Tuesday 5 July 2011

What’s behind the weaving of a film song in the storyboard of an advertisement? – Part 2

In my earlier post what’s behind the weaving of a film song in the storyboard of an advertisement?-I touched upon the consideration points of a Music Label for providing a quotation to the advertising agency to incorporate a film song in an advertisement.
In this post I will list few more factors that could affect the quote to an ad agency for movie song synchronization in an ad.
What if the creative ad agency wants to use only the music minus the lyrics of a song?
The agency may just want to use the music and overlay it with its own lyrics (as part of the advertisement story line). In this case the agency might require the unmixed sound track. A mixed track is the combination of multitude of recorded sounds and an unmixed track is the opposite of a mixed track. An unmixed track enables the advertising agency to play with elements like pitch, timbre, harmonics, loudness, and rhythm of the song to gel with the storyline of the advertisement. There can be innumerable instances where the ad film director will try to make a better use of the licensed song rather than use it as it is.
Unmixed track also means just the soundtrack minus the vocals a.k.a minus one track. In all probability the agency would require the unmixed or the minus one track. In case the music label is unable to provide the mixed / minus one track, it may mean one of the two:
·         The music label does not have the unmixed track, maybe it’s a song from the 70’s.
·         The music label may not have the publishing rights. In this case the agency will need to get in touch with the song publishers / composers. Publishers will grant the reproduction rights to the advertisement agency, provided they have it.
If the music label owns the publishing rights and doesn’t have the unmixed track, the advertising agency should negotiate accordingly to bring down the price quoted by the music label.
If the music label does not budge on the quoted price, perhaps the agency can look for additional sweeteners to be included in the deal, such as:
·         Autographed Song CDs, for its client.
·         Additional license duration, media vehicles, etc.

Sometimes this happens, for example in case of telecom operators, the telecom operator will request the synchronization right of a particular song to be provided free of cost. The reason cited by them is, ‘it helps the music label popularize the song, enabling greater download of the song as caller ring back tone, ringtone, song video etc. thus making up for the pro bono license’. Well it’s the discretion of the music label and how entrenched they are vis-à-vis their relationship with the telecom operator. There are no thumb rules in this case and the music label should abide by their corporate policies in this regard, provided they have one!
In case there are still questions in your mind that remain unanswered after going through this post, please write to me with your email id and I’ll try to give a satisfactory answer. As always, I will request the readers of this post if you have time, please drop a line.

1 comment:

If you have time, please drop a line..!!