[Fmpro] Composing vs. sound design

[Michael S Patterson]

Years ago I was talking to someone at ASCAP about stingers, swishes and
that type of stuff.

I believe there is a 2 or 5 second threshold that the PROs go by. If under
5 seconds it isn't processed...maybe that's been changed or I received bad 
info.

But I think there is a trap there, in that should one artistically choose to
write a cue longer just because the a PRO wont give you the $.05?

A cymbal swish or a drum roll, you can debate forever: music or SFX
I tend to think it should be judge by who it came from, composer: it's 
music;
sound designer: SFX.


As for the original question of where the line is drawn...I think it's an 
artistic
question. I think of Requiem for a Dream as an interesting example, where
many people think of the sound design as part of the score. Under close
examination one can figure out where score ends and sound design begins.

I think it's also a project by project question too. There are films I 
worked on
that I really punched up the score with synth swishes and fx to please the 
client
only to take them out after the sound designer started on the film. Or in 
one case
it became a big messy mix of both.

It can be time consuming to work with swishes and stingers and what not but
that is also a personal style. I used to work with a composer that relished 
that
type of stuff, perfectly timed music to edits and all sorts of swish and 
SFX.

That's not me, I'll do a bit of it if asked to but if asked to do a bunch of 
it,
I'd probably pass on the gig and take another.

BTW if anyone saw This Film Is Not Yet Rated, thank you. It's still in
theaters but is quickly moving from theater to theater....check you're
local listings :-) and look for it on 2007 on IFC and DVD.

Michael S Patterson





----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Mark Northam" <mark at gmdgroup.com>
To: <fmpro at nxport.com>
Sent: Friday, October 06, 2006 11:46 AM
Subject: Re: [Fmpro] Composing vs. sound design


> If true, this represents even more corruption of the performing rights
> system. I wonder how many "friends of the PROs" are permitted to file this
> kind of cue sheet, draining what may be massive amounts of money away from
> legitimate performances under the guise of six second "background vocals"
> that are in fact drum rolls. Amazing.
>
> And of course, it represents yet another hazard of assuming everything
> marked "background vocal" is deserving of a feature performance simply
> because Marilyn and her friends have decided that lyrics are king and
> instrumental music should be relegated to the back of the royalty bus when
> looking at the royalty rate for a one minute cue on television.
>
> No wonder the PROs won't release cue sheets... Can you imagine the 
> skeletons
> that may be hiding in those closets?
>
> Mark Northam
>
>
> On 10/6/06 11:31 AM, "kirbyko3 at aol.com" <kirbyko3 at aol.com> wrote:
>
>> I remember seeing music cuesheets for
>> the original Star Search series, and every single drumroll and cymbal
>> crash had a title and was listed on there as a composition -- each
>> drumroll registered $$ with ASCAP or BMI!  I always imagined those
>> cuesheets to be all of 1 or 2 pages long, basically just reflecting the
>> competition performances.... imagine my surprise to see that each one
>> was several pages, and had listing after listing after listing of a :06
>> Background Vocal use, which was a drumroll.  Whoever wrote that stuff
>> was one smart cookie.
>
> ---------------------------------
> 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
>
>
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