QUESTIONS: Lots of popular movies use someone else's music in their soundtracks. But what are the procedures and rules for specifically:
1. Obtaining rights to use someone's music?
Example: Song, Time is on My Side, in the movie Fallen
In this case, the song is kind of central to the theme and used intermittently throughout the movie. Does it matter how often the song is used in the movie in terms of cost to use?
2. If the cost is calculated on an individual basis (what song, what group) and whether or not the 'popularity' of a song, (a song people know vs. something few people have ever heard) has anything to do with the ability to obtain the rights to it, and/or the cost.
3. If using someone's music is not possible, I'd like to know if there are any legal issues about having a band 'cover' a particular song in a movie.
Example: Magic Bus and Love the One You're With were performed by singers other than The Who and Crosby, Stills, in the Movie Forces of Nature.
4. About using someone's music just as the credits roll, but not in the body of the movie. Would that be less expensive as opposed to using the song throughout the movie?
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This is a great topic for discussion that interests me as an actor and musician. I am in the process right now of composing an original song to be used in a film next year. I think using local singer/songwriters or composers is a great idea as a piece of music doesn't have to well known to be great. All the music that we ever loved to hear... was someone's original music.
ANSWERS: 1. It doesn't matter if you use it once or twenty times.
2 & 3. Cost is usually determined song by song, and performer by performer. It is usually cheaper to have a local band cover a song (and often more effective in your film) than to get the rights to the original recording by say, U2. But beware, rights are broken into two main parts, though often both parts are owned by the same person/s:
- Who owns the recording
- Who owns the music
4. See answer 1, above.
Here are some useful links - you can Google others:
http://www.associated... http://www.marklitwak... http://www.marklitwak.com/articles/general/obtaining_music.html
If you are a student or independent, low/no-budget filmmaker, and can demonstrate that you have little or no expectation of making money from your film, you have an excellent chance of negotiating a very low, or $0 fee to obtain these rights, but it's a pain in the ass to track down the people you want to speak to.
It boils down largely to who owns the publishing rights. Companies like ASCAP, BMI and SESAC are all publishing companies that will license music for commercial projects, movies, etc. The artist often doesn't have much of a say in this, it depends on how big the artist is and how much clout they have in terms of their negotiated contract for a particular release.
As noted above, the cost will vary dependent on the song and who the artist is behind it.
Local bands are a great way to go! You can also find a lot of unsigned bands on places like MySpace that will allow you to use their music for free in exchange for exposure and a movie credit.
You can pretty much have any band cover any song. Nobody can keep anyone from recording a song by an artist, but that doesn't give the new recorder of that song any of the publishing rights to the song. Those rights stay with the original composer(s) and publishers. To use the song in a film, no matter who records it, you still must get sync rights to the song. Although that is getting more affordable than it used to be, as someone mentioned above. It can be VERY difficult to find the people that actually hold the rights.
And, as your film may be unlikely to make millions of dollars (or you will say that in your request for the sync rights to keep the cost very low or occasionally free for full-on student productions), the rights holders don't have much incentive to pursue placing their song in your film. Many times, even if you find the right people, you will never get a response at all, or sometimes as late as 6 to 12 months later.
Another option is to buy a royalty free music library package on CD. Just Google: "royalty free music library" and you should get some results...
There's also programs like Soundtrack Pro and Soundbooth that come with royalty-free loops and music beds that you can use for your projects.
Here's another source for some free music beds and sound effects (the site is a bit cheesy but they have some good stuff):
http://www.soundameri... http://www.soundamerica.com/
And last, you can have somebody score your movie. Someone who will really pay attention to how those moments in your film change as the story goes on, and then music will match not only that one music, but the moments before and after too. Hopefully, this will be done in a way that sounds perfectly inevitable, but never predictable, and will not call attention to itself and pull the viewer out of the movie.
The best movie music draws the viewer deeper and deeper into the world of the film, and an well done original score can match your film's world more distinctly than mass produced library tracks. So keep that in mind.
And a good composer will take the ideas from your temp score (whether other film scores or pop songs that you're having trouble licensing or affording to license) and use the overall vibe, atmosphere, instruments, rhythm, feel to create a score very much in that style, but within your budget.
Speaking of budget, a good composer will always work within yours. The old joke in Hollywood scoring was always so you want it finished Tuesdsay or do you want it good?
Composerwww.brucekiesling.com/Composer
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