. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PH7vdg8m9MY still not for mobile... try the HD, etc.
Relax..I'm not missing the point. The reality is that we join these discussions to subtly promote ourselves. That's what I'm doing in my inverse way. I've composed multitrack music for theater and dance, but I don't have the time anymore, and prefer using found stuff. If I really had to ad original material, I would compose it myself. Although I wonder if that old ESQ-1 board would even start up to run my rack mounts anymore...otherwise I have tons of samples, but prefer to write rhythms note by note, as opposed to pasting groups of sections. I have the latest Logic, tons of Native Instruments, Sonic Fire Pro, Reason, Trilium Bass, Sonic Culture's Gamelan...Boris Continuum, Battery, you name it. Also some of the better Ipad music apps. Tell you what..I'll go check your music out anyway.
Andre, there is no reason why you couldnt have scored it. Its very common for current composers to create an "old fashioned" sound for period movies. Yes of course I am promoting my soundtrack music services, to the people who think they cannot afford a composer in this discussion, I am offering a free trial of my soundtrack services. http://pjcorvus.com
The film just got selected for the Eugene International Film Fest for this Nov. Too much!
2 people like this
Georgia, you have just described the normal path for licensing very well. I started out as a songwriter then moved to music supervision and I was shocked at what it takes just to get then to say no. I built a solution called www.musicsupervisor.com and it contains around 200,000 pre-cleared tracks (songs and score). These are NOT library tracks or bad songs but great music from great composers and artists from all over the world. Yes it does include huge orchestra tracks and famous songs. As someone who helps a lot of music supervisors and film makers, here are my thoughts. 1) Comparing score and songs is like comparing apples and monkeys because they are very different. whenever possible hire a composer nothing can do more good (or harm) than a custom score. Having a composer custom write songs on a traditional film deadline is not wise. Scoring is a full time job and many hours are spend just picking the instruments and sounds. Each song requires a new pallet. Even if they have the skills they won't really have the time. License a song from an artist who has but months of his life into making that song great. 2) Famous songs almost every indie filmmaker wants some famous song he can't afford. You can tell the main character is interesting by putting in a song that sounds LIKE James Brown without using a track BY James Brown. This will serve the film if you want bang for the buck license a famous track for the trailer. Meet the Fockers used Barbra Streisands "The Way We Were" for their trailer and it never was in the film. The track cost $1M and the film grossed hundreds of millions. Even the majors know this trick a song that sells tickets is worth a lot more than one that explains a character. 3) Like most things in this business I feel strongly both ways. Nothing can set time like a song. Given the choice of shooting a busy street with vintage cars to show a flashback costs much more than showing anything timeless and playing a song from the time period. Music is a very powerful tool packed with it's own emotions and story used wisely it can take any project to another level. 4) The reason the major labels and publishers don't like or help most indie filmmakers. Warner Chappell music gets over 100,000 licensing requests and has a staff that is amazingly small for the amount of work they are asked to do. Licensing Led Zeppelin is a very specific process and it does NOT involve a sob story of a tale of how special it will be in your film. They have a contract with tons of provisions including a pricing minimum. AKA don't even talk to me if it is not X amount. When you send it a quote request for an indie film with no budget and no stars and it's not even written correctly, where do you think they put that in the stack of requests on their desk? At the bottom if you are lucky. Even if you are lucky and they take pity on you and get you that famous song for cheap and the movie becomes a huge hit, now they are in trouble. Why because they are the one who licensed a valuable song for pennies on the dollar and now the film has made millions for everyone but them and their client. The answer is a step deal find a music supervisor or lawyer who knows about them. I hope this was helpful Barry
It took ten years off of my life just reading that.lol
So, do you feel ten years younger?
No, I'm gonna die ten years earlier.lol Forgive me everyone because I am new to the business and still a little wet behind the ears but I had no idea the depth of and intensity of the legal part of just selling a song(I know that sentence structure sucked but I'm not changing it). I just guess I have a lot to learn.