Getting Great Music For Your Indie Project
A majority of indie filmmakers, Sid Kali included, do not have the flush production budgets to hire a well known music supervisor or professional composer to score their movie. Let alone can we afford to license or pay royalties to top musicians to use their songs or tracks on the soundtrack. I produced a urban action movie, Consignment, that had a limited budget to spend on music. Turns out after some additional post-production expenses I had even less than expected.
Movies need music. There really is no way to argue against it. Good music adds impact, emotion, and mood to a film. Tartantino
has made amazing use of music in his films. Many viewers have commented that the music is like a character itself.
I was faced with the choices of putting the completion of Consignment on hold indefinitely until more money could be raised for the soundtrack or trying to find quality music that I could get for free or as close to free as possible. Not wanting to put the movie on hold I set out to shake some trees for music that moved me. It was a gamble I hoped would work.
I checked out some companies on the internet selling royalty free music in all types of genres from rock & roll to world beat for very affordable prices. Type ‘royalty free music‘ into a search engine to listen and shop around. I listened to tons of sample tracks. Most didn’t fit the feel of the urban action movie Consignment. A few tracks I did like were out my budget.
A cool thing I did discover is there are some filmmaker friendly sites that will allow you to download free original music to use in your movie. All they ask is that you properly credit the creators behind the music. Sonny Boo offers this on his website. I did not end up using the free downloads, but I think it’s good karma they put it out there.
The anxiety and stress of not finding the right music was becoming a mental drain. Nothing worse than the thought of your movie not getting done. I decided to try a different approach to getting the soundtrack squared away. I was going to contact independent bands, artists, and musicians directly with the chance to get exposure on a independent films soundtrack. Indie artists from the music and movie arena collaborating sounded like a win-win.
There’s many places to find independent artists and record labels looking to get their music heard. What better way than to be featured on a movie soundtrack? I religiously set aside hours everyday to listen to music from up and coming artists. After I had a narrowed down list of the tracks I wanted to use on Consignment I tracked down these artists and record labels contact information.
My independent music campaign was launched. I emailed, phoned, and faxed my pitch to the people on my list. I was excited about adding music I believed would add tremendously to the overall viewing experience of the movie. It was a tougher sell than I thought to get independent artists and record labels to contribute to an indie movie soundtrack.
My pitch was truthful about only offering credit for their music. My advice is not to BS people. Be upfront. I let them know this was a indie movie without big names or a Hollywood budget.