Recording - February 2013 - 61

Continued from page 58 won’t let it stop me, because, I don’t know, it’s not like a factory. If something really works, it works for a reason, and 1+1=3 is hard to get when you put music in a scene. So I’ll fight for it. But I think when it comes to exclusivity and you’re shopping yourself non-exclusively, if more than one successful company is shopping you, it does cause confusion in the marketplace. It’s not the more the merrier. I think you should just find one company that does it well, then maybe supplement that with your own website and your own kind of database or things like that. Because I know a lot of supervisors that if they see a song or recognize a song that was submitted from two different people, they don’t want to get in the middle of that, so they’ll move onto another song. Do music supervisors worry that they’ll end up getting named in a lawsuit if a piece of music with a problematic history or ownership issues finds its way into a film that shouldn’t? John: I think every music supervisor has to make sure that everything is locked down in a film. You don’t ever want a third party claim six months out after a film is released, or after a song is broadcast on television. And I think, to that end, that’s why a lot of supervisors like the big libraries, the big song-plugging companies that have been around for 10 years. Because they know if they put something in, they can depend on them to come through with the clearance. And even if there is a problem that flares up, they know that their go-to person will handle it and clean it up for them. No one wants a reputation as being litigious. Patrick, John told me when we were hanging out at the office a couple of weeks ago—and I’m sure I’ve heard this before as well—that the movie studios will have a list of preferred vendors. And the reason they have those preferred vendors is because they minimize the risk. Is that true, and is that common amongst all the major studios? Pat: Yeah, it’s definitely true, and it’s definitely common within all the studios. Again, at the end of the day, we can’t be putting ourselves in the position of being liable for third-party claims. So the people you have a history with, and the people you have relationships with who have delivered and you’ve never have a problem with, of course, they are going to be the first things that we want to use. So I would say it’s definitely true. John: Correct me if I’m wrong, Pat. But I believe that at Fox, where Patrick works, the history, I understand from his boss, was that when MySpace first came on the scene and was really a good showcase for independent artists, Fox Stu-

dios said, “Great. We’re tired of paying major labels, major publishers, this ransom money.” They told their staff, “Go get us this great indie music off of MySpace.” And they did that for a year, and on a few of those licenses, third-party claims came out of the woodwork later on. It was actually a band that was broken up, and the lead singer of the band licensed it, and the drummer said he was a writer, but there was no paper between any of them. Fox had a few problems with that. So their head of music business affairs at Fox, he was the first one in town to start making a list of “here’s who we prefer.” And he would go meet with APM and find out how they do their deals and make sure everything’s set, and people would be on this “unofficial” list. Now it’s actually an “official” list. I worked on a Fox TV

pilot, and they sent me “here are our libraries that we prefer that you use.” Pat: And to that end as well: These lists—it sounds a whole lot scarier than it actually is— but it’s that a lot of the stuff with the libraries is pre-negotiated. So you look at a film music budget as a jigsaw puzzle. You know, you have X amount of dollars to get it down, and you start fitting all your pieces together. It’s always good to know, “All right, I have three or four song slots I have to bring in at this price.” And if I know that TAXI or APM or Opus One can pitch me stuff in that range, and it usually lands in the film. Make sure to read Part 3 in next month’s TAXI Insider!

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Recording - February 2013

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