From Pitch to Placement: The Essentials of Sync Licensing - Midem 2017

okay looks like we're about to starve here because the music is ended so welcome to our sync panel here at mid M 2017 thank you very much to the mid M for inviting us we've got a fantastic panel not just including myself of course with like five illustrious guests here well now introduce to you we've got a lead director music supervisor Leila music one of the leading music gap supervision companies in the UK and Europe well yeah I'd say universe universe exactly improper to is all perfect curling at Recurly president of third side music and a really excellent independent music publisher based out of Canada representing Oh concurrently Burnett yeah guy Courtney Barnett Kurt Vile just find a band called Sophie Tucker that's really amazing and happy with the heavy yet a whole lot of good stuff we have some really really good catalog and we've got sytem about John Petrovich into the shadows which proposed enough sort of on Johnny Cage fine all the way from LA and he's a vice president tactical music at Lionsgate yeah I worked in this business for 20-plus years as a music supervisor in all different forms of television film no video games commercials as well yeah hello fantastic David McGuinness - and a waiver from mute songs UK and I mean how long has meat songs been going and how awesome is your roster of writers casting oh yeah awesome of course yes I'm gonna be song the publishing arm of mutes been going since about 1982 83 84 something around there originally set up to look after Nick Cave we still look after the cave but the rosters grown enormously over the years I joined 18 years ago as a sync person at licensing and now I run the publishing division of mute and I have a colleague Simon Ballard who does is actually the licensing person but my my sink I spent 20 years doing sync so and I hope you all caught public service broadcasting a mute artist that was phenomenal last night on beach so hopefully made it and then we got Louisa Rainbird some music sales group music publisher also based in the UK with a was it in your biography says you got something like two hundred and fifty thousand copyrights yeah and songs from the tide is high' to Tainted Love to we'll meet again and then we have a lot of compelling composers writing specifically for stage and screen so working with Ludovico Einaudi Justin aha Duran how Scourge or Tenten excellent so we got really a quite diverse range of professionals here from independent sync people to rights holders to supervisors and we get an idea from the audience of where where you guys are from we got we get a show of hands for any musicians yeah any labels and publishers management supervisors and bloggers no religion okay so what's great to see so many faces and today the plan is really to to take the whole synch panel back to the very very very beginning to talk about first steps you take to be ready to to maximize your possibility for securing a sink but before that we're even going to talk about what is the sink and what you need to have in place for a sink how you approach sink as a as a business opportunity for you and your music and your artists or your catalog and then talk about how to take it on to the next level how we move forward not just getting a song in a commercial but how to collaborate further with the user of your music like be a brand or video game how you can capitalize on that and how you can develop your career as a musician around the world of sync and a show of hands who wants to hear some impressive statistics or anything two three okay okay I got some here I'm going to read them out okay and UK sync revenues are up by five point one percent in 2016 that's not that impressive because you don't know what that's based on so I'll give you a better one we got okay after Taylor Swift covered Jimmy Eat World the middle in an Apple TV ad sales of the original song soared two hundred and ninety eight percent ooh okay last one sorry okay Diet Coke increased Facebook page likes by a thousand percent of the teaming up with Taylor Swift another Taylor Swift thing but basically I could go on but they are not gonna guess that on our panel okay so as a musician you are considering sync as a way of making some money and exposing your music to generate new fan bases before you even do that you have to look at what your song is made of it's obviously perhaps you've written a beat and you've worked with a vocalist you know you've you've collaborated with some friends how do you make sure your song is actually ready and legitimate or legal to to present to a supervisor or record label or publisher let's break down what the song is it in itself we take that said T well the first key thing to understand is that when you're talking about recording music recorded music there's actually two copyrights there's a copyright to the composition itself and there's a separate copyright that's distinct to the recording of the composition and so if you can think of it like an old-school type situation where it used to be you know like music publishers would literally have guys in rooms with pianos you know in women also put just writing composing music and writing it down you know like cheap music and then you know by virtue of the fact that the song is new and original and it does it's not borrowing any elements there's a copyright created in the song itself the composition and then you go out you work you know they would song plug you know try to get the song to elvis type of thing Ellis would record it and then there would be a different well there is a different copyright in the recording of the song and famous songs can have you know hundreds of different recordings of them so it's really important to understand at a very basic level if you write your own music and you produce your own recordings that you have you're actually owning two different copyrights and everything else like the entire income flow the music industry kind of relies on understanding the difference between the copyrights of a song and the copyrights in the recordings and just basically a music publisher deals in songs and compositions and record labels own masters so that's like a fundamental difference between what is a record label and what's a music publisher but as an unsigned artist let's say and you've written your own song what would you need to avoid doing before you you know to book it when when thinking of presenting your music to music sip well of course the first key thing is don't use samples if you use samples you need to get authorization I mean that there are certain exceptions I mean there's sample packs that you can buy that are like royalty-free that'll have beats in them and that these you know they're they're made specifically for getting reused so they're like generally speaking I