what's most important for a film-tv song?

[deantaylor]

This is regarding songs WITH VOCALS only .. What characteristic is most important to get placements in film-tv? List them in order. Most important at the top. Add characteristics if I forgot any. Here is my current thinking. I am sure others know better.performancemoodemotion(general) lyric that applies to many scenes a strong alasectional differenceenergyThanks,Dean

[Casey H]

Nov 19, 2008, 11:44pm, deantaylor wrote:This is regarding songs WITH VOCALS only .. What characteristic is most important to get placements in film-tv? List them in order. Most important at the top. Add characteristics if I forgot any. Here is my current thinking. I am sure others know better.performancemoodemotion(general) lyric that applies to many scenes a strong alasectional differenceenergyThanks,DeanHi DeanYou've pretty much answered your own question with this list, though the first 3-4 are pretty equal in priority. It all has to be there, so differentiating their importance isn't really useful. Bad performance and no one cares about the mood, for example... Exceptions-- if the request is for an offbeat or specific subject song (general lyrics don't apply) or if the a la is someone like Dylan where sounding like him takes a higher priority than being always on key since he wasn't anyway.It is interesting that you posted this. I'm in the middle of a lengthy discussion with a board friend regarding film/TV music. He quoted an article from someone who writes about film music where the author advised to have your own unique style. For most of us unknowns, I disagree with that. (Talking songs here, not work-for-hire or orchestral which I don't know enough about)... It's true for artists trying to break out. For songwriters like us, I strongly believe that you have a much better chance with imitation. A song that sounds like a particular artist or authentic to a time period probably has the best chance, IMHO. In fact, I am re-working some songs in my catalog for that reason. I'm of the belief that for film/TV, imitation is VERY important. (Did you ever see a taxi film/TV listing asking for a completely unique sound?)Sectional difference is important because I have found that film/TV folks, even thought they may only use 30 seconds of your song at 2:30, still listen for GOOD SONGS. The choruses don't have to be as amazing as for a Nashville publisher (very good is fine, great not required IMHO), but it the hook doesn't grab them in a minute or so, you probably won't get anywhere. An exception would be if there is something else about it that grabs them very strongly from the get-go for another reason. Energy... the level of energy has to match the request... Often very important for sports, chase scenes, etc.. where very high energy is needed... And obviously the opposite, sad scenes don't get hard driving metal rock... Casey

[billg]

hey Dean. I think that the order of importance varies with the intended use (whoops, didn't Casey just say that?!).I can say from personal experience that doing a soundalike thing can bite you in the backside, you can find yourself caught in the middle. I've done soundalikes for a particular group just to hear back that it doesn't sound close enough. Then I'll submit the same song to an unrelated "general" listing and hear "we'd like to use this but it sounds to much like ___"I really just don't think there are any hard and fast rules, that's what makes this so hard.

[deantaylor]

Thanks Guys,I don't have the experience with it that you do. When I delivered the first song I got signed into a library, I suggested to the library that the vocal sounded alot like Neil Young, thinking this would be useful ... but the library said .. I think the song has it's own unique sound and that is what I am looking for. It seems like maybe a unique sound might be what you want if you are going for really 'plum' placements???We also had a taxi pro-critique tell us one of our songs was not great film-tv material, because it was a 'high-energy' song .. not much 'mood'. Maybe there are less high-energy needs than mood needs is what I took from this.Casey, I came to the same conclusion as you about sectional difference. It doesn't seem to really help the way the song will play in a movie or tv show. It only helps you get past screeners and decision makers.I hear what you guys are saying, importance has to vary some with intended use. So a related question may be: what are the most frequent intended uses. Are there more uses where films are looking for tracks that sound like famous artists or are there more uses where they want music that fits a mood and a lyrical idea? Not sure.On taxi, there does seem to be alot of ala uses, but does this hold everywhere? I don't see this hardly at all in other places where I pitch songs.Dean

[twilsbach]

