The Music Business Is Changing, See What's Falling Into...

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November 2011 music licensing tip sheet SUPERVISOR SPOTLIGHT Supervising "Preacher's Daughter" An in-depth interview with Music Supervisor Barry Coffing & Director Michelle Mower TRIUMPH OF THE HEARD 11 Great Songs... 11 Different Journeys From Heard To Licensed The Music Business Is Changing, See What's Falling Into Place Placements In Progress Music Licensing Overview Fresh From The Licensing Lounge News From The Front Lines FEATURES

Transcript of The Music Business Is Changing, See What's Falling Into...

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November 2011

music licensing tip sheet

SUPERVISOR SPOTLIGHT

Supervising "Preacher's Daughter"An in-depth interview with Music Supervisor

Barry Coffing & Director Michelle Mower

TRIUMPH OF THE HEARD

11 Great Songs...11 Different Journeys From Heard To Licensed

The Music Business Is Changing, See What's Falling Into Place

Placements InProgress

Music LicensingOverview

Fresh From TheLicensing Lounge

News From TheFront Lines

FEATURES

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Music Licensing Tip Sheet

Upgrade To The Pro Account - The First Month Is Free

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Barry CoffingFounder and CEO

During the changing of the seasons we have a lot of things to be grateful for. We are thankful for all the great music and artists we are lucky enough to work for every day. We are also thankful for all the new technology we use everyday -- and in our case -- the technology we make ourselves.

By the time you get this we will have launched the first phase of our new program called MAS (Mobile Alert System). We have always tracked your music and all the activity around it. But over time we realized that many of you were not looking at your tracking data very often. (Okay we're being nice, almost never) So with MAS we are bringing a mountain of data to you.

Here is how phase one will work. There are three notifications: 1) Placement Notification which means you have been licensed and we all made money (our favorite). 2) The Heard Report (It only goes out when your music has been heard for a project) so you know we did our job and you are in the game. And very soon we will add 3) Year End Report will give you a year end wrap up of the your activity. You will be able to set how often you want to be notified; daily, weekly, monthly or never. The reports are only triggered when we do our job and your music is heard.

We look forward to your input because by next year we plan to create 4 revenue streams and track them all with one app for your phone or iPad. It's been a busy month so read on and check it out. If like me you are a bit of a numbers nerd you will really like the pro account.

Thanks, Barry To Get An Account CLICK HERE

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Music Licensing 3Overview

Placements In 4Progress

Fresh From The 6Licensing Lounge

News From The 9Front Lines

Supervisor 10Spotlight

Triumph of the 16Heard

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This fall we have been very busy with over 150 active projects in the last three months. Country has been very active and our subject of the Supervisor Spotlight is one of the reasons. Rock, Score/SFX and Dance/Electronica were the licensing leaders. We also saw an upturn in broadcast TV activity with the holiday movies in full swing.

Pop and Score / SFX Saw A 2/1 Search to Licensing Ratio

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Licensing OverviewCLICK HERE

Licensing OverviewProjects, Searches, and Licenses

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Julius RobinsonDirector of Creative Operations

Cindi AvnetDirector of Music Placement

NOTE: We have left off the specific names of the shows below per the request of the music supervisors – they don’t want to be approached directly by our members. Thanks for respecting that rule. It’s why they go to a company like ours, to help them screen and select only the best music for their shows. If you have anymore ideas for the STILL OPEN projects, please send an email (and mp3 for quick review) to [email protected]. If not yet uploaded, please put .wav and info on the site. Please give your login name to confirm you’re a member.

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Placements In Progress

November smoked like a fine Cuban cigar. Congrats to Darling Parade and their tune “Lose You” which got placed in The Lying Game (ABC/Family). We also placed four songs in an indie film called, Sweet Old World. Congrats to death metal group Rivkit for “Perfect Murder,” and jazz artists Jack Perricone,

“Believe in Miracles,” The Hatfield Jazz Quartet, “I Called

Out Your Name” and the Brad Hatfield Trio, “Favors.” Also thanks again to Alan Broadbent and his licensing jazz hit “Journey Home” which was in the film and now has made DVD bonus scenes from the Anna Farris flick What’s My Number. We placed four covers for a Ka-raoke iPhone app, “The Final Countdown,” “I Will Survive,” and

“I Love Rock ‘n Roll” from Stringray, and Ken Tamplin’s smokin’ cover of “Born to Be Wild.”

