How to make money, or how to make MORE money - doing music for TV & film

[Jules]

.

[Boby Stoica]

More like how to not lose any money when doing this kind of stuff:

I had an unpleasant experience with a local TV station, making a song for them, to be used on the new year's eve show last year. The contract was not verry specific on the type of broadcasting, the period.. Anyway, this kind of deal comes with full copyright ceasing. So, this year, I see my song cutted - prolly one guy at the production dept. - in 5 different jingles, on top of that they also made a video with all their "stars" singing on my song - wich was actually made with real singers, but with a big choir chatacter.

Meaning: write down ONLY what they are paying for. And make sure they can't make use of what they're NOT paying for..

[Stargazer]

Originally posted by Boby Stoica

Meaning: write down ONLY what they are paying for. And make sure they can't make use of what they're NOT paying for..

Makes sense. But if you can manage to get better $ upfront, maybe you don't have to limit their rights to use your material as much.
They will feel better if they don't have to come back to you to renegotiate whenever they want to license your music for a new period of time or whatever.
Your music will get more airplay, you will get points when it's broadcasted (if you wrote it), and they will come back to you next year for edits. Then you charge your hourly rate, of coarse...

[Boby Stoica]

Here, they want to buy the rights, also. So no royaltees, points or anything later..

[jbuntz]

I've done all sorts of work for radio and television. One route to go is Jingles for both radio and television. In smaller markets, you can go directly to the client (one that advertises already hopefully) and ask if they would like a jingle and do them one with no pressure and there's a good chance they'll buy it if they like it and they have the budget. It's decent money if you can get it. In bigger markets, it's totally who you know.

Also, making music and sound libraries can be lucrative. I've done both and sound effects libraries are much easier to make and go much faster. You can either try to sell them yourself (good luck) or sell the rights for a lump sum.

The downside to all this is you feel entirely lame doing this line of work. And singing jingles for a funeral home is just weird.

[jbuntz]

Oops. Wrong thread.

[skip bitmin]

Originally posted by jbuntz
[ One route
Also, making music and sound libraries can be lucrative. I've done both and sound effects libraries are much easier to make and go much faster. You can either try to sell them yourself (good luck) or sell the rights for a lump sum.

The downside to all this is you feel entirely lame doing this line of work. And singing jingles for a funeral home is just weird. [/b]

Good advice. The sound libraries,how would you pitch them
and to who?

[Medicine Dog]

The thing to remember about doing music for TV and/or Film is that most contracts are "Work For Hire". This means they own the product they accept under the contract and are free to do with it whatever they want. It's extremely rare to cut a royalty deal with TV and Film work.

[jbuntz]

Originally posted by skip bitmin
Good advice. The sound libraries,how would you pitch them
and to who?

Check out soundideas.com

[Alécio Costa]

I also had very bad experiences with this area. I no longer go through the make it and we will buy it if we like it.

Almost 10 years ago, a very famous chain of supermarkets asked an agency to create a nice jingle for summer. 5 studios, including mine presented some sketch. At the end, the cdishonest agency ended up doingit with someone else and we somewhat felt the taste of some minor ideas of ours in there.

In another opportunity, a famous big summer beach shopping center contracted me to do their summer jingle. I did for them in 1997, 1998 and 2000 and the 1998 version was considered the best pop dance jingle of the year.

They ended up using the 1998 ragga version also in 1999 and the "2001 Ricky Martin" version also in 2002.

At late 2004 they called me for a new jingle. I asked for twice I charged at those years. They probabçly ended up doing it with some bedroom studio out there for U$200.

It is hard to ask for royalties with this kind of stuff.
Even worser is if someone wants to contract you to sing in a political jingle that the other candidate is gay
no way
Ad he lost it - bingo!!
Back to work proes
:)

[skip bitmin]

Originally posted by jbuntz
Check out soundideas.com

Thanks

[jtienhaara]

Originally posted by skip bitmin

Thanks

http://www.sound-ideas.com?

Thanks for the tip Jbuntz!

[jbuntz]

Oops. It's been a while since I've checked that site.

[Sharp11]

I've been making a good living as a tv/film composer for many years now, here are what I feel are a few essential traits of a successful tv composer.

1. A thick skin, a very thick skin: you must never take anything anyone says about your music personally, nor must you think they don't know what they're talking about (even if they don't). You'll also need to take disappointments in stride (see #6).

2. You must know everything you can possibly know about ALL kinds of music: You'll often be called upon to write anything from an Aaron Copland-style fanfare to a sexy,steamy romance cue and you simply have to know how to do it, and do it FAST. It helps if you can play more than one instrument, I play four. How you accomplish this is up to you, I graduated from Berklee's composition department and subsequently studied scores for many years, still do. I'm often surprised and disappointed at the number of "musicians" who know so little about music and are unwilling or uninterested in knowing more.

