2010 THR/Billboard Film & TV Music Conference Wrap-Up

The 2010 Billboard Film & TV Music Conference, held a couple weeks ago, featured long-running themes that seem to come up each year now. I guess the idea that the more things change (read: the music industry), the more they stay the same…in some respects. For those who weren’t able to attend, here’s a Cliff Notes (Is CF even around anymore with the advent of the internet? Am I dating myself? LOL!) summary of this year’s conference or at least the panels we attended.

Natasha Bedingfield

Natasha and her manager opened the conference with a Q&A with the always humorous Bill Werde, editorial director of Billboard. Most of Natasha’s time was spent talking about the various licensing opportunities that she’s done for her songs, mostly in advertising. Team Natasha always keeps in mind whether a song use for a product is consistent with who she is as an artist or with the song’s intent. A great example of potential paradox was given with Carnival Cruiselines use of Iggy Pop’s Lust For Life. Let’s see….a song about heroin use and dying…..Yes! Let’s go on a cruise to the Caribbean!

Publishing 101

Great panel with heads of music at Sony/ATV, Island Def Jam, and 615Music among others. Nothing groundbreaking here, which I guess is why it was 101. However, the 2nd panel of the 2-day conference kicked off the conference-long theme of exclusive vs. non-exclusivity. Past readers of my post on Red Arc’s position know where we stand on this and these publishing directors confirmed our position. Additionally, they addressed how the macro-economic environment has depressed license fees and created a need for the majors to seek alternative and ancillary licensing sources. In my opinion, majors, by their sheer size and bureaucracy, are slow to adapt to changing marketplaces. Not that they don’t but getting from deciding and implementing is a much slower process than with the independents or mid-majors. This need to look for non-traditional revenue sources is something that they should have addressed years ago rather than now. If they did, more power to them, but it seems like they are only discussing it here and now.

Real Time Critique: Music Supervisors

Interesting idea here. Prior to the panel, which consisted of 6 of the top music supervisors in the biz (Frankie Pine, John Anderson, Richard Glasser, et al), the conference collected CD submissions from attendees. When the panel started, each music supervisor took turns digging into the box to pull out a CD submission. They broke down why they selected that CD and then the conference played the first 40 seconds or so of Track #1 as that sums up what happens to your submission once it’s received by a music sup. All of them chose professional looking packages with the idea that if you put the time & effort (read: money) into packaging then they assume you would do the same for the writing & recording. Certainly this is not always true but it falls in line with the idea that you never get a second chance of making a first impression. I have to point out that there was a bit of hypocrisy here as much time was spent on discussing the importance of packaging when 5 of the 6 supervisors said they prefer being sent download links and not physical CDs. That said, we’d recommend translating that to mean to have a professional-looking e-mail with album artwork, etc., included when submitting your music. Some other themes from the panel was making sure your contact info is on anything and everything you submit, make sure the track listing is there and it would be helpful to include classification or genre on the packaging (or e-mail) so if they happen to be looking for something specific that day. And last but certainly not least, if you’re submitting physical CDs…..NO SHRINK WRAP!

Music in Sports Campaigns

As the title spells out, this panel discussed music used in the sports world. Big Kenny (of Big & Rich fame) told the story of how Coming To Your City got picked by ESPN as the theme of College Football Gameday. Interesting point was ESPN’s request to alter the lyrics. The panel agreed that this is quite common in the sports world as teams, networks, etc., many times want the lyrics tailored to the use. Also talked about was the NFL’s ad that used Arcade Fire’s “Wake Up” in one of their past Super Bowl ads:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UUV4YKbiVxQ]

Arcade Fire almost never licenses their music to commercial uses, remaining fiercely indie. This track was temped in by the agency and the thought concerning the client was, “Please, please, don’t fall TOO in love with this.” For $hits and giggles, they asked Arcade Fire and showed them the spot. Amazingly they agreed and licensed the track to the spot. Other quick notes from this panel were stories of how these music directors hooked up their music with specific teams or athletes.