don't think those clearances required in those instances but if you're just taking something off youtube and thinking you know I get the things that annoy me okay artist comes all yet will bub you know I use lyrics from the song but it's totally public domain is reeled and then I look into it and it's like it's from the 1950s and it was a famous song at the time so it's like that's that public domain just because you think it's a you know people say oh yeah this is really obscure no one will never know it's like have you heard of the internet like nothing obscure anymore like there's just nothing you know copyright especially in the u.s. like determining what's in the public domain is really complicated and it's basically anything before 1923 I think at this point and so they're kind of like there's certain kind of exceptions in certain years worth like 50 years pass yeah the death of the songwriter that's why it's complicated cuz sometimes you you don't know yeah so anyways basically don't think because it's old that you can borrow it unless it's like classical music from you know the 18th century or something like that don't use samples because samples basically I mean you know it is possible to use samples you need to be really well organized to go acquire the rights to the samples and to clear you need to know what you're doing in terms of making deals but as an independent artist with you know limited resources and not you know just lots of cash to be getting buyouts and actually getting the the major labels and like Webber owns the rights to that to pay attention to you it's very difficult so if you have samples or if you have forward material straight up you can play some set music I mean me as a publisher like I won't sign something if it's got samples in it or you know if it's something that's really unique and interesting I'll go and clear it or what we do is you know sometimes but you know I've got a new band we signed that you know he pulls some stuff off YouTube and it's it's basically just kind of people speaking that he added over top so in that instance I mean it you know it's part of the intro of the song and we'll make what we call a licensing at it which is we had them pull out all that stuff that he doesn't control and so it the fundamental characteristic of the song remains I mean it's basically the same song so in that instance you can do that you can you know do licensing edits which remove samples and stuff like that but that's you know sampling is a really key thing and you know what about something like let's go back to a quintessential album that had a lot of things and that was mobile play but he had a lot of very old almost deep south grassroots style and samples would he when he was writing up music and sampling those tracks would he have contact with his publishers have contacted the original rights holders for those old samples or would he just produce the album and gone to his label and publisher here's my album let's go well III don't know for sure like what happened in that instance but I would expect that he just did what he did and he brought it to the label and then they're like we need to clear this stuff and would have approached the rights holders of the original compositions and the original masters because in the you know there are again there are two copyrights so there's if you're using a sample of an old recording you know you need to clear the publishing need to clear the master they would have made those deals and if they didn't they would have got sued absolutely under percent guaranteed so I expect that they you know for with all the licensing that that happened I would expect that they got that lined up well that was anything that's on muse so that meet up yet to me yeah so so I have a bit of understanding of what happened what did you tell it this is not going on YouTube this by the way yeah I mean we don't publish Moby so he's published by warner/chappell but when the record when he delivered the record he the whole concept was he was going to make a record based on these these old recordings and yeah they went through though they went through the long process of clearing everything but doesn't plan at the beginning was let's make a record with old samples yeah he had this idea because he'd made various records before then they made animal rights more like a punk rock thing then he had this idea of using these old records and yeah and they just basically clear they went through a very painstaking process of making sure everything everything was cleared and they cleared it all and so if you look at the copyrights on on play a lot of them you know you can see Karlin music publishing in the UK represent a lot of the writers and I think it would would have been through Karlin in the US so yeah I mean it was it was pretty straightforward so when all those songs got licensed and all those different adverts the multiple rights owners did did get paid which is which is good but also they exercise some control that's brilliant the later you leave it with sample clearance the more not only the more risk there is but also the more disadvantage you are because of any negotiation obviously there's a lot of factors to consider but if you've made an album and your label of investing that then you go to a publisher and say ah now I need to clear this if they say okay well we'll have 100% of the publishing your hands are somewhat tied so it it pays to forward plan ouch yeah no idea okay so let's say that move on from that on to other elements of your song before you pitch to to add opportunities and the supervisors what else should you have in your songs ready I mean we talk about things like metadata Louisa would you tell us about that yeah we want to explain to our audience here so you need to make sure that all of your audio files contain information that a music supervisor or producer will need the title the artist the composer who owns the master who owns the publishing contact information genre tags and things that make it easy for people who are dealing with vast amounts of audio to locate things because the worst thing is someone hands you something it's perfect for what you're working on you don't know where that came from you've got no contact details you're not going to use that unknown artist unless you're called unknown artist in which case I just laugh it's brilliant and so okay I've got you I actually have something to say but that is like a big you know just in terms of band names like so this you know there are certain band names you need to pick something that is really unique and that's easily Google or this song you know a sink or you know that will use it yeah yeah there's there's a couple bands that we've done recently I won't name them but that just the names are so simple and so easy for people to mess up and that just generates