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During October 29th and 30th, the Billboard Film & TV Music Conference was in full swing at the W Hollywood Hotel. Music industry professionals from around the world gathered at the event to examine the position music holds in film and television by taking part in roundtable discussions, one-on-one critiques, live performances, and networking parties.

Three of our Angry Mobbers were able to take a break from their busy workdays to attend the conference and hear for themselves where the role of music in film and TV is going.  Elyse Schiller, Creative Licensing guru of the Mob, took in three of the panels.  The first, entitled, “The Expanding Role Of Music Publishers,” meant to discuss the behind the scenes business of licensing songs as well as commissioning songwriters for film and TV projects.  “Carianne Marshall, (panelist and Partner & Head of Creative Licensing at SONGS) said that film budgets have gone way down,” Elyse herself noted, “It’s true.  Sometimes TV placements are higher than typical film spots.”  She also mentioned that there are new places to look for revenue like projects with Amazon, Netflix, and the like.

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The second panel Elyse attended was “Advertising: New Path To The Charts,” where panelists in the discussion examined advertising campaigns that created hit records.  From this, Elyse was able to confirm the new fact with panelist, Debra Deleshad (Senior Director of Synchronization & Licensing at Ole), that “When your artist is going to be in an ad you must have all the other promotional tools in place,” so that you and your artist can benefit in all areas of revenue.

However, Elyse’s favorite panel was, “Director-Music Supervisor Relationship: A Conversation with David O. Russell and Sue Jacobs.” Russell, director of Silver Linings Playbook and new film, American Hustle, and Music Supervisor Jacobs, showed the dance competition scene from Silver Linings Playbook displaying their use of a “Multitude of different pieces of source cue tango music pieced together along with some songs to support tension,” which Elyse thought was “An amazing scene.”

Greg Katz, the Angry Mob Director of A&R, had a different experience when he attended the music investment panel called, “What’s Happening to Investment In Music For Other Media?”  The speakers discussed how streaming is not worth much in publishing value and performance royalties from TV and radio are still the main breadwinner.  In his personal opinion, Greg believes that, “It’s important for artists and songwriters to keep in mind that your career is not on the Internet and the Internet is not your career.  YouTube stats are not worth anything in money – and neither are blog posts!”  In order to make money, he said, “Artists need to understand that it will be coming from touring, merchandise, sponsorships, sync, selling special physical media like vinyl and tapes, crowdfunding, and other parts of the business that have not been nuked by streaming, piracy, and iTunes.”

2013 Billboard/Hollywood Reporter Film & TV Music Conference Day 2

Finally, Angry Mob Co-founder and Head of Creative Licensing, Sean Harrison, was invited to participate in the Billboards Film & TV conference  “One on Ones” where artists and composers got an opportunity to speak with and play music for music industry professionals.  Sean met with a cross section of composers, singer/songwriters and various music reps all looking for ways to get their music heard. The advice he gave ranged from production notes on how to improve the quality of their recordings, to what marketing materials should never be sent. For example, CDs and flash drives with contact info written in Sharpie was at the top of the list. He also talked with a number of composers about the myths of having to show “range” on their demos. “It’s always better to highlight what you do best, rather than busting out those suspect dub-step ‘mixes’ right out of the gate.”

Here at Angry Mob we like to stay on our toes and absorb any new knowledge we can, as well as confirm any shifts we may already be seeing in the landscape.  As the late grate Clay Bedford said, “You can teach a student a lesson for a day; but if you can teach him to learn by creating curiosity, he will continue the learning process as long as he lives.”

Photo credit to The Recording Academy and Arnold Turner/Billboard

– Shannon Murphy

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