Interesting thread. Casey I'm interested in the discussion you're having especially. Allow me to but in Assuming a broadcast quality recording, I'd say Mood and Performance are the biggest things to nail.When it comes to uniqueness vs. imitation I think there is a place for both. Certainly if you're flying under the radar and simply trying to get placements imitation is a good way to go and there are opportunities for that.But I also think there are plenty of opportunities for unique-sounding songs, especially if you're trying to develop yourself as an artist. Ingrid Michaelson, & Joe Purdy come to mind as specifics examples of people whos careers were helped quite a lot by film/tv placements. Songs like Amos Lee's Sweet Pea from an AT&T commercial, anything from an ipod or iPhone commercial, all examples of unique sounds that help compellingly (is that a word?) sell a product or scene.This might be just my Pollyanna view of it, or more likely biased by what I'm trying to do with my artist career, but I would guess that in general the $$$ you'd get from a high-profile placement in a network show or national commercial would be more than a background placement that helps create or maintain the mood in a scene in a movie or tv show.Thats just, like...my...opinion, man.

[Casey H]

Nov 20, 2008, 9:31am, twilsbach wrote:Interesting thread. But I also think there are plenty of opportunities for unique-sounding songs, especially if you're trying to develop yourself as an artist. Absolutely true. I mentioned in my post that there is a difference between emerging artists here and pure songwriters like Dean and I. For emerging artists, unique is very important. But take a non-performer (like me) who goes to studios to have songs produced. In that mode of operation, I think imitation is more effective most of the time. Also, there is no question that if you create a definite mood with a song, that can take a lot of precedence. So I may have over-emphasized imitation because that's my own focus-- I'm taking that direction because of what I've been observing.I have a song signed to a library that doesn't have a strong artist sound-like or era strongly associated with it. It works because it's an excellent (if I must say so myself, LOL) mood setter.Bear in mind that libraries, the source of a big percentage of placements, need to tag and categorize songs in order to make their searchable database. So even if a song might really work, it might be harder to find because it's harder to 'tag'. That creates a practical reality outside of the music itself.Back to basics... Very good (at least) songs, very good performances, very good engineering and production come first... Lyrics with general themes very important... Casey

[Casey H]

Nov 20, 2008, 8:06am, deantaylor wrote:So a related question may be: what are the most frequent intended uses. Are there more uses where films are looking for tracks that sound like famous artists or are there more uses where they want music that fits a mood and a lyrical idea? Not sure.I don't think that's an answerable question. It varies all over the place... Over-analysis can kill us too. Pick one of the possible directions that works for a reasonable number of applications--- mood, era, a la, whatever... based a lot on what you do best or want to learn do to well. CaseyPS I want to stress again that MY perspective is that of a non-performer who uses outside studios.

[deantaylor]

Nov 20, 2008, 10:36am, hurowitz wrote: Over-analysis can kill us too. Pick one of the possible directions that works for a reasonable number of applications--- mood, era, a la, whatever... based a lot on what you do best or want to learn do to well.AGREED! The purpose of my post was REALLY not to get an exact answer, just to exchange some ideas like we are doing. Good thoughts guys. I am getting a lot out of it all.DeanPS I am a non-performing songwriter too, but I tend to like to go for more 'unique' sounding songs that what Casey is going for at the moment. I think that can work, especially since I co-write and get recordings made on a collaborative basis. Actually, Tim W did the vox on one of these. So, say we hit it big on that song with a commercial or prime tv placement, because of the unique way the songwriting and vocal performance work together. Well, I am betting we can put that same team back together for more songs and hopefully a similar 'sound'.

[squids]

Well, both soundalikes and uniqueness can bite you in the ass. The key is knowing the niche you're good at and then keep poundin' on the dang door until you either force your way through via sheer muscle (and money in rewrites and production) or you hang on long enough that you become sort of an institution. I've had critiques that accused me of being too unique but I don't do soundalikes so clearly the key was in knowing where to apply the tune. Bill G and I have the same problem in that our voices are either gonna be enjoyed or absolutely loathed. Can't control it. I'd pick singers who fit the song, then demo them and shop discriminately. But that's jes me.

[deantaylor]

Thanks for chiming in Nita. Sounds like a good plan.