Scoring Indie Film/Need Help...

[jeffgreenleaf]

Hey guys! I was recently asked to score an Independent Film (!) and I've been trying to wrap my head around the whole thing. Can anyone offer any advice regarding questions to ask or just general info I need to find out? This is a "micro-budget" film and I'm looking at it as a great experience to learn (vs making much money). Based on the quote below, what would your response be regarding payment? A percentage?

The producer said:

"Everyone involved in the project is working up front for free, but we would like to clarify that we would like to pay your industry standard fee on the back end if we are able to sell our film."

More info:

The producer gave me a general idea of what the tone of the film is and (after I sent lots of music that I felt matched) he thought my stuff was a good fit. He also gave me a list of music to check out (that inspired parts of the film). He said he would give me a copy of the edited film to work with (this summer).

Thanks in advance!!

Jeff

[stevebarden]

Hey Jeff, congratulations on the gig! You can look at this project in a number of ways depending on what you want to get out of it. Since this is your first film score you may want to look at it from the standpoint of gaining the experience that comes with doing this kind of work.

I always try to encourage composers to never give away their work for free. Your contribution has value and if you don't think of your work that way, then why should they look at you any differently?

Here are some options to consider. A "typical" composer budget in Hollywood is 3%-4% of the film's entire budget. So while they may be making this film for $10,000, your fee would theoretically be $300-$400. But let's say that they are successful and sell the film for millions (it happened to Robert Rodriquez with his student film "El Mariachi")! But those are few and far between. Hope for the best but expect nothing to happen. With that said, don't give up the copyright to your work. License the music to them at whatever you can agree upon. Perhaps stipulate that if the film sells and you get your big "back end" money they can then own the copyright.

Try to set a reasonable fee for what you think your work is worth regardless of whether they can afford it or not. It gives you a starting point for negotiations - even if it's all theoretical at this point. I always try to charge at least $300 per finished minute of music. Again, it's just a starting point for negotiations. What you can get out of them really depends on what you feel your time is worth. And for you right now, maybe just the experience is worth it.

Another thing to consider is how you are treated on the project, your creative freedom, and your deadlines. Sometimes if a client isn't paying you anything they feel like they can treat you badly and take advantage of you. It's all part of the "perceived value" aspect.

Best of luck and keep up informed on your progress.

[jeffgreenleaf]

Thanks sooo much Steve. This is really helpful...I'll keep you updated and may have more questions since I know you have experience with this.
Would love to hear from anyone else...
Thanks!!

[mazz]

Ditto on what Steve said!

If you decide to do it for "free", make sure they know what the music would be worth if they were paying, this way they understand that you value your work at least as much as they value their work.

If you sign on, make them believe that you are 100% committed to the vision of their project and act like a full collaborator instead of the "hired gun" composer. This way, they will be more likely to treat you better. Get on the team. Make them think that their project is the best project to ever spring from the mind of a human and that you are ecstatic to be involved (I'm over dramatizing, but you get the point). This is great practice for later when you get bigger budget projects. They have to be able to hang and feel comfortable with you. After all, they've spent 1, 3, 5 years on this baby and now they're handing it over to you, a guy they just met and who could potentially f$#k up their film. Be easy to work with!!! Again, good practice for later!

Make sure you sit down with as close to the final cut of the film as possible, and have the director tell you where they think the music should be. Hopefully there will be visual time code on the video and you can write down the start and end points of where the director wants the music. This can and probably will shift a bit, either by you or likely by them screwing up your timings by continually editing the film until 1 day before the premiere! Don't laugh.

Retain ownership of your music and the ability to license it elsewhere. If they pay you at the end, if they sell the film (they all say that, by the way), then you can give the exclusivity for the film and promotional materials ONLY. They shouldn't be able to use it anywhere else at their own discretion, unless they pay you your full fee, in which case you happily sign away the copyright!!

Make sure you understand how to basically load up some video into your system and put tempos up against it, etc. Start getting used to that and learning some video language as well. You'll probably end up with Quicktime files or whatever. If you have to convert to something your DAW can handle, figure out what software you'll need to do that, or see if they can do it for you. Again, insist on visual time code. Some green directors don't understand the value of this, but once you start talking about the film, being able to say EXACTLY which frame you're talking about makes things much easier!!

Decide on an orchestrational palette (I mean orchestrational in the broadest sense of the word) early on and stick to it! This will make your score cohesive. You need to keep the story and the big picture in mind, even as you're micro laboring to get that transition to hit on the right frame. It's easier with short projects to start with.