3. You must have good equipment: I run an HD rig with a DMXR100 as a front end, I have a Yamaha C5 grand piano (always in tune), a collection of great guitars and basses, lots of percussion, good mics and pres, lots of essential plugs, synths a gigasampler....it's the composer's arsenal of today. I also have an excellent room with Ethan Winer's superb bass traps.

4. You must be an excellent engineer, secretary, PR guy, musician, composer, housecleaner and coffeemaker.

5. You must NOT be an attention *****!!! Chances are you'll live in anonymity for a long time, even as you pile up awards.

6. Be patient: some things happen quickly, but some take forever, I'm in line for a major motion picture and have been for almost two years now, and this after cultivating a relationship with a director that began six years ago by doing freebies. And I STILL might not get the gig.

There's more, but I'll spare you guys the rest.

Cheers

[skip bitmin]

Originally posted by Sharp11
I've been making a good living as a tv/film composer for many years now, here are what I feel are a few essential traits of a successful tv composer.

1. A thick skin, a very thick skin: you must never take anything anyone says about your music personally, nor must you think they don't know what they're talking about (even if they don't). You'll also need to take disappointments in stride (see #6).

2. You must know everything you can possibly know about ALL kinds of music: You'll often be called upon to write anything from an Aaron Copland-style fanfare to a sexy,steamy romance cue and you simply have to know how to do it, and do it FAST. It helps if you can play more than one instrument, I play four. How you accomplish this is up to you, I graduated from Berklee's composition department and subsequently studied scores for many years, still do. I'm often surprised and disappointed at the number of "musicians" who know so little about music and are unwilling or uninterested in knowing more.

3. You must have good equipment: I run an HD rig with a DMXR100 as a front end, I have a Yamaha C5 grand piano (always in tune), a collection of great guitars and basses, lots of percussion, good mics and pres, lots of essential plugs, synths a gigasampler....it's the composer's arsenal of today. I also have an excellent room with Ethan Winer's superb bass traps.

4. You must be an excellent engineer, secretary, PR guy, musician, composer, housecleaner and coffeemaker.

5. You must NOT be an attention *****!!! Chances are you'll live in anonymity for a long time, even as you pile up awards.

6. Be patient: some things happen quickly, but some take forever, I'm in line for a major motion picture and have been for almost two years now, and this after cultivating a relationship with a director that began six years ago by doing freebies. And I STILL might not get the gig.

There's more, but I'll spare you guys the rest.

Cheers

Please go on. Also how did you start? I recently did a movie trailer
for an independent film (thier still filming it) for free,but how many
of those do you do?

[KngofNoiz]

Hi, I am on the "not making money side" of the forum. But I do have a question. If you are a member of a PRO, like BMI, ASCAP, etc. Don't you get royalties from televised broadcast of a film that has your score? Even if you don't own the rights to music (like siging it over to producer, etc), you should still get rolyaties from any cue sheets truned in? It is entirly possible that I am majorly confused, so please be gentle! thanks, ts

[skip bitmin]

Originally posted by KngofNoiz
Hi, I am on the "not making money side" of the forum. But I do have a question. If you are a member of a PRO, like BMI, ASCAP, etc. Don't you get royalties from televised broadcast of a film that has your score? Even if you don't own the rights to music (like siging it over to producer, etc), you should still get rolyaties from any cue sheets truned in? It is entirly possible that I am majorly confused, so please be gentle! thanks, ts

I heard about a composer who did music for a tv show here in
Canada (low budget teen sitcom for a kids network).The show
was canceled but went into repeats,I was told he makes 70 grand
a year in royelties from this show.This is what I was told I have
no idea if it is true.Maybe some one else could shed more light on
the subject.


www.holomorphicmusic.com

[Sharp11]

Originally posted by skip bitmin
I heard about a composer who did music for a tv show here in
Canada (low budget teen sitcom for a kids network).The show
was canceled but went into repeats,I was told he makes 70 grand
a year in royelties from this show.This is what I was told I have
no idea if it is true.Maybe some one else could shed more light on
the subject.


www.holomorphicmusic.com

Without going into detail about how much money I make, it is true, a top tv composer can make considerable amounts of money in royalties.

There's a ridiculously complicated formula for these things, but the simple breakdown as ASCAP sees it is, for network tv in the USA:

There's a morning part, an afternoon part, a primetime part and a night part.

Primetime pays the most, daytime the second best (about 120 dollars a minute) and the rest less.

There's a different rate for jingles, PBS and cable.

Checks come 4 times a year with foreign coming three times a year.

Foreign depends on foreign rights societies reporting in to ASCAP. Often, shows that play here in the USA, play overseas in different markets later, sometimes a few years later.

These are "performance rights", not publishing, that's a whole different game and something a tv/film writer would be very luck to get even a small piece of.

That's a basic simplification, but suffice to say, busy tv writers make well over 200G's a year after their works are in circulation for awhile (it's a cumulative game).