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A Mixture of Film, TV, Web and Advertising

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Placements In Progress

CBS Television Network: Budget $1500: CBS’s roster of shows need music. They use a lot of big groups, but also need some indie music reflecting the spirit of each show. The only suggestion is to do your homework and watch episodes of these shows and submit music in that vein. The shows are: Common Law, Ringer, NCIS LA, NCIS, How to Be a Gentleman, Hawaii Five-O, The Good Wife, CSI NY, CSI Miami, Blue Bloods, 90210, The 22, The Gifted Man. STILL OPEN

Lionsgate Film: Budget: TBD. Comedy/Romance needs quirky up beat singer songwriter ala Edward Sharpe and The Magnetic Zeros "Home." STILL OPEN

Nu Image Film: Budget: TBD. Drama needs Mardi Gras brass band ala Rebirth, instrumental only and uptempo. STILL OPEN

NuImage Film #2: Budget: TBD. Comedy needs interest-ing piano bluesy instrumentals that are rock ‘n roll piano band sound and fully produced rather than sparse or solo piano. For the moment they have temped in Dave Grusin score from "The Firm" but too dated sounding for them. STILL OPEN

Web Commercial: Budget $1000. Sync/Master. Composi-tion with classical elements needed for web commercial. Client is currently cutting a web commercial for an insurance company.

The need is an instrumental with classical elements, not too score-like. Reference: “Rolling in the Deep (Piano / Cello Version)” by Adele. Rhyth-mic, minimal, yet smooth -- and not too string-focused. We are looking for that mood with similar tempo. We need an instrumental, as there will be voiceover. STILL OPEN

Web video music: Budget: $50 per cue/multiple use. Mixed mar-tial arts branded diet product website needs instrumental electronic and pop music that has energy, but also emotion for testimonial interviews and other product videos. STILL OPEN

Indie Film: Budget: Low. A reclusive writer takes an aspiring actress under his wing. Needs to replace Coldplay “Fix You.” PITCH COMPLET-ED/WAITING FOR RESPONSE

Advertising: "Behind The Scenes" video about the making of a clothing spot has a temp track: Foster The People - "Houdini" and they want to find something with a similar vibe to put in it's place. It should be an feel-good indie hipster track and can have either male or female vo-cals. PITCH COMPLETED/WAITING FOR RESPONSE

NOTE: Even if listings say “pitch completed/waiting for response”, feel free to upload .wav and info of that kind of music for similar future requests.

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This track starts out quiet and then picks up with a driving kick drum and really nice soulful vocal. Vocals and some nice percussion really carry this track. Based out of Orlando Q-BAM is get-ting the ears of Music Supervisors everywhere.

A very haunting solo sax version of this song is really catching the attention of supervisors. It has a New Age Kenny G sound if Kenny was on a Tenor instead of Soprano sax.

Jacks "Believe In Miracles" has a great slow swing feel with an amazing sax lead that you could hear in a smoky Jazz club scene. It is almost two tracks because the long piano string intro is one feel and then when-the sax enters it really swings. Another fine artist from Heavy Hitters Music

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Lipshock“Come Inside”

Q-Burns Abstract Message“Innocent”

Dance/Electronica

Licensing LoungeCLICK HERE

Fresh From The Licensing LoungeMonthly Listening Leaders - The Songs Getting The Most Attention

Westar“Substitution”

Classical/New Age

Jack Perricone“Believe In Miracles”

Jazz/Blues

These tracks are all very musical and have some great melodies with very interesting chords

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The South is really having a good month with 2 Nashville Artists and one from Houston

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Licensing LoungeCLICK HERE

Fresh From The Licensing LoungeMonthly Listening Leaders - The Songs Getting The Most Attention

"Life Is So Good" for Nashville based songwrit-er/producer/engineer Dave Tough. He holds the top spot in the Country genre in a month that saw country searches really pick up.

Break out the B3 and take us to church. This track is a great mix of a soulful track and traditional choir. Jake really is getting a look this month and his photo makes him look like a composer for the ages.

Scott Mochon is a Houston Native and his version of this traditional Mexican Folk Song is our most active world track. It is so real and the vocals and guitar are perfect for film and TV uses and this one is really getting heard.

Scott Mochon“Guadalajara”

World/Latin/Reggae

Jake Hill“Amazing Grace”

Religious/Holiday

Dave Tough“Life Is So Good”

Country

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Fresh From The Licensing LoungeMonthly Listening Leaders - The Songs Getting The Most Attention

Real Artists Making A Lot Of Noise And Getting Some Much Deserved Attention

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Licensing LoungeCLICK HERE

Okay these lads really ROCK! UK based Lip-Shock held the number one spot most of the month and it's easy to see why. A real throw-back sound that is a little nasty and real fun.

