[Fmpro] one day it'll go big

[Ted Peterson]

Forget about the back side. You'll never see a dime. Negotiate what  
you want to score the film. If you were sought out you can charge  
more. If you responded to an ad on craigslist or mandy, you will have  
a tough time getting even what you negotiate. Don't expect too much  
and don't expect anything after you're finished. If the doc. gets  
distributed, you need to make sure you have a signed contract and get  
a lawyer to go after the distributor and the film maker for the  
percentage you agreed to in the contract.

I am involved with a feature that used my music without permission  
and am getting paid. But I  had everything in writing. By the way,  
emails that are dated and printed out have withstood the test for  
signatures in court cases including mine.

So here's where you are:

Write a contract describing what you will do and how much you want.  
You can charge anything from  $1 to $5000 but be aware that the  
person hiring you might have very little money. Also, you are an  
unknown quantity in the film world. But you must be paid up front. I  
would suggest 1/2 before you start and the rest when you finish. In  
this contract, you will determine how much rewriting you will do and  
the type of instrumentation you can provide. If you need to hire  
musicians, you need to have that covered. At a certain point, you  
will have to determine that you have composed enough for the pay and  
stop work at that point. Have that stated in your contract.  
Otherwise, the film maker might want you to create the score and hire  
a whole orchestra because he/she doesn't like electronic sounding  
instruments. Without stipulation, you will compose your brains out  
and nothing will be good enough. Then you will lose interest and one  
day, you will see the doc. and there will be your music. Without a  
contract, you have little to stand on but even if your music is  
stolen, you can get some money from the distributor.

For many films, free music is considered a given. Most of the stuff  
advertised on mandy or craigslist are film projects that never got  
finished. Most are terrible and even the good ones show little  
promise for a future. Getting a film into distribution should be easy  
if the quality and story line are coherent but  most are not. Yet,  
the film maker thinks they are the next incarnation of Otto  
Preminger. Unfortunately, the success of Blair Witch has led every  
hack with a video camera think they can do the same. It just isn't  
true. Making a good film is as difficult as writing good music.

Ted Peterson

On Jun 1, 2008, at 11:40 AM, CORBERLAW at aol.com wrote:

>
> In a message dated 6/1/2008 5:05:33 AM Pacific Daylight Time,
> fmpro-request at nxport.com writes:
>
> I've  been composing music for the past 7 years, for small productions
> especially  theater, off and off off Broadway. Recently I have  
> received an offer to
> write  the music for a documentary. The project is a low budget  
> production yet
> it has  potential to go big. My question is what should I do to  
> get  a cut
> from  the earnings in case this project goes really well, that is,  
> better than
>