State of composing for television as dictated by Neophonic and NBC

Heather Guibert


PJ Bloom (with the headphones)

Below is an email from Linda Livingston at BMI today. It's hard to blame Linda as she may have had good intentions and wanted to help her friends stay "in the mix." But it is a disgrace and an insult to the composing community and she should know better.

If I am an agent, I would be worried. The music supervisors are basically inviting an "America's Top Model" type stampede. Whatever happened to hiring a composer, working with him, and getting good music from a give and take that historically has yielded results.

Instead, we have a free for all.

So does NBC and the producers pay the music "supervisor" to set up this free for all?

Also, do the producers, the network, the music supervisors and anyone else culpable here realize that they are basically inviting a law suit as there is no such thing as a "work for hire" if you don't "hire?"

With all this in mind, I submit to you, courtesy of people who pretend they are here because they "love" music- but really are intent on just profiting on the fact that composers are desperate and will work for free.

A pox on their houses. Go read and see how horrible working conditions are for composers. This is the complete email:

PLEASE READ THIS ENTIRE EMAIL BEFORE RESPONDING! ALL INFORMATION CONTAINED IN THIS BRIEF IS EXTREMELY CONFIDENTIAL. PLEASE CONDUCT YOURSELF WITH THE UTMOST PROFESSIONALISM AND RESPONSIBILITY!

We have been hired as Music Consultants for Parks & Recreation (NBC) starring Amy Poehler. This show comes courtesy of Greg Daniels & Michael Schur, the creative masterminds behind The Office (US) and is shot in the same docu-drama, behind-the-scenes style. P&R takes place in Pawnee, IN and centers around the town’s public officials as they try to make their city a better place.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1266020/
WE NEED A MAIN TITLE THEME!!!

Here’s what you need to know...

SCHEDULE

The series begins airing on April 9th. Clearly, this is coming up very quickly – which means we are nearly out of time to procure our Main Title Theme. Accordingly, we need ANY and ALL demo submissions in our hands by NO LATER than the end of the day on Monday, March 23rd. We will be presenting everything to the Producers on Tuesday, March 24th. In the interest of our accelerated schedule, we can offer NO latitude with regards to our submission deadline. If you wanna play in this sandbox, you’d better have your pail & shovel ready to go by MONDAY, MARCH 23RD!

Once the Producers and Network have chosen the lucky winner, we will have one (1) week at most to facilitate any creative changes and/or go from “demo” to final recording. Should you make it to the next/final round, you must be available and willing to facilitate any changes and/or final recording prior to April 1st.

SUBMISSION LOGISTICS

In the interest of time and the environment, we will be accepting digital submissions ONLY. Accordingly, please send us mp3s, wavs or aiff files via downloadable link or FTP site. Please DO NOT send files by email as those may not reach us or will clog our system. Additionally, we will be using the audio you submit to cut to picture so we suggest you submit high quality files in order to ensure your material is best referenced.

We will accept and listen to anything you wish to submit. Please don’t hesitate to submit multiple works or multiple versions of the same theme.

Please send all submissions to PJ Bloom at pj@neophonic.com AND Heather Guibert at heather@neophonic.com. Everything will be filtered through this office.

THE DEAL

At the risk of stating the obvious, no “demo” money is available at this time. Anyone submitting material for this opportunity must do so on “spec” on their own time and dime.

The Parks & Recreation final main title theme is a work-for-hire! It pays $7,500. The theme song must be an original work, not an existing song or an arrangement of an existing song. No shared ownership is being offered by NBC (although writers will retain their customary writer’s share and participation in the performance income – which may be significant for a long-running internationally successful show). Encumbered artists and writers are welcome to participate but waivers will be required.

Now on to the fun part...

CREATIVE

It’s safe to say we have a blank canvas here. What we can tell you is this... While the series is clearly cut from the same creative cloth as The Office, P&R is its own show (in the same way Christopher Guest films have a similar look and feel but are uniquely individual)! As such, its main title theme must be unique. Any submission too closely emulating the main theme from The Office may do its composer a disservice and may not be considered simply on general principal.