like so much so many problems down the chain like I'll give you a good example of a great band name that we represent a band from material called Sutton's su uns to Google that you get students like you know it's like a unique distinctive thing and that's really important because if you find you know something's a bit too clever in a bit too generic I guess is what I'm looking for it just it makes it difficult for people to track you down like look there's a great band a southern rock band out of Nashville called music band tried searching music band where is the internet yeah good you can even if it's like a fairly common if you put band at the end of it it you'll find it but not music band band yeah three four years and Nashville music band Nashville but also that actually grows up an interesting point in no one need to get too technical but trademarking so if you've got if your band is called an area water band for example will you when you when you get famous because you will will you able to keep your name we have fast about one ever experience of that we published a vein called parrot selected when they started with Clarisonic and they and Panasonic the electronics the lexical equivalent company said no and so they had the extra change their name I mean they didn't sue because it was just enough for them to say hey that was all it required for them to change their name from Panasonic to pay holiday I've worked at a television network that was called fuel TV they thought it was very clever everybody Sue's fuel the clothing company fueled the band there was a fuel design company I think it's dinosaur sued us for creating fuel it was like that we just got lawsuit after lawsuit to do a cease and desist so then we had to change our name to fuel TV so again back to the basics here is like first of all your name and your metadata but names also it sounds such an obvious thing to say but go on Spotify and see if anybody else has got the same name as you're thinking oh you have you know because if you're starting your career out and looking to grow your profile and somebody exists with that name already you're going to end up having a copyright infringement it's going to be a long faint taking expensive nightmare hassle so just move on from that slightly depressing comment so okay what let's talk about the music that you're going to be pitching now you have your song you know you own it you and the band are all agreed on the ethics of perhaps of of who you would like to use your music or who you wouldn't like to use your music you know some of you don't mind fast food you're not into you know fossil fuels you know your picture battles let's talk about the files you know you've been very quiet I'm waiting for my moment yes tell me about loitering in the shadows waiting for my comment that when you're looking out there okay so let's talk about files I mean a big web is a good the bad you want to dance I mean in terms of music delivery to supervisors it's always good to have made sure that you have representatives that are able to best pitch your music if you yourselves don't already have those relationships in place I think the absolute key thing for pitching in general is relationship based which is like let's go back a little bit circle but that's my next bit oh that's my god I will get back in the shadow yeah I'm talking about like you know you have your full song which is amazing rock ballad with - soaring vocals and all it what do you need up instrumental should I should have instrumentals on hand at all times you should always have labs available and it should start us with the instrumental it should always be a mixed instrumental and mastered instrumental and a lot of the time people will be going into post-production at the very end of a project and say for example on a TV commercial and there's a bit of voiceover at the end the bit where it kind of says this shower gel will make you smell better and maybe the vocal of the song is just slightly in the way and it's tailing off underneath all of the voiceover so they want to be able to mix between the full vocal version and the instrumental very seamlessly and you can't do that unless the instrumental is also mastered and realistically you're not going to have time to go and get that fixed and so you want to have that ready to go in advance I think increasingly people want to have flexibility in post-production when it even comes to having access to stands as well I think the thing that that is most useful for from an advertising perspective is the world of cut-down so you turn on the TV and you see a one minute twenty second version of a commercial but then maybe there are stinging versions as well so every now and then there will be a 30-second version or a 10-second version or a 20-second version of that same ad and they're going to be in a position where they're crudely chopping up your music to make it work on those things unless they have access to the stemless and it doesn't mean that they need to fully you know start messing with the levels of your track or anything and you can certainly seek a request approval over anything that somebody does with your stems if you do share them and I think it's important to still be able to protect your copyright in that line and but having access to those stems so you can quickly get them over to people and they can make sure that that drum doesn't land on a really awkward moment when the product shot comes up or anything like that or you're switching between scenes and a film etc can really really help stuff so and as a rights holder then let's say Patrick when you have your catalog of artists and you hypothetically have a file drive and you have the artist name and then the artists name you have the track name in that folder you'll have the person with the instrumental the vocal version clean edit the radio edit I mean you go through all those part yeah remixes like any files that they have we you know we I mean part of the job that we do is making sure we line up the assets of the entire catalog ahead of time so that we have you know systematically all the works been done to make sure we have our copyright information make sure we know you know if there's co-writers if we don't control like who are they where can we reach them you know having the management contacts in the system who owns the masters contact information for those people and all the files all the different versions occasionally remixes will have different splits you know sometimes that I mean I don't recommend doing this but occasionally you know the the remixer will get a share of the publishing so there might be so this is all lined up in our system we have all the different versions we have WAV files for everything and the system allows us to you know to put playlists together and to get the music supervisors