Guest Blogger: Shannon Coulter, Magnatune Director of A&R
I designed this particular workshop in direct response to the music licensing panels I often encounter at other industry events, all of which have seemed intent on turning music licensing from a somewhat intimidating process into a completely daunting and confusing one. At one of these, a panelist actually likened music licensing to "brain surgery"--a comment that I'm sure did little to empower audience members that day, many of whom were student filmmakers. She also recommended that these students "just hire an entertainment lawyer" to deal with the music licensing. So for the LATV fest, I wanted to create a much more "workshoppy" kind of session, with the goal of demystifying the music licensing process by breaking it down into steps. Subjects covered included the two sets of rights you need to acquire to use a piece of music in film/video, how to locate rights holders, how to approach them, and how to negotiate down a price quote. I also covered strategies for finding great music on a limited budget and showed a classic clip from The Big Lebowski that demonstrates how big the payoff can be when you start thinking about music during the pre-production phase, versus post. By the end of the workshop (which was completely full), music licensing had hopefully been reduced from a brain surgery-like prospect to that of an outpatient procedure. Of course, at Magnatune, music licensing is so painless, that it's more comparable to a spa treatment of some kind. ;) In any case, I had a great time presenting the information, and got really positive feedback from people who attended, so I think it was helpful for them. Thanks very much to the good folks at NATPE, especially Programming Director Christina Vergara Andrews and Membership Honcho Abel Salas!
On Thursday afternoon I led a music licensing workshop at NATPE's inaugural LATV Fest, an intensive multi-day conference designed to help independent producers navigate the business and further their careers. This outstanding event was held at the House of Blues on the Sunset Strip in L.A., and NATPE did a really great job with the programming. All the panels and workshops were extremely savvy and up-to-date. NATPE is definitely embracing the new distribution reality much more readily than many of their entertainment industry peers. Even their event logo (see below) reflects this.