P&R is a comedy but it also has heart. Our theme should represent that. It can have comic whimsy and quirk, but it shouldn’t be slapstick.

The theme must have a very distinct, memorable melody - the kind folks will whistle in cars and download as ringtones for years to come.

The theme can be instrumental or have lyrics. As far as what a lyric might say, keep in mind that anything too on the nose will not work. The rest is on you!

The main theme will be 30 seconds in length. Accordingly, your submissions must be approximately 30 seconds in length. PLEASE: Do not submit material shorter than 30 seconds and do not submit material longer than 35 seconds knowing we’ll have to edit. Any full-length song submissions and/or any material significantly longer than 30 seconds will not be considered.

We have attached the current P&R visual animatic. The music included in the animatic is TEMP only! It is an example of a sound the Producers are interested in and may be considered when writing your original work. However, please go with your creative gut and write what you feel! The temp music is a loose guideline – or no guideline at all.


Well... That’s pretty much it! Bottom line... We need the greatness and we need it fast!!! We are available to answer any questions but we’re hoping everything you need to know is embodied in this brief.

For those artist, composer and writer representatives, there is no need to ask of how we feel about a particular candidate. We can tell you right now... If they’re willing to write on spec and are amenable to the deal terms above... We LOVE the idea!!!

Let’s discuss only as needed. We look forward to hearing you wares very soon!

llivingston@bmi.com

Will Giacchino be replaced by his conductor for Oscar night?

Michael Giacchino, one of the nicest guys in town, was put into a very difficult position.

Mr. Giacchino was offered the glamour gig of Oscar conductor/composer, a job that veteran Bill Conti had ably served for 21 years. How could Mr. Giacchino turn the job down and what could possibly go wrong?

Well, as veteran musicians of live television would tell you, a lot.

The producers of the Oscar show, in their quest to make the show more au courant, didn't realize that Mr. Giacchino, while the busiest and hottest scorer in the business, is what is known as "a hummer" (that is, Mr. Giacchino has no formal musical training, he "hums" the music, or in contemporary terms, uses computers to take the dictation).

This is not to say that many in Hollywood come from outside of formal musical training background. For instance Danny Elfman and Hans Zimmer are some of the more famous contemporary "hummers" who have put their own stamp on orchestral scores over the years without ever conducting (they both hire professional arrangers and conductors to make sure their music is able to be presented to the orchestra and of course conducted).

But back to the Oscars, 2009. Mr. Giacchino and his agents Sam Schwartz and Michael Gorfaine (who has been responsible for John Williams, amongst others), saw a great opportunity to "legitimize" Mr. Giacchino as more than just a "hummer" and with the way Oscar telecasts have been done in the past, they all figured that if it was business as usual, this would all work out.

However, the producers were looking for a bigger spotlight and decided to place the orchestra and the conductor on stage to perform live.

Oops.

Yesterday's rehearsal with the orchestra was not good. The orchestra was polite (they all have a lot of money riding on the continuing charade of Mr. Giacchino's orchestral output), but afterwards were discussing the possibility that Mr. Giacchino's conductor Tim Simonec would be needed to come in to add some "professional" help.

When Mr. Giacchino took the job the hope had been that most of the music would be pre-recorded and Mr. Giacchino would get a nod from the host like Mr. Conti had gotten and no one in the audience would be the wiser.

However, when there are five nominees and the conductor has to know the tempos and time signatures for all five themes and do it live, then a degree of competence is required. Especially in front of a billion or whatever people.

I guess what is amazing is that this is the first time this has come up.

Up until now, professionals have manned the ship. However, as Hollywood has continued to wink and nod at the amateurs disguised as professionals, the day of revealing the emperor's new tux may have finally come.

That day is Sunday.