and then at their end you know they can download the whole playlist and then they can stream it they can download an mp3 they can grab a wav file if they need it all that all the data is there for them to see so it's you know all that to say is like a I mean that's us as a business but just as you as a musician or an artist the key thing is to line everything up and have all the information available because when it comes time to actually you know when you have an opportunity there's not going to be time to be chasing people you know you're going to turn this around fast so you need to have all the information on hand just a one of the role within all of that to note as well as other contributing performers and so session musicians and there can be union session musicians on something that maybe with the AFM in America they maybe with the MU in the UK they may be contributing performers that arms art of unions you should always know who is on that master recording and have either their express permission before that you're able to exploit that song in ways that aren't just releasing it and that you can do other forms of exploitation and have those buyouts in place or be sure that they're with certain unions so that you can even advise the supervisor if say for instance you're the record label or masked rights owner you can advise that music supervisor you need to speak with the Musicians Union to clear those session performers right fantastic fun one of the key points made there was if you're a musical artist you shouldn't just be thinking about the portions the copyright that you control if you have collaborators it's in your best interest to have their contact details like their managers contact details know who the publisher is because the turnaround times are really tight for everything and so if somebody's pitching on your behalf even if you have a publisher it's very hard to someone to say I need to clear this within a day and you go well actually this isn't showing up on the collection Society hearings the other 50% it makes me less inclined to pitch it because I can't say that it will be a straightforward clearance to see vizor yeah excellent that's great points we'll get more into that a little later on but okay so we're we're an artist and we've got like I said back to the point got all our songs already we've got a super organized system that we've got awesome tracks we've got a structure where we know that we have all the parts of all the tracks and so the created has done the the organization is done and now it comes down to looking for the opportunities which is you know it's a long it's a long road you know from sitting I you know pick up your guitar through to you know going down to the bank and check-in your balance and seeing the cashes in there I mean it's the long old road to getting a sink but having the foundation right at the outset makes the process a lot smoother and I think you're beginning to understand that problems must buy now so let's move on to the next the next area of getting the sink and that is pitching your music so there are multiple ways to pitch your music I'm going to go through each of these now and let's start with pitching music yourself as an individual artist who has no representatives aside from say your management what would be a good place to start in terms of finding people to send your music to for briefs you've got a you've got a really cool and hip hop be completely a hundred percent rep by you with your own you you've written it your friend is wrapped on it everything is clear you think it's going to suit a brand like let's say let's say Levi's at work that's not very good example let's move on it's going to suit them how do you start pitching your music to them as an individual artist that's another like erred here because he's probably get songs pitched him quite a lot what would you recommend a new artist to do to start with and so say you're an unsigned artist and you're based in Australia and you essentially need visibility it's all about kind of building a network of people who are aware of your music and and I'm personally a big advocate of and I'm sure most people here are as well of just writing a song for the sake of the song and creating something that is for the sake of just being a great track a great piece of art you're not writing to try and get the thing so I think you know these things kind of go in tandem with building your profile as an artist as a commercial artist to kind of get on radio do these things do whatever and it is all about relationship building and have represent like having representatives and certain places it's um as you guys know here working in publishing there are so many people working on so many different projects and there's such a wealth and variety of opportunities out there and you will have a full time job if your role becomes building rolodex kind of you know trying to find all of the different ad agency people to get in touch with all their song music supervisors or the TV supervisors etc etc and so if you can I think it's worth finding sync reps if not labels and publishers in certain territories that can represent your catalogue because they already have those contacts and trusted relationships that they get access to the briefs your supervisors are worth so how do you go about finding and think representatives who can who who you can trust to represent your catalogue and what ways do they work do they charge money do they work exclusively and actually to go an experience of working with individuals organizations like that well how can I put this I mean that I my publishing company kind of grew out of a snake agency that it started like a long time ago but at this point I mean we don't use agents to represent our catalog as we do it ourselves and the you know the in our process is you know you want to get on the radar of like music publishers of labels of agents and the approach needs to be somewhat delicate I mean we do listen to everything we get sent you know I have some people that spam me and that's really not a good way to do it we want to make sure that your approach is professional that you send a link and you know don't send me like 55 songs like send me your top two or three things like that you know polite and kind of professional demeanor in approaching things is definitely appreciated and I mean those certain emails you know sometimes people just approach me and it's you can almost tell by the way things are drafted how the approach is whether I should even bother let's make it on you know emojis in emojis in the title yeah all caps yeah yeah things like that yeah um I actually in between music supervisors jobs I was a third-party sync agent where I represented different labels one is one of the ones that Patrick works with a lot of Ninja Tune and you do it on a very every label was different in every artist was different like something like with them it was non-exclusive because they had if somebody teaching in out of Montreal and also in the UK so we did non-exclusive we took a percentage there's some that we partnered with a songwriter and we start a publishing company and I had a share and then some that we did do exclusive you know licensing agreements with with labels like secretly Canadian and polyvinyl and label a bunch of labels like that to get in contact with those people it there's not like a list out there we're here like oh here's all the distinct agents it's it is like ed was saying it's a very community-based network based part of the television film media licensing placement music community so coming to things like this you know helps you know other your conferences or just try to do some research on other sink summits and who the people are that are sometimes they'll be a list of the participants that like South by Southwest of all of the like placement agencies that are there but it and then just you know email those placement agencies you know based on you know if you think that your music would fit within there because that more like a little bit more they'd like to be all things to all people but some are a little bit better electronic music are better indie rock or better at singer-songwriters you know there's there's a bunch out there so just to do a little research there's a good I mean you might have heard of aim of the association of independent musicians in the UK and a to em out of the u.s. these guys have got directories which contain the Lottery's of Representatives for catalog sync agents music supervisors so it's also worth looking down that route to see if they've got people within your people who would be representing the music that you're making and but you mentioned earlier about getting your music out into the public domain I mean let's go over to Louisa when you're looking for when you're thinking of representing an artist or bringing an artist onto your and catalog what would motivate you to you know at you you hear a new song on on on a blog and go artist is awesome I want to sign them how do you find your new music and there's a couple of ways it works with our company so in my department we're focused more on finding composers who would specialize in writing for media and rather than commercial artists who have synced potential we have an A in our team who are working on that as well and they will ask for our input and they'll player stuff that they're considering and we'll say what we think we could do with them from a sync perspective so there are a couple of different ways but I think it is key to know your audience as an artist or composer when you're approaching a label or publisher and agency and as we'll talk about like you know more music supervisors research what that company does who they're commonly working with the type of music they represent don't send out the same email to everybody you're approaching don't copy me on an email with 50 other publishers and I don't feel special and make sure you get the name straight I always get emails where it's like oh they're doing a cut-and-paste job but they got the name wrong you know yeah hi Robert and and and for us it and it's probably the same for you guys as well we're selective about who represent because we're on the smaller side and we like to have close relationships with those composers so we're looking for artists who are complementary to what we already have that won't compete too much but that are a manageable level because I like to be able to see my composed of walking paths and say hey let's go and get a coffee I'd like to have that personal relationship with them so you don't work with artificial intelligence composers then or members moving on and Ed Wood the commercial success of an artist let's say you've released your song and you don't quite well and Spotify you've got 15,000 lessons 20,000 listens and you're on a few blogs people talking about you does that influence your decision around the placement of the songs I mean it massively depends on the context of the use and what we're looking for for the for the production really there there can be on in a brand campaign sense and if there's a creative verse for and a natural crossing point in in a demographic so you're selling trainers it's a lifestyle thing and it really suits a certain crowd then you might want to you know you want to kind of match that when making a cool commercial so you know you can send me tap into an artist success if you want to be able to amplify a brand's voice in a certain market not it's not an essential thing if you just haven't if somebody sends you an email and there's a really cool tune that you like and you happen to be working on a project for a ad agency or brand and it just sounds right you would often go just for the sonic values of the song rather than and I'd say any kind of cool and bars around yeah I mean from from my standpoint as a supervisor there's nothing more important than how a piece of music reacts with the picture like how those two things marry together is easily the most important thing I think if the artist has a lot more like market relevance I mean if they're getting like tons of streams on Spotify you know for us as a publisher it allows us to get a demand a higher fee yeah yeah so it's very relevant for the conversation but it may not prevent I mean if the song is perfect for the use you know it could be a completely unknown band and I think a music supervisors correct me if I'm wrong with their kind of that the new a in are also like they're actively trying to seek out the cool new things so the fact of a song just being awesome and the music supervisor feeling that you know he or she is the first person to having that they found this and can make it a Satan is that's a powerful tool also we got an example of that ed when you've picked up a song that no one ever heard the artist before did he hasn't got any profile she hadn't got a profile in on any streaming services or I don't know SoundCloud or anything and you're like ask the tune you know that all the parts are in place there's no samples there's no you know there's no dispute over the ownership and you stuck it on a commercial and it's gone well happened yeah I mean tons of times and we've created things that have ended up going well in a similar sense and we did a campaign with Puma last year which was an unsigned artist who it was literally kind of discovered the track through and actually chatting with some guys in Ninja Tune and then and kind of corroborating it with them other people in the team that heard it through YouTube and and and yeah for them it was literally kind of trying to find out who the hell they were and getting inside of them and then building