Emotional Connection with your Audience.

AFX Industrial (film scores)

It's the only thing I can do.

Hello everybody and Happy Halloween 2015! As you can see from the nominee laurel above, my recent score was nominated in the 'Best Original Film Score' category for a forty minute film called 'Bar Study'! This humbling recognition indicates that my scoring company are (hopefully) doing what they set out to do, and that is to move people.

It also indicates that my own focus in this particular discipline is coming across in the scores I write, helping people to connect emotionally with those scores. 

Without these accolades it's very hard to judge whether or not you're hitting the mark. Thank you Los Angeles Independent Film Festival.

The mechanics of scoring.

I often get asked 'how did you come up with these ideas?' or 'what inspires you?' I break it down into a few simple stages, but the first and most important thing is to have a good level of communication with the director. Communication is great although I don't necessarily need musical direction here, too much direction (as to what the minutia of the score should be) can easily stifle creativity, resulting in a self conscious score.

The much underrated and overlooked 'spotting session' is my favourite tool for getting a handle on what the director wants to hear. But the spotting session is little more than a decision on which frame the music cue should enter and which frame it should leave. Of course the director and I will decide if the score needs to be happy, sad or ominous etc. But the musical subtleties that straddle the line between emotions are always best left up to me to decide. 

It's also very hard to put certain emotions into words (which is really why we use music in films). Trying to quantify it all verbally would leave us with useless terminology such as 'half happy' or possibly 'half happy a quarter sad an eighth scary and an eighth happy'!

You should really leave ALL of the musical decisions up to the composer. If you don't feel you can trust the composer you have chosen with musical decisions, then don't put your film at RISK, fire them and move on. 

Amateur music is VERY easy to spot and very damaging to your film, especially if you want to be taken seriously as a film maker.

10 tell tale signs of a badly scored film:

1. No discernible thematic material.

2. No leitmotif/s.

3. Instruments used out of their range.

4. Failure to use irregular time signs.

5. No harmony.

6. Bad, even ugly part writing.

7. No modulating sequences.

8. No understanding of chord relations.

9. No modulation at all.

10. Terrible recording / mix.

A little bit about AFX Industrial (film scores)

My Company AFX Industrial (film scores) may not be the cheapest solution to getting your film scored, but you do get access to our cutting edge studio equipment - and all of our deep industry knowledge and experience. (Please check the credit list: http://www.dchewitt.com/credits.html). 

From TV spots for 'Chappie' (Neil Blomkamp's recent movie) to the MTV music awards to Premiers of major movies (The Dark Knight Rises). And most recently 'The Driving Dead' starring Michael Rooker from the hit TV show 'The Walking Dead' (directed by Gale Anne Hurd, Terminator/ Aliens). AFX's scores are everywhere.

Increasingly we are being contacted by serious film makers like you who have gone down the amateur composer route way too many times - did you know, festivals and broadcasters often reject a film based on the soundtrack alone? AFX were recently approached by a Hollywood publisher to help dig them out of a legal hole because their composer had lied about his ownership of the music he'd supplied for an entire (already broadcast) TV series! Ouch! 

Our reputation for being above board and understanding complicated, copyright and public domain issues precedes us! Of course, we take care of all of those legal loopholes for you too! 

If you have any doubts or questions about your score (legal or musical) then don't hesitate to contact AFX Industrial (film scores) mail@dchewitt.com and we'll see how we can help you!

Best wishes,

David.

AFX Industrial (film scores) 

http://dchewitt.com

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Cue Sheets ... What Are They?

AFX Industrial (film scores)

In this blog I'd like to get you up to speed with what cue sheets are, how they work and how they relate to you.

 

If you are a professional film maker then you will have licensed music for your productions on a number of occasions.  If you are new to licensing then please see my blog: 'Mozart is very, very dead'.

What exactly are cue sheets? 

I do like sharing my knowledge with you and again this is a grey area but one that needs to be discussed.  I hope you are up to speed with licensing music for your film or TV show, but after you have paid the composer then what do you do?  First I will explain what cue sheets are then I will go on to explain how the 'royalty free' model works and also how the term 'royalty free' is a misleading term.

So your film has just been broadcast on TNT or CBS or Channel 4 but did you fill in a cue sheet?  If the answer is no then you are about to make another faceless corporation like Sony even richer at the expense of your composer/s and you wouldn't want that ... would you?

Under the law, before they can broadcast your film or documentary, TV channels must purchase an obligatory music license from royalty collection agencies such as the PRS and ASCAP .  You fill in something called a cue sheet with all the details of the music cues in your film, and send it off to either one of these bodies depending on which country you are in.  Each country has its own body.

'By filling in a cue sheet you are supporting the people who supplied the music for your film'.

Royalty free?

Once you have filled in a cue sheet then a portion of the license fee that the TV channel pay to the royalty collection agency will be paid to the artists who own the music that appears in your film.

This is known as a 'Performance Royalty' and it can be pennies or it can be a larger sum depending on which channel and what time of day your film or documentary is broadcast.

The downside is, that if you don't fill in the cue sheet then eventually the performance royalty that should have been allocated to the artist will be divided up among the major record labels like Sony, EMI & Warner Brothers.  Surprising eh?  Surprising and grossly unfair.  Filling in a cue sheet correctly ensures the composers and musical artists get to keep this performance royalty, as they should.

But what is 'royalty free'?  Well if you see the words royalty free this simply means that you as the purchaser of the license to use a particular piece of music will pay no further royalties.  Don't worry, unless otherwise stated most pieces of music fall into this category.  However, the term 'royalty free' is a little misleading because as I mentioned earlier each time the program is shown the composers should get a royalty, it just wont be coming from your pocket.

It's estimated that between 70 - 90% of performance royalties never reach the composers or artists whose music drives TV and Radio ... This is usually due to cue sheet errors.  However, there is a solution called digital audio fingerprinting go here for more info, but it has yet to be adopted by the performing rights organizations.

Simply put, by filling in a cue sheet you are supporting the people who supplied the music for your film, and that has to be a good thing.

Any questions on this?  Please feel free to ask :0)

- David.

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