Q&A with Thomas Newman

Great one-on-one with Tom Newman, acclaimed composer of American Beauty, Shawshank Redemption, WALL-E, and on and on. Talked about the collaborative environment he creates with his musicians when working on scores. One thing of note is that even at his level, he goes through the same struggles all film composers do: The fear of playback for the director. Composers work in a bubble while writing and being the master of your own domain means that you are the arbiter of whether a cue is working or not……until playback. Sometimes, you’re so far off the mark. Other times, you hit it. The problem is you never know until you playback for the director and until then, it’s nervous time. They played a few scenes from various Newman-scored films and discussed the creative choices he made. Big props to Tom for being so open and forthright about the struggles of tackling a film. Also, I want to point out something that Tom, and other successful film composers “get.” They understand that their music is there to support something bigger, namely the film and its narrative. If you were writing symphonic or chamber music, you get the luxury of deciding whether the music works or not. In film, you do not. You are not writing the best music that you like, you are writing the best music that the director and producer likes. You are not writing for art, you are writing as a service. So please don’t get attached to your music and certainly don’t fight the director if they say a cue is not working. The film is a product of their artistic and creative vision. As a service provider (read: score composer), you have to plug your creative vision into theirs and not blaze your own path, which is a sure fire way of burning that bridge. Tom reiterated these same points.

When The Show Is Over The Music Doesn’t Stop: Glee

What’s Glee? Never heard of it….

Oh wait, maybe they mean the number one music-centered show on TV. Maybe they mean the show whose music is currently being licensed into toys and video games. Well, that’s what was talked about here. The panel discussed the synergy needed between Fox, which owns the show, and Mattel, the maker of the singing microphone and the Glee Magic 8-Ball. Also on the panel were the directors of licensing for Konami, which developed a Glee variation of Karaoke Revolution. Discussed was how & why Fox agreed to these alternate licensing opportunities. Basically, it boils down to expanding the Glee brand but only in products that fit Glee’s focus, namely that the products were music focused. Where the Magic 8-Ball fits in with this, I’m not sure. I’m guessing musical greeting cards are next. Or are they already out there at Hallmark?

DAY 2

I’m already getting long-winded here so I’ll try condense Day 2’s panels. If you want more info on any of these, drop me a note or comment and I’ll elaborate.

Music for Commercials & Branded Content

Directors of music of some of the major ad agencies discussed some recent advertising spots of theirs and how & why they chose the music they did. Sometimes, a particular song drove a spot idea and other times the spot was developed with music being selected after. One interesting story was the Target Fashion Show event in Manhattan. Bringing together the music agency, dance choreography, lighting design, and fashion, an amazing live performance “art” event took place all with the focus on Target’s fashion brand. Pretty amazing, if you ask me:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7QGhAMMFJpE]

Mad About Mad Men

Great panel moderated by ASCAP’s Jen Harmon with Matt Weiner, creator of Mad Men, and David Carbonara, the series’ composer. Talked about the impact that music makes on this show. Interesting that Matt’s intent with the score is that it not just by 60’s sounding music. Every cue had to be emotion-driven rather than period-driven. They showed a few clips and David talked about his creative choices and whether or not the original ideas jived with Matt’s vision. An important note from this panel: Mad Men is one of the few shows recorded each week with live orchestra. Unfortunately, that is the exception to the rule these days in TV, mostly due to ever-decreasing budgets. However, Matt is a champion of the importance of music so he fought tooth & nail to create a music budget that would allow live musicians each week. Big props to him.