something so you know through works out well that but then we've had other things where we've taken an artist and got them to re-record rerecord a track and and had great success with that and we did a big John Lewis Christmas commercial and with an article Gabriel Apple in who at the time whilst she was signed with Warner and was kind of on track to about to release her debut records and we got a sir to re-record this Frankie young ghost Holly the track and horrible of and it was a UK number one hit single in December of all months leading up to Christmas and so you know there have been moments where we've been able to create the hit off the back of this amplification platform you know suddenly you have millions of pounds of media spend so it's been pumped into homes and people are reaching for Shazam and they're they're suddenly finding out who this artist is amazing best marketing campaign for a single that's available really and mad a TV campaign gonna tell one thing I think to add is it is an undefined marketplace there is no like specific dollar amount your song might work perfectly for that ad better than a David Bowie song or a Beatles song it doesn't mean it's going to get the same price because you know all of the metrics that you have in the success of your song or your your brand they definitely help you know define or like kind of hopefully set the price but you know if you're a young emerging artists build your story take like as many licensing opportunities as you can and then hopefully that will elevate your kind of quo to a higher level you know even if I gasps that's a great one because that's exactly what's going to bring another thank you for the natural and a segue said way and you have received an email in your inbox which says dear musician this is Edie from Leyland music and I just wanted to ask if your interest in a potential sing of your song which we love let's talk about that now so what happens when you when when you get an offer we save it maybe we can ask you that um well we as an artist so you want to imagine art is it's wonderful of course because he doesn't you know it doesn't I mean we like you we really like it doesn't happen all the time like when something comes in and somebody wants to use your music the first thing you have to do is not be a dick right you you you you you you write back to them immediately and there was a music business you know 30 years ago people would be like what do you want to use it how much you're gonna pay me but now it's like you have to be very gracious and oh thank you very much for your interest I really appreciate it this looks like an interesting project I would love to pursue this you know just you know start playing hard bar what hardball with them because it doesn't work you know so you if you're if you're an unsigned artist and somebody somebody writes to you then yeah you have to start building a relationship right away start start building their relationship and say and get the conversation going and be very and be very nice and be very cooperative and don't immediately start saying you know how much you know because yeah I mean if heads in touch with me about something you know we'll have a lot of conversation and how much will come down the road I won't even start with how much it's that's not relevant to begin with to begin with is how do I nail this how do I bring this because the inquiry that's what a lot of artists and writers don't realize is that they get so excited when when the inquiry comes in and working in sync is working with heartbreak your your heart is broken all the time you and you you know and I learned this over the years you know us film trailers will often line up like ten different tracks and and all ten of those sprites orders think thinking they're about to go to the bank but only one of them is actually going to get in the trailer what sort of questions should you ask the supervisor or the agency or the filmmaker about the project what's important to understand as a musician or a you know some management on behalf of your artists um you know I mean it depends where your motivation is you obviously want to know a bit creatively about the project but one of the things that when it comes to you sometimes people write your pages and pages about the philosophy of what what they're making I need ten words about it it's a film about a dog it goes and in this space that's all I need to know and it's worldwide it's all media and yet it's those kinds of things you know a great big long story is really relevant we go to the artists say there's a film by the dog in space it's all media we think it's worth this but you know somebody like myself or Luiza you immediately as a right to start to get a sense of you can almost smell how much money they've got you're like you know it's a low-budget variable budget you know if it's like Oh guardians of the galaxy - I want to use song but the bigger the production the quite often the more famous and music so you know if you if you're an unsigned band and guardians of the galaxy - comes forward that's really really great but typically it'll be a maybe a low-budget thing and you end and the thing that we do just harking back is when the inquiry comes in you're making a friend of that individual because you want other business down the road yeah but yeah so you ask you ask questions about the media and all that kind of stuff but essentially you know in this visit this a little phrase in sort of salesmanship which is ABC always be closing you're basically as soon as the inquiry comes in you're steering them towards getting the thing and you're moving any obstacle from that so you so you're not giving him a hard time about this is that you're like oh you want to use this track yes yes yes and then they say you say well is there any other track what do you look oh no yours is the only travel that's good oh no there's six other tracks in the running right so you have to bad-mouth the other six track you know oh they're terrible people to work with you don't really want an ample the samples yeah it's but with a humor that's great yeah but it's full of samples yeah yeah you know or you need to use this or you say ah did you know there's a remix we have instrumentals you know you you're really everything is a miracle because every time you get a sing you have won the race against every other music piece of music ever made so it is a miracle right so so you want to stay you want to stay there you know I didn't David makes a good point if the conversate evolve so be brief like just you know oh I'm so glad you because you've chosen my music let me know next steps do you need anything else and then if they do looks like a music supervisor I will ask you oh do you own the rights and all territories do you're on the rights and all media and then the conversation