Sika is a band started by Russian brothers Aleksey & Sergei they have quite a story and they were the most active song in the pop genre during November. A real nice track with a live band feel with a very cool airy production.

"Last Night" is so cool and it's a 60's track that is as powerful today as the day it was recorded. Neice has a voice that is so bluesy and honest that it cuts through the horns with no problem. What a singer and what a track R&B at it's finest.

Sika"Forget About Me”

Pop/Easy Listening

Lipshock"Come Inside”

Rock

Neice Dezel “Last Night”

R&B/Hip-Hop

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News From The Front Lines

Active Around The World

Time is flying so I must be having fun up here in Canada! I've wrapped up my clear-ance job on the Atlanta Celtic Christmas Concert for The W.B Yeats foundation at Emory U with a pretty little bow and I really look forward to getting a peak at that delightful production this Christmas on PBS. My NY film, Bert and Arnie's Guide to Friendship is on the editing floor and we are putting all our creative energy into marry-ing pre-recorded MS.com cues and full length songs with custom composition. Bullet in the Face, my 6 part Canadian TV series, is hunting down 1 or 2 "known" tracks for big music moments but other than that we are working with a wide variety of electro soundscapes and vulgar, quirky Indie vocal tunes -- from cheesy eurotrash and songs about bullets and bombs to pulsing progressive electronic stuff, we are still discover-ing the sound of the show and what an awesome journey that is. About to get some news about four 50s inspired French songs being placed in a major motion picture. I've been asked to speak on a panel at "Music And Film In Motion", a conference up in Northern Ontario, on Music Supervisor's behalf. Can't wait to tell you about my cool new friends up there!! So, that's the good word, more news next time, so stay tuned, Canada's hot...figuratively that is.

Holly Fagan

As reports come in from Europe, Africa, Australia and North America, we are gathering data that will represent the second half of 2011. We still need all genres over two minutes, instrumentals and vocals with radio sensibility. All songs will be submitted for the New Year soon and we hope to get all new artists that have joined in the last 6 to 8 months a shot at a spot on our retail radio chan-nels. Many of the new artist that I have had the pleasure of meeting with and/or speaking to recently have a high likelihood of placement within the program. This is an exciting time!

Derek Lefholz

Holly FaganDirector of Music Supervisor Canada

Derek LefholzArtist Relations & Director of Radio In Retail

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THE PREACHER’S DAUGHTER – Making Music Work In An Indie Film

An interview with the Director and Music Supervisor

Michelle Mower is a filmmaker from Houston Texas. Her new film “The Preacher’s Daughter” starring Andrea Bowen (“Desperate Housewives”), has just completed post production - The interview below is with Michelle Mower and Barry Coffing, CEO & Founder of MusicSupervisor.com (who was not only the music supervisor but the writer and producer of original songs for the film too). Get ready for some fascinating insights into indie filmmaking and the process of finding the right music for an indie film.

Who’s who: MM: Michelle Mower BC: Barry Coffing JR: Julius Robinson

JR: So Michelle, can you tell us how ‘Preacher’s Daughter’ was conceived and written?

MM: It was conceived from life. I am a preacher’s daughter so I have a lot of stories that can be told from that charac-ter’s perspective. Although the story itself is fictional, despite what Barry will tell you (laughing).

BC: I keep accusing her of it being autobiographical.

MM: The plot is actually fictional, because trust me, my life growing up was not nearly that interesting! But at the same time I think there are a lot of elements in the story that I have pulled from my own experiences as a preacher’s daugh-ter. Everyone who’s seen it, or read the script, say they feel like the story is very realistic. I started writing the screen-play ten years ago. I wrote a short version of the script and took it to a local producer who read it and said, “This needs to be a feature film, it’s too big of a story to tell in a short film format.” So I went back and basically wrote the feature length version. It was such a personal story that it took me a long time just to let anyone read it. Writers are often self-

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The Supervisor Spotlight: Barry Coffing

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The Supervisor Spotlight: Barry Coffing

conscious about what we write. Finally I did start getting it out there and getting feedback. We did a script reading and everyone who read it really had a lot of great things to say. We entered it into a couple of competitions, and placed in them. I finally ran out of excuses not to make the film, and I’m glad I did. I think the timing was right when we actually did make it. I think if I had tried to make this film 10 years ago, it would not have been nearly as good. Things happen as they are supposed to and I think we produced a film that we can all be really proud of.

JR: Great, before we get to the music part, what was the biggest challenge in making this film?

