Hello everyone. The following is an answer I wrote in a previous post in this forum but I've also decided to post it here to educate newer Composers. "John Williams never stole music. This is the thing people always gets confused with. In the editing stage the Director and the Editor use music that was already composed to edit the film (rough cut) against to set the pace and the mood the Director wants the audience to feel. This is called a Temp Track. Usually the Director will then tell the hired Composer that he/she wants the Score to sound similar to what the music the rough cut of the film was edited to. So for Star Wars, George Lucas edited the film using the classical music of Holst (The Planets), Korngold (Kings Row) among others. John Williams was not the only Film Composer that had to do this. Many of the world's top Film Composers go through this process. I am now going to post three videos that will explain this more." What is Temp Music? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=haeHWOUe720 The Marvel Symphonic Universe: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7vfqkvwW2fs A Theory of Film Music: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UcXsH88XlKM
Composing : What is Temp Music? by Navid Lancaster
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Ooo.. great topic! Also, I feel like the use of temp music is its own heated debate, since the composer doesn't typically like for the director to have music pre-set in their head from a separate source. Is that also your stance?
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If I were an entertainment mogul w/ the power to greenlight movies, I'd insist on bringing the composer into the project early enough to get original music to work w/ in post. I'm tired of scores that sound like temp tracks.
Karen "Kay" Ross It is also my stance as well but the most important thing to remember is that, more often than not, you would not have much choice in the matter. It is NOT your film. They hired you based on your skill set, how easy you are to work with, your past works and how you've marketed yourself - a topic I wrote in my Stage32 blog here: https://www.stage32.com/blog/How-to-Market-Yourself-as-a-Film-Composer
That does not mean however that you cannot insert your own style of composing into the music. Your style (or sound) is what attracted them to you in the first place.
Colin Hussey That would be perfect especially in the higher end/big budget/multinational distributed films. Fortunately there are a plethora of lower budget and indie film productions that do what you have said. This is a perfect place for Composers to get noticed for continued and/or higher end work. That does not mean however that the Composer can just write anything. It is still not their film. The music will still be under the recommendations and notes from the Director.
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I understand. It's just that the director in the editing room will be living with that music for awhile, so it's best to have the director & composer on the same page earlier in the project than post-production.
The generic temp track sound is an anathema to me. There have been movies & TV shows I stopped watching early on, because the flaccid soundtrack annoyed me that much. Great scores enhance projects, while crappy scores diminish them.
I’m extremely new to licensing. I now have 600 pieces of original music, mostly hip-hop / pop instrumental style music. Any suggestions as to where I should be looking to find opportunities? I had a publisher for 2 years who got me a few cues but the contract just ended. All of my music is exclusively mine and registered to ASCAP. Thanks ahead of time.
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Hi Chad Reis. Congrats on having created so many pieces. That's a lot.
To answer your question, since you are a member of ASCAP, you can look at this first:
https://www.ascap.com/help/career-development/How-To-Acquire-Music-For-F...
Here are some Companies:
https://www.musicbed.com/
http://whitebearpr.com/
https://terrorbird.com/
There are also some Stage32 blogs you should read:
https://www.stage32.com/blog/How-to-Negotiate-a-Composer-Agreement
https://www.stage32.com/blog/How-to-Market-Yourself-as-a-Film-Composer
https://www.stage32.com/blog/A-Film-Composers-Guide-to-Dealing-with-Reje...
https://www.stage32.com/blog/The-Film-Composer-Director-Relationship-How...
I assume you have a Website and/or Soundcloud account where you can show examples of your work.
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Thank you for posting! This is a great topic. The Marvel Symphonic Universe video you linked was very insightful!
Shanika Freeman You're most welcome.
Great topic. It's always hard to break away from temp for both director and composer- I recently missed out on a gig because the director couldn't envision his film with anything other than the temp music in it anymore. It changes based on a director and composers' relationship though, recently Mansell delivering the entire score for In The Earth before Wheatley started shooting which allowed it to play during the shoot as well as being the temp during editing. It's a shame those examples are so rare!