starts but don't take a monologue to start the conversation with with a couple paragraphs a email yeah just be brief and if you don't hit back instantly what should you do let it go wait yeah or something yeah yeah yeah you don't need to follow up every day like that that's definitely like not gonna lead to a good situation so yeah I mean if somebody wants to use their music don't worry they'll get in touch with you how are you like connected with you once though with no way you know no news is bad news you know if they don't get back to you they're not using it yeah it could come back around like you know say I think that I work in film that the process is really long I mean right now we're looking at things for things that haven't even shot yet that are just almost creative inspiration sometimes they could never be used and sometimes it might be a year from now and like we'd like this when you pitch it before the film was shot or now in post they really liked it you know they want to use it in the film good so I mean in terms of the quantity of things that are or the quantity of opportunities that there are in the marketplace now would it be fair to say there's there is more demand for music given that there's more media in more films they made at me I see it in my role there's a lot of productions that are being shot set up that are designed to promote various product lines that are dropping constantly throughout the year and in the internet is now a great place to showcase these I mean in your experience would you would you agree with this would you say there's more there's no shortage of media being produced out there that's for sure and there's no shortage of great super talented artists musicians making song so as a consumer of both you know I watch TV and film I listen to a lot of music it's a win for everybody up here doesn't necessarily mean like it makes it more challenging because you know you have to be on top of all of the different opportunities there's there's more opportunities than there probably are hours in the data service you know so yeah that is a challenge but the others tons there's lots of opportunities tons of stuff but not everything needs placements you know a lot of a lot of stuff will just have a composer you know a lot of stuff might not use music at all I think that I think it's worthwhile to remember that that there there are these golden moments when something unknown and something interesting gets placed but if you look at a thousand sinks in advertising for instance 95% of those are going to be going to well-known songs by well-known artists you know that I mean but I'm aware of that because I don't have any of those I mean I've I have so I'm I'm pitching it for the five percent I'm looking for the for the opportunities for something interesting and different and weird but it is important to remember that that the things that the things that make a song good for sings are often the things that make them make it commercially successful as well commercial success and singing success are inextricably linked and these these are ongoing relationships so part of your job as a somebody representing four things is to make sure that supervisors broadcasters production companies know who you're representing what catalog you have because even if they're not worse than or something at that time that you fit for they know you they come back to you when they have a project three months down the line it does need reggae music oh whatever it might be that's a really good point I mean when it comes to say it's a at or John I'm not pitching to the brief to the brand that they're working with I don't say oh hey I hear you I see you're working with Red Bull I've got a song for Red Bull that doesn't work like that you you try and make a fan of the individual and then the individual moves from project project and you hope that they have that track in their favorites of 2017 less it may not work for this one or this or this one I've had music supervisors say I love this track and get back to me two and a half years later with the placement because you're you don't think I think it's a complete waste of time to look at your track and saying oh this would be good for fabric softener it doesn't work like that I think every time we've sent something with the subject line I've got the perfect track for that fabric softener and it is it is quite an off-putting moment actually the biggest one is always a that this great song for car campaign it seems to be like the default phrase of somebody who's got a track for beer okay you know they're kind of imagining a stereotype like this is this is this kind of archetypal sound that works for that type of brand and when you're supervising a commercial or a film scene or whatever you probably want to do the complete opposite for the very fact that it's expected and if that's what that is meant to sound like yeah so you're saying I don't want to stand out at my job by putting exactly what you think will be in there and where we've got only little time left before when I open up the floor to questions and reviewing a license so you you've no you've started the conversation around placement of your track in an opportunity you've beaten all the other musicians you are the coolest on the planet and the license comes in and it's 24 pages is two licenses one for the master and one for the composition and each of them are 20 pages long what the you do frankly well there won't be 20 pages long typically they'll be like three or four pages but you I mean they're their entertainment lawyers that you can consult or just you know someone who's in the business who understands ITA's these things like they're the language of synchronization licenses is always the same so you've seen one I mean the terms change but the basic deal points you know that's a basic boilerplate language tends to remain you know there's certain set of things that you need to look out for in terms of you know the classic one is what is out of context and in context means so out of context if there's an out of context use it could mean can see that a song and a film placement could also be used in the trailer of the film but typically the trailer of the film if they're going to use a song in the trailer that's a different and a much more substantial fee so you have to be on the lookout for things like that and but again I think it's tough to learn that if you don't if you're not you know day to day in the business so I recommend getting some you know representation get at royalties so you sign the license the music's on the commercial or in the film it's going worldwide it's on all media I use how can you still make money Louisa you mentioned royalties and collection societies before you can explain to the guys what you meant by that yes so if you own a composition you should