[Fmpro] composing and "sound design"

[Phil Kelly]

On Oct 7, 2006, at 5:00 AM, fmpro-request at nxport.com wrote:

>
> Message: 6
> Date: Fri, 6 Oct 2006 14:44:29 -0400
> From: "Merritt Music Productions" <chris at merrittmusic.com>
> Subject: Re: [Fmpro] Composing vs. sound design
> To: <fmpro at nxport.com>
> Message-ID: <001e01c6e977$751888c0$6601a8c0 at Sara6>
> Content-Type: text/plain;	charset="us-ascii"
>
> Hi folks,
>
> I just want to make sure you don't get confused here.  If you have a 2
> minute piece of music in a show, you will be paid the current (crappy) 
> rate
> for 2 minutes.  If you add one million little hits, swishes, bangs and
> whooshes on top of that music, you will STILL be paid for 2 minutes.
>
> You are better off having a synth pad sustaining through an entire 
> show,
> than having zillions of little hits and such, unless each one sustains
> exactly to the next.
>
> In other words, you are paid by the PRO if you have SOMETHING filling 
> the
> space, no matter how complicated.  Out to a total of seconds contained 
> in
> that particular show.
>
> So charge your client more for more complicated "music."  Find a sound
> designer person that you consider to be at the same level or so in his
> career and see what he charges to add sfx to a show.  Then add that 
> rate to
> your music comp rate.
>
> This, of course, differs for song.
>
> Hope this helps someone out there,
>
> Chris

The troll is awakend , and so speaks :
>

Theres really nothing particularly new here ( regarding this type of 
scoring ) except the electronics involved are a lot more sophisticated, 
and  therefore less labor intensive to achieve the desired results.

Back in the pliocene era of film scoring :) , we achieved similar 
results by building a A roll "motor loop " that fit the average overall 
pace of the cuts ( with or without a drone ) One of our favorite "loops 
" was built on the sound of chopper blades reversed and manipulated for 
tempo with a varispeed device of some sort. We then proceeded to come 
up with as many different clanks , bongs, and other audio artifacts 
that were then laid into the picture by a music editor ( usually 
ourselves ) on B, D, and if necessary D rolls. Charge 'em more for 
this? Hell yes!  It's a time and labor intensive process!

Todays practice of separating the tasks of catching the eye candy with 
the hits and creating the loop and drones seems to me again creating a 
job where none existed ( or was needed ) before.

Sort of like the ubiquitous "Music Supervisor" that seems to created a 
credit worthy job for the end title roll ..

Oh Well, the troll goes back under his bridge for a toad burger ..:)

Ribbit

Phil Kelly
www.philkellymusic.com