My film score is being aired right now BUT...

[kevinmathie]

...I found out about an hour ago that no cue sheet has been submitted to the TV station. I don't know if you remember or not, but in May I scored the music for a film in the 48 Hour Film Festival. Turns out, the film won "Best Musical Score," among a couple other awards.Fast forward to today, and all the local films of the festival are being shown on Comcast's "On Demand" -- specifically in our "Utah On Demand" section. Plus, it's in regular rotation on Comcast's channel 6, which is all local programming. I'm not sure how frequent the rotation is, but I think the short film I worked on has been airing every couple days for the past month, and will continue to play that often until the 21st of this month.So, nothing earth-shattering, and nothing that would probably show up on ASCAP's "sample" anyway, but it is important to me at this stage of my career nonetheless.Anyway, here's my dilemma (I figure I'll learn how to solve it now during a non-earth-shattering situation rather than wait for an earth-shattering time to solve it) : The production company never submitted a cue sheet for the film. So, there's no chance of getting paid residuals for my music, even if ASCAP ends up sampling the film.Is there a way I can solve this myself? Or am I totally at the mercy of the film production company? I can probably go to the owner of the production company (which in this case is not the director) and probably talk him into creating a cue sheet and submitting it if that will do any good. I know ASCAP won't be sampling/surveying anything that's playing right now for another 6-9 months.What's the best solution for this situation? Or is there a solution? If I had known that Comcast was going to air my film, I would have been more proactive. But, it didn't cross my mind that this little short would be aired on cable. Lesson learned. Don't assume anything. Kevin

[matto]

Kevin, can you document that the film is airing and when? Say, by printing out an online tv schedule once a week showing exactly what time it airs? If this is possible, do it for as long as they keep playing it regularly.Then you'll need a cue sheet. You can make one yourself if need be, but it has to be signed off on and submitted to ASCAP by the production company.I don't think they would have a problem doing that especially if you do the work of putting the cue sheet together yourself.Now there is NO guarantee you'll get paid, it will depend on how ASCAP views your case, and I'm sure it wouldn't be much, but at least this will give you the best shot at getting paid something...

[chriscarter]

I've been through this. If the production company doesn't know how to make a cue sheet, make one for them and send it to them to submit to ASCAP. You can technically send it yourself to ASCAP, but it doesn't work too well.If they won't submit the cue sheet, you can go to Comcast and get the air logs and then you have a copy of the movie (I'm assuming). But again, this is a pain and can often get screwed up within ASCAP itself.Producers that don't know how to do cue sheets is something you will run into a lot. Big companies have dedicated people to do it who generally know what they are doing. But the small ones screw it up more often than not.

[dovetail]

http://www.ascap.com/musicbiz/cue_sheet_corner/They'll take care of it for you.

[kevinmathie]

Thanks for your suggestions, everyone. And thanks, dovetail, for the link to the Cue Sheet Corner. That answered a lot of questions.I think what I'll try doing is downloading an electronic cue sheet, filling it out myself (so that the owner of the production company I worked for doesn't have to bother), then email that cue sheet to the owner so he can then forward it on to ASCAP. I think I'll be working with the company again in the future, and so a gentle education about cue sheets will be helpful for both of us for our next project.Then, I'll give ASCAP a heads-up as to when/where the film is airing via their "Cue Sheet Alert Form" that I saw on dovetail's link.Then all I have to do is sit back and wait for my $0.25 worth of royalties for 100 airings of the film on a not-too-popular local cable television station! Thanks!Kevin

[suzdoyle]

Woo-HOO! Sounds like a good plan. Thanks for sharing this with us; I have numerous things aired last year that haven't shown up yet on ASCAP reports. Sounds like another case of Cue Sheet Sleuthing!Suz