register with your local collection societies in the UK would be MCPS PRS America BMI ASCAP and because once you've had a thing it will continue to make royalties any time it's broadcast there's a performance royalty that is generated that's payable the only way will find its way to you is if it's registered and that's quite common mistake that a lot of people don't have accurate registrations if there's no way for it to find its way to you unless the information is there similarly on the master recording site if you own a master recording you should register with that with ppl or SoundExchange and/or you have as local to your territory so that you can get income from that and other opportunities as well but you don't I don't think you get it for advertising on the master side but for the TV in the UK you will get royalties whenever your song is played and by ppl NP RS and really this is something you should be doing way before the sink anyway if the track is already in the wild because if there's any radio airplay if there's any usage then you want it to be generating the same income yeah another comment on that is it's also an important way of people to find you so if you have a song that's out that the music supervisor just wants to use your music nobody to them they just found it you know online or whatever how are they going to find you if they want to use that song in an ad so the registrations are very important because then that's a public record is particularly the American societies ASCAP and BMI have repertoire that's available for anyone to look at and the music supervisors rely on that heavily to track down the rights holders sure fantastic I mean there's so much more we could go into but I think at this stage with five minutes to go let's let's see if anyone's got any questions for us is there anyone many questions because if not we could coming your self yeah thank you thank you my name is Vince I own a label in Miami Florida and pretty much one of my questions is as far as the approach that because I obviously I own the label but I also manage other artists as well so I'm wondering I know you said the approach should be to contact the rep what would be like if while we're waiting for rep right would it be smart to possibly like look at films in production and possibly you know seek out the actual music supervisors for those films I'm just trying to find some create other creative ways while we're possibly waiting for a rep is that possibly smart as far as to look at films that's in production or whatever the case may be you know I films in production is probably not that not the that's probably not the most sorry the most productive way forward my advice to any rights owner or any artist is it you're better off having 10 good contacts because you can buy a list or you can you can find music musically revisions music supervisors are on the internet you can find them all but and you can send a spam to a thousand individuals but our motto at you when we're pitching stuff is don't be spam you know so everything you do has to be so you're better off like you've got a particular thing and it's really really strong you're better off writing to a door John personally with like one track or a couple of tracks and try and make up fan of an individual rather than a great big mailing list the thing about sync representation it's great to have it but think that represent repertoire they think they can place so it's not a it's not a fair system you know not everybody who owns repertoire is going to get a sync rep because because they they they look at it and they say well some of this might get and and things that are going to get placed are they're pretty obvious they'd you know if if one sync rep hears piece of repertoire or an artist and thinks this is this is sellable I can do this they're not a genius it's likely that every other sync rep also notices that as well you know the appeal is mass appeal is obvious but yeah so so I think be better not looking at films in production this is tons of films in production and as I said earlier you're not necessarily chasing the production you're trying to make a fan of the individual and carefully choosing making individual contacts his problem is probably better because at the end of the day if you if you're doing incredibly well with your label in sync we're talking about a handful of things you're not going to get hundreds and hundreds you know a good year for us is you know I mean we're a fairly small company but we can I can count them I look back at 2016 or 2017 and I remember all the big things we've got it's kamek we had a huge volume of them with your Universal or Sony yes they they can't keep track of how many sync how many licenses the issue but music sales is a much bigger company than us but still you count the number of syncs you've had like on one hand and say oh yeah this year we had five big things or ten big things you know so and another thing I think if you want to go direct like David said don't you know you filmed in production if you want them to be a fan of your step check out who you're a fan of so if you see a bunch of films that you'd like and you you know you think just you know maybe send an email out yeah like David said you could probably contact that music supervisor and just say hey I'd really like what you did with this would you be interested in checking out my music I own an independent label in Miami I control all the music would be great get your opinion on this song yes I'm very aware of your catalog as well because not every song is suitable so if you haven't heard something like your song you're representing on TV film there's probably a reason for that and if you're heavy rock you're probably better talking video games and trailers then you are ad supervisors yeah so focus think about your cut your content these are your music think about the types of brands or the types of films or the types of ads that you that your music would suit maybe not if you don't have a representative consider the person within the organization that is raising these songs are they placing songs like yours don't just scattergun focus and and yeah and ultimately hopefully you'll have some sort of success so that concludes our sync panel for now so we're now good someone's going to go upstairs where we're going to do a little bit of a milling around meeting and chit chat so it really any questions more questions and maybe there are we will be upstairs so I wanted to thank the awesome panel who've made my job extremely easy let's given my left hand and I'd like to thank all you guys for coming along and I hope it's been helpful thank you

Channel: midem

Views: 8,956

Rating: 4.9436622 out of 5

Keywords: Midem 2017, Cannes, music industry

Id: LHYymJ0iLdE

Length: 58min 55sec (3535 seconds)

Published: Wed Jun 07 2017