Music music music

Thanks Tina for the wonga

Right before we get into it, let me start upfront by saying I appreciate that everyone needs to make a living.  I'm not some silver spooned rich kid living in Kensington dahling - I have a mortgage and kids that need feeding just like everyone else.  Sometimes though people take the piss - this happens on both sides of the relationship. 

Unscrupulous filmmakers lining their pockets while expecting everyone to work for nothing (and yes I know people worked for nothing on this - but we didn't take any money either, paid where we could and have designed an equity share for all cast and crew); then there's the other side - which in this case involves - you've guessed it, music.  

While editing David, James and I have suggested various bits of music as temp score - this is temporary music that we use to pace the edit and to convey mood while we wait for picture lock and then do the music for real.  Now as people who've made dozens of films between us, we are not so naive to think that we are actually going to be able to afford the Bob Dylan song we are using at the minute or the Stone Roses - but there was one song that I really hoped we'd manage to swing. It's by a fairly obscure contemporary artist on a small independent label and though I knew we'd be asked to pay for it - I really hoped it would be within our means.  So yesterday, I contacted the label - explained the film, mentioned the budget figure and basically tried to appeal to their better nature - which clearly didn't work... they came back with a price THREE TIMES TOTAL BUDGET OF THE FILM!  Now whatever budget you are on from £500 to £500,000,000 - at what point does paying three times the entire cost of the film for one song make financial sense???

I may be stupid but really??? 3 times the budget, on one song? Errr no thanks. Either they really don't want us to use the song (maybe they HATE this film) or they are just a bunch of charlatans... it's mad, it really is.  But as ever there's a silver lining - the no last night sparked a great idea in my head and James agreed that it's a much better direction to take the soundtrack- and so we live to fight another day.

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