Remember you're a dramatist, a story teller first, and a composer second. Your job is to enhance the impact of the story, and you need to know the film and the story intimately. Have the director give you as much back story on all the characters and even on the script as possible. You are responsible for projecting the unseen and unspoken to the audience because they can't hear what the character is thinking. Discuss with the director if you are going to play the outside or the inside life (or both) of the characters. Are you going to tell the audience what to feel or are you going to leave it open to interpretation?

Resist the urge to fill up everything with music. Advocate for silence when you feel strongly that it is the most appropriate "music" for the scene. Sometimes when music comes in after a period of intense silence, or sets up a period of intense silence, it makes the film much more impactful.

Decide if you're going to be responsible for the digetic music (music that is not underscore but that comes from the film, such as music in a nightclub or coming out of a car radio). In most big film scores, the composer is not responsible for that music, but for this film, it might be fun if it's something you haven't tried before.

Avoid scope creep. Try to get a hard deadline and keep to it. Things will creep but you don't want to spend 6 months on something that should have taken 6 weeks. This is where having a good relationship with the director will serve you. Nicely force them to make decisions and try to keep rewrites to a reasonable minimum. This is where your upfront discussions with the director will come in very handy. Get them to be very specific about the music by playing you music that they think would fit. This way you have a common language. If they start talking about guitars and bassoons, then you know you're in trouble. Keep the conversations on dramatic, emotional terms and remind them that your job is to translate that into music. If you are a good communicator, you should be able to get them to tell you what they want without even one mention of major or minor.

That's all I can think of for now. This is exciting and I think you're totally up for it!!

Cheers!

Mazz

[jeffgreenleaf]

Awesome! Thanks Mazz! A huge help once again...

[billg1]

Hey Jeff, I've edited a few low budget features and from another perspective can ditto the advice given. Just be sure to ask for a visual timecode dub (we used to call it a "window dub") and you'll have an easy time when they make changes.

[davewalton]

Hey guys! I was recently asked to score an Independent Film (!) and I've been trying to wrap my head around the whole thing. Can anyone offer any advice regarding questions to ask or just general info I need to find out? This is a "micro-budget" film and I'm looking at it as a great experience to learn (vs making much money). Based on the quote below, what would your response be regarding payment? A percentage?

The producer said:

"Everyone involved in the project is working up front for free, but we would like to clarify that we would like to pay your industry standard fee on the back end if we are able to sell our film."

More info:

The producer gave me a general idea of what the tone of the film is and (after I sent lots of music that I felt matched) he thought my stuff was a good fit. He also gave me a list of music to check out (that inspired parts of the film). He said he would give me a copy of the edited film to work with (this summer).

Thanks in advance!!

Jeff

Hi Jeff,

Only a couple of things. This is clearly an ultra-low-budget film... nobody is getting paid for anything upfront and you also mentioned that this is a learning experience (which we all need in order to get the composing gigs that pay upfront). To "negotiate" something upfront when nobody else is getting upfront money (because there isn't any)... to me that's an exercise that you can skip since there's no money for him to negotiate with. He's made it clear that he values your work and that he'll pay well when there is money to be paid. For me... that's all I can ask with the exception that they respect my time. Which brings me to point #2.

Make sure to impress on him that it's important that when you do start working on this that you're working with a locked copy of the film... no editing left to be done. You can work on the music with a composers copy of the film while they're still doing all the effects, color correction, etc but there's nothing more frustrating (especially given the payment situation) than spending extra time re-doing music that doesn't fit anymore because they added or took away from a scene and now your music doesn't fit.

Ditto on the timecode thing. It's a no-brainer for them to spit out your copy with the timecode running across the bottom. Makes it *so* much easier too communicate (especially for projects like I do where I never meet the people face-to-face).

Last... make their life easier by giving them the scenes with your music via a Quicktime file. For approval for each scene I do an 80% version of the music (not all the end "polish" at that point), upload it into a private area on my website and send an email with a link to the appropriate people. That way they can see/hear the scene with the music without any muss or fuss. Once "approved" then I finish the work, polish it up and have ready or upload a DVD quality music file along with a Quicktime file of the scene with the final music in there. In the end, if there are 15 music cues then there are 15 DVD quality audio files and 15 Quicktime files, all named accordingly so that it's easy to see what's what regarding the scenes or whatever. BTW... if the version you're working with has all the dialog and effects, etc, this makes for good show reel material because I usually provide the clips with the music up a bit more than it might normally be (so they can really hear it). In the end you'll have a bunch of show reel quality clips with the music at a nice level.