Case Study: Last Call with Carson Daly

Carson and his music booker, Davis Powers, discussed the transformation of Last Call in its 10th season. Beginning a touch last season but now completing its transformation this season, Last Call returns to Carson’s roots: music (he was a KROQ DJ in LA here for years prior to TRL on MTV). The show’s 3 acts now focus entirely on music. They discussed that there intent is to bring new music and artists to the viewing masses (or as many masses as there are at 1:30am!). Self-depricating, Carson talked about the failed attempt at the traditional talk show format in the early seasons. Now, he’s really loving what he’s doing with showcasing both established and up & coming music acts.

The Basics of Production Music

Okay. Here we go. This is the Battle Royale we made sure to get back from lunch in time for. The reason being that Larry Mills from Getty Images was going to be on this panel again. He was last year where he was roundly booed by the composers in the audience as last year’s conference took place around the same time that Getty/Pump Audio reduced their revenue sharing with composers from 50% down to 35%. This year, he had some boos and catcalls again when introduced. The other panelists were the music heads of Universal Production Music, MusicBox, 5 Alarm and was moderated by Adam Taylor of APM. Wow, where to start. Out of the 45 minutes allotted for the panel, at least 35 of them were devoted to putting Larry in the hot seat over numerous topics related to retitling/non-exclusivity, Pump being the only company on the panel that operates this way. His line of “maybe our head is in the sand….” couldn’t have rung more true. When the issue of the PROs moving towards sonic fingerprinting for their surveying, he said, “Maybe for web use it’ll be effective but we still live in a cue sheet world for film & TV.” Ummmm, Larry….do you think BMI spent the money to buy Landmark because they’re only concerned with using sonic fingerprinting for web? Sorry, Larry. They bought Landmark for the long-term move of using it for everything since it allows them a cost-effective way to expand the scope of their surveying in all aspects of what they cover. My contacts at BMI verified as such. Larry spoke eloquently but the words he was saying ring hollow if you’re looking towards the future. One thing I didn’t address in my blog post was the issue of foreign subpublishing deals. Foreign publishers want to be the exclusive representative in their respective territories. If a song is being repped by multiple companies, some of which have global presences (i.e. Pump), then they will not sign a sub-pub agreement with you. That’s bad. Larry’s response was that Pump would be stronger globally to pursue those licenses. Sure, for bottom of the barrel fees. There are real publishers in their respective territories that are the market leaders, not a US-based aggregate library. Maybe I digress but this panel just illustrated to us and the rest of the conference attendees that the retitle business model has a tenuous foundation at best. Yes, they will always have the low-hanging fruit of the license world but a song with Pump will never attract top dollar fees or premium placement opportunities with top music supervisors.

Case Study: Yo Gabba Gabba
Nick Jr’s Emmy winning show’s creators & songwriters made up this final panel we attended. This show really hits home to me personally as I grew up with live-action kids shows, H.R. Puffinstuff, Lidsville, Sigmund & the Sea Monster and all the other Kroft Bros. (or Kroft Bros.-style) shows. These days, most kids programming is 2-d animation. I have a 3-year old and this show is one of the few that I actually really enjoy watching. The creators set-out each week to make a show that they themselves would enjoy watching and it shows. From Bizmarkie teaching beatbox each week to Mark Mothersbaugh doing his drawing segment. If you love music, especially alternative music, this program has appeal. Co-creators Scott Schultz and Christian Jacobs were in alt-punk bands Majestic and The Aquabats, respectively. Good alt-rock pedigrees and the level of the musical guests show it. Among the bands appearing on YGG, which I remind is a kids show, are: The Shins, Weezer, Shiny Toy Guns, Supernova, The Ting Tings, Hot Hot Heat, Chromeo, and The Roots. A veritable who’s who of indie rock. The songwriters on the panel talked about their always focusing on good songs first and not thinking about writing for kids. Anyhow, it’s pretty solid that there’s actually kid programming on TV that works for both parents and kids. Big props to these guys.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rDG0c3saE4I]

Well, that about wraps up the 2010 Billboard conference. Would love to hear your feedback if you were able to attend and see if you shared my same thoughts on it. Hope everyone is having a great November so far. The holidays are right around the corner!