Music score for independent film

[Jason Bowers]

I am making a short film and have a need for the score. there is a great song by Simple Plan that would give it the exact emotion I am looking for. How can i go about getting the right to use it, and what reprecussions would i be looking at if I put it in anyway?

Thanks

[Allan Black]

Don't pirate any music for your films, maybe years from now you'll be sued by the composer/publisher, it's never going to be worth it.

There may be someone here who can do a score or look around the web for a sound-a-like.
Cheers.

[Mark Stavar]

Originally Posted by Jason Bowers

I am making a short film and have a need for the score. there is a great song by Simple Plan that would give it the exact emotion I am looking for. How can i go about getting the right to use it, and what reprecussions would i be looking at if I put it in anyway?

Thanks

Without the rights to the music you won't get the film into any significant film festivals. And even if you do, the risks are great of you getting pinged, particularly if your film gains any sort of exposure.

There are various bodies in different countries that control this. Enquire and find out. You could well find that it might simply be cheaper to pay for the limited rights.

good luck.

marks

[Chris Burgess]

Contact the record label that produces Simple Plan's albums. Tell them that you are interested in acquiring a master use license and a synch license for the certain song that you want to use, and be ready to tell them your exact plans for the end result of your work. Oh, and pull out the checkbook because its gonna cost you some change.

[Jay Gladwell]

Jason, the truth of the matter is unless you're independently wealthy, you won't be able to afford the license.

Go to Versus Media http://www.versusmedia.com/ this is a networking site for filmmakers and musician/composers. We've found some excellent, talented people here to score our projects, and it is affordable.

[Chris Luker]

I just got done doing a movie that needed a Famous Artist's song in one scene. I found their publishing company and they wouldn't even return our calls.
So, I wrote a song that sounded "in the genre". It was close enough, but not infringing.
You hear songs like that all the time on TV... sounds like something, but is different enough to not be a complete rip off.

[Jason Bowers]

Thanks guys,
The whole film is being shot through donations of time and equipment from actors to locations to 35mm adapters. I have the luxury of living right next to Cinevate home of the Brevis and Dennis is gracious enough to allow us to anything they have. The film is being shot with zero dollars. The only thing we are missing is a musical score. I tried to email the lead singer through his myspace page so we'll see if we get a response.

thanks

Jason

[Dylan Pank]

The thing you have to be careful about is the bands in these cases often don't actually own the rights to their own songs, those are held by the record company, almost CERTAINLY the recordings are owned by the record company. You have to go through the record company at some stage.

[Greg Quinn]

What everyone else said, plus it's definitely worth at least trying to contact the artist themselves; filmmaker Robert Greenwald got the rights to use Layla for free from Clapton for a documentary ("Out-Foxed") allegedly because he was interested to the theme of the doc: http://www.robertgreenwald.org/press_nyt.php

[George Tasick]

Go to http://www.apmmusic.com/myapm/main.php and check out their music library. You can play through all of their music for free (register to download) and you only pay for music that actually makes it into the final production.

Its music made for productions in just about ever genre you could possibly imagine. They literally have tens of thousands of CDs worth of music.

They have different rates for different types of productions but for my purposes (promotional videos) I get charged $250 per drop (I’ll explain in a sec) or $1650 for unlimited use of all their music in that particular production.

When I say "charged per drop" that means that any time that music is played during your production (in whole or in part) you are charged $250.

This works out great for commercials and things where you would simply use one song as background music through the entire commercial.

If you're doing more of a creative production where you would use 6 or 7 songs for different moods and then have parts of certain songs replaying through the production ... you would want to just pay the $1650 so the per drop fees don't restrict your creative freedom.

I know these numbers may be somewhat large for a short film with a nonexistent budget, but if you're getting paid they're pretty easy fees to just tack on to the cost of production.

This site is so good I'm surprised that I did not learn about it sooner!

[Chris Ficek]

Hey Jason,

As you know in my other world I do a whole bunch of music licensing. Never had an opportunity to work with Simple Plan but pretty much any pop song will cost a bundle. An example of a recent license deal that I was working on involved the song "I'm Too Sexy" by Right Said Fred and to use :30 secs in a promo commercial was $40,000 $US, crazy for an '80's song.

In Canada you have the issue as well as CMMRA (Canadian Musical Mechanical Reproduction Association), AVLA ( Audio/Video Licensing Agency) and the need for a syncronization rights agreement. All doable but time consuming and expensive. Here at home why not try Rob Remus, he does scores and I have heard some of his stuff, it was great. He's in the phone book.

Good luck

[Jason Bowers]

Hey Chris,
Thanks for the info. I will definitely try Rob and see what he has to offer. We are really having great success keeping all the costs to zero. It has been great seeing how many people are willing to help in the city.

As well thanks for the info on the indemnity waiver. I never even thought to ask you about music. Rock the Fort duh!!! How brainless can I be?

[Travis Johnson]

I reccomend the site: www.jamendo.com if you're in search of music for film. I've found numerous artists there that are amazing and are more than willing to allow you to use their music.

[Jason Robinson]

Originally Posted by Jason Bowers

Hey Chris,
Thanks for the info. I will definitely try Rob and see what he has to offer. We are really having great success keeping all the costs to zero. It has been great seeing how many people are willing to help in the city.

As well thanks for the info on the indemnity waiver. I never even thought to ask you about music. Rock the Fort duh!!! How brainless can I be?

I should also plug my composer Jeremy Schrepple. Masters NYU. I also went to the same high school as him and we were roommates for a bit. His style is more symphonic, but he is versatile. Also has a MySpace page (horribly low quality songs on there).