Along with that point... ask for a copy of the final version of the film without the music. That way if they do "screw up" the music (i.e. the levels are *way* too low or they've placed your carefully scored scene out of sync to where you wanted it) you can "make your own" version, dropping in the music as you want and at the levels that best show off the music. This has paid off *several* times for me and I always ask for that (and tell them why).

You'll pick up more work from this... count on that. Right now it's that all important credit as a composer that you want.

Good luck!

Dave

[jeffgreenleaf]

Thanks Bill and Dave! I'm starting to know what kind've things to ask/expect...
Appreciate it!

[ckbarlow]

Hey, Jeff - Sounds like a good opportunity. I agree with everything posted thus far. I especially love Dave's advice to get a score-less copy of the final edit when it's truly done so that you can make your own score-enhanced rendering that suits your own tastes, to guarantee you have a portfolio piece that you're happy with. Hadn't thought of that one.

I can't tell you how many conferences/panels/forums etc. I've attended at which someone in the audience raises a hand and asks the industry pros, "I want to compose for film. What should I do?" And the movie execs or composers on the panel respond, "Compose for film." On the one hand it borders on insult, but it's also true.

Case in point, which I mentioned elsewhere on this board recently, I'll get a few grand this summer for a feature, for a director whose shorts I'd previously scored for free. On one of those freebies, I actually got a mic in the deal: She needed a wireless for a scene; I wanted a wireless; we split the cost to buy one. She spent less than she would've to rent one for the duration of the shoot, and I walked away with a half-price mic (I did the location recording too, which is why I was around at that stage of things). Point being, think about other ways that you can be compensated. Maybe there's a similar win-win hidden in this project.

As a point of vocabulary, when you sit with the director and go through scene by scene discussing whether/when there should be music, that's a spotting session. To apply what's been recommended, ask the director to bring a QuickTime copy (or whatever your DAW likes; I usually go with small-ish, like 320x280 or in that range) to the spotting session, throw it in your DAW and use your DAW's marker/streamer/hit point feature to document the spotting session decisions. Utterly efficient, but also -- esp. in this "freebie" situation -- it exposes the director to the reality of the technical expertise (and investment) that you are bringing to the table. It's a nice little psychological bump. You are a professional and you've put in time, sweat and money to get here.

You might find (and I think Dave mentioned this at the Rally) that you want to split the project into several files, each with the movie embedded and each focusing on one cue. My most recent project, I did a Save As... from the preceding cue to create a file for the next cue to ensure some coherence but also allow total freedom to experiment without having to worry about screwing up the prior cue. Sure, you can preserve it via automation, but ugh. Unnecessary time sink.

Getting the final cut or as close to it as possible is just that much more important in these "no pay now, maybe pay later" gigs, because you have no leverage in the form of extra charges for late changes outside of your control.

Oh -- one more thing -- the tragedy of "temp love." I've had just one good and one bad experience with this phenomenon, but it's well-documented by others who've been far worse burned. If the producer/director uses a piece of commercial music as a temporary track for editing and vibe purposes, there's a risk that they'll become so accustomed to it that they can't hear anything else in its place. But you're comfortable with emulating styles thru your TAXI work, so you won't have an issue with that. Just something to watch out for. My good experience involved a director who provided several "feel/vibe" tracks for me, but never placed them in the film, just trusted me to adopt the same/similar vocabulary. Far from being off-putting, it was super-helpful.

Just be sure to ask the director what they hear in their heads -- Metallica? Philip Glass? Village People? Get some kind of touchstone so that you don't spin your wheels in the wrong direction. That always ends in tears.

[jeffrey]

i would like to ditto what maz, said. It is my experience that when you work for free you are for what ever odd reason treated poorer than when you charge for your work. The more you charge the more folk seam to love you ... it's weird i know. That said taking on work on spec your co-creators absolutely need to know you are now a partner in the project and have a vested interest in the project, and should defer to you on questions, when there is are disagreements; after all you are a IE shareholder..... This is just what i have learned threw the years .. some may say something different, but this is my advice to you. And i wish you the best of luck on the project! Remember to Have FUN!

-jeffrey