[Fmpro] From the Job Poster We've been Discussing

[Mark Northam]

OK, but it's the production company library (his client) that has determined
the fee, not Michael. And as Les Hurdle will tell you, many libraries now
offer NO up-front money. If we're going to go down this road, we must
address each and every library that pays composers no up-front money.

The production company is well-aware that these libraried cues are likely to
create substantial backend royalties for the composer due to the fact that
they're libraried and will be used in many different television
shows/series. As such, it appears they've offered a mostly-backend deal,
which isn't surprising in this day and age, especially given the state of
the art of the library business and the number of available composers today.

Every job we post is personally approved by me - it's time-consuming, but
necessary. I honestly don't see the exploitation in this one, given the
current marketplace for libraries and such. But I'm open to any and all
opinions on this. To me, there's a much larger issue that's been exposed
here - the fact that whether it's this job or the $5,000 Lifetime Network
all-in movie of the week package fee, composer upfront fees are heading
south fast and we need to look at industry-wide changes that can be made to
combat this, if in fact it can be changed at all.

Best,

Mark Northam

On 11/30/06 10:25 PM, "Merritt Music Productions" <chris at merrittmusic.com>
wrote:

> 
> Although this is technically correct, most of us would probably agree that
> the fee offered is so small as to be insignificant and comparable to no fee
> whatsoever.

---------------------------------
Mark Northam - Publisher
Film Music Magazine
The Professional Voice of Music for Film & TV
http://www.filmmusicmag.com
1-800-774-3700 x702 / (310) 645-9000 x702