MM: Oh by far it was the budget. We had relatively no money. It was extremely low budget, and I went into this production thinking I was going to shoot something very guerilla style - getting my film community together, shooting on weekends with all local cast and crew. As things evolved, we ended up taking the production to a much more mainstream level, got some named talent attached... Hey, we got Barry Coffing on board, I mean right there that’s great!

BC: Thanks! I remember when I first read the script, I was one of the people cheering and saying you can’t do this “no name,” because you’ve got a great story going. If there is no name talent attached, it really makes it rough. So I was on the other side saying “no, no” -- go get some name actors, the script deserves it. Michelle, tell them about the name talent you have in the film.

MM: My lead actress is Andrea Bowen who’s best known for her role as “Julie Mayer” on Desperate Housewives --Teri Hatcher’s daughter on the show. My lead actor is Adam May-field who played “Scott Chandler” on All My Children. We also have Lew Temple who is one of those guys where you’ve seen him in a thousand things, he is kind of a character actor. He’s done a lot of Hollywood studio stuff and indie stuff, like Unstoppable, Rango, Domino, and Waitress. He’s a great actor and I loved working with him so much. Watching him was amazing, I mean all of my actors were. Andrea is phenomenal; I was so fortunate to get her on my film. So we have a bunch of talented local actors, too, like Ron Jackson, a very sea-soned actor, Cyndi Williams and Jamie Teer.

JR: Now that I have you talking Barry, what was the concept for the music, if there was any, after you read the script and then when you saw the cut?

BC: When I read the script, you kind of break down the film. I thought, “We’ll need music for the party here, a transition here, church music there, the girl is a singer what will she sing?” First, I was dealing with pre-records. That’s music performances shot on-camera during a scene. You have to record those with the actors in advance in the studio, or have the actors sing to pre-cleared pre-existing music. In the story, it’s in the church and there is a music minister. There were a lot we had to deal with before we could even shoot. Michelle grew

Continued

Michelle Mower

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up on this genre, so when it came time to pick a “church song,” she would think for like a millisecond and just name one. The songs she picked would work perfectly, so I just shut up and listened. Then there’s a song I wrote with you Julius, “You’re of the Glory” which was the secular “Christian” song she sang in the church. We had a music minister Adams’s character who had dreams of being a rock star, more than a music minister, so we needed to have another song that kind with a more secular feel, which I wrote. In his head he’s performing in front of ten thousand people like Billy Joel and Andrea’s character walks in, sees him in that light which sort of begins the process of her not seeing him as an old music minister. It’s her seeing someone with a musical passion, he suddenly seems younger, and sexier. So I ended up writing that custom, specifically for the scene. Then when it came time to post, Michelle had a very clear vision of what she wanted musically. She wanted a rootsy, down-home raw country, Austin kind of vibe, with acoustic instruments. A lot of it was utiliz-ing the technology and tools in Musicsupervsior.com – we pretty much used every bell and whistle it has. For example, while she was editing the film she found the big opening party music. Can you jump in on that Michelle?

MM: Yeah, I had gone in and was looking for songs because the opening party music in-volves a drug trip where the music itself is a part of the trip. The drug trip sequence had to be cut to the music because it was a part of the actual experience itself, so I went onto Musicsupervisor.com and found this one song I really liked. I was actually thinking of it for a different scene. But once I was sitting with my editor I thought to just try it there and see how it plays, and once he laid it down it was just like, “That’s it, that’s the song, that’s the one I have to have!” You can ask Barry, I was dogging him, I was like -- this is my song, it’s it!

BC: (laughing) Yeah, she goes “There’s two songs that I found that are in the movie, okay? You get them, I don’t give a shit about anything else, these two songs are in the movie!”

JR: What was the title of the opening song?

Continued

Andrea Bowen

Adam Mayfield

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The Supervisor Spotlight: Barry Coffing

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BC: It’s called “Dinosaurs in the Garden” by Neptune Crush.

JR: Oh great!

BC: Michelle and I have really crazy schedules, so we weren’t at the same location a lot. We used MusicSupervisor.com as our virtual home base. I put a bunch of songs in project fold-ers. One of the songs ended up being used for our end title. She wrote me back in the notes section and said “I love! Love! Love! this song, where can we use it?” So I wrote back, “How about the end title?’ So Sally Semrad’s “Grace of Angels” ended up being the end title song. By using the site, we got to spend our time being creative rather than trying to be forensic lawyers spending all our time hunting down labels and publishers. But we don’t feel like we compromised anything. Like, Michelle really liked a Sarah McLachlan tune for a love scene, and it was a great song, but what we ended up with from the site is better, sexier and more disturbing in context: “Giver of Mercