Need Music for New Reality Show
 

Hey guy, I just landed my biggest video project of my so called career and I have a few questions. First off, it's a reality show about a Bail Bonds company in Norther VA. It will be similar "Storage Wars" or Pawn Stars", only bail bonds. I'll have 2 Panny HMC 150's rolling and a few people mic'd up.

Going after this project wasn't hard but now that it's a GO I'm getting a tad freaked out with music. When watching reality TV (which on don't do often), I notice they have a great music selection with dramatic scenes and so on. This show will be aired on a local V Fios channel in DC until it gets picked up by a major player such as MTV or AE. Do you guys know of an audio books that are great for this style of editing? I found some free stuff at Moby's site but I'm thinking i'll need to change it up a bit.

If you guys have any other advice for doing this project, I'm all ears. Anything I should look out for or request form the client prior to shooting / editing? I don't start for a few weeks.

Thanks

MZ

Thread title changed from "New Reality Show-Washington D.C."
to "Need Music for New Reality Show." Please avoid ambiguous
thread titles.

This really isn't about FCS, is it? Maybe we need a new board
dedicated to production music.

Greg,
For music try Freeplaymusic.com. The selections are good and the licenses are inexpensive.

As for things to look out for I'm guessing from your post that you are the production company? Who is taking care of clearances and releases? That to me would be the biggest stumbling blocks.

Just a couple of the many many many htings a production company has to watch out for when doing any kind of show including and maybe especially a reality show.

You could solicit music from unsigned bands. Go on myspace or Facebook and look at their bands area. I have friends that are top quality artist, and their always looking for a music placement, to help improve their resume. They have gone to screenings for indie movies, and have written songs for them. Had one used on an espn short. They haven't been paid for any of their submissions, but have recently gotten a publishing deal, because if all the free exposure they've gotten. Lots of starving artists out there willing to allow you to use their music, it's win win for both sides.

I don't know that this was the type of music you were referring too, but you might be able to find some good stuff. Just email and ask for submissions, and use ones you think would be appropriate.

Start off at sites like freshmusic.com or music123.com and buy a few collections.

If you're show gets renewed, or better still, picked up by a larger network, then you should subscribe to a needle drop service.

If the show has been picked up for broadcast there should have been a budget for Production Music. Production Music is best because it should have a clearly defined path to scale between current distribution area and a larger release area (e.g if the show gets picked up by a national broadcaster), without having to re contract things with a musician etc - just pay the higher fees.

I am unfamiliar with American production music providers, but looking at Freeplay Music they seem to have a very reasonable rate card.

Thanks guys, you've been very helpful.

Music services are good but you have to have records of where you got the music from. Some broadcasters will not air your work if they can't be assured where the music comes from.

Unsigned bands can be great but you have to be really careful with contracts. If they get signed and you are using a song from their CD that now is registered with ASCAP or BMI you might suddenly have a problem with music rights that didn't exist before. It's best to have music composed specifically for your project that is paid for outright.

I can thoroughly recommend Royalty Free Music, Sound Effects and Editing Software - SmartSound. The music tracks are great quality, can be customised (adjust track length to the scene, alter the musical mix etc), are really great value & to bring it back on topic for this forum there is a neat FCP plugin that interfaces with SonicFire Pro (the software that manipulates the SmartSound tracks).

oh sweet.

thanks Nigel

Haven't used that program for years but it was great how you could custom build a soundtrack to length. The selection of music styles tended to corporate videos, local commercials or event videos. Outside of that, the selection seemed slim. You had to purchase a lot of libraries to get a decent selection of usable tracks. It seems they have updated how you purchase tracks so check it out. There's a page to listen to selections. A lot of tracks still sound corny to my ear.