Hi
I have been asked to write some songs for someone, who has written a script where the characters form a band and songs are played throughout the story.
My collaborator is worried about the implications of this if the script is made into a film, as the politics and people involved in music for film could be enormous and it's possible a production company could scrap the songs we would write and use their own music contacts instead. If that happens, all our hard work would be wasted.
The genre of music needed for the script is specialised, so a great deal of time and work is needed to produce the songs, the writer is happy to pay us, but we are still not sure that we should go ahead. I do know usually music/songs are put on a film in post production. Any advice would be greatly appreciated.
Thank you.
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In my opinion - don't bother. You have no idea when of if this will be made. Script sales and options do NOT normally include anything related to the music. That is a very different creative function and a producer is simply not looking at music when they see a script. As a producer, if I saw this I would actually have a clause in my contract that excluded the already written music, because it ties my financial and creative hands. Also, it strikes me as a very weird idea; for the same reason: it narrows the saleability of a script to those producers who think the music is marketable as well.
Thank you Shadow, that is great advice and it all makes sense, I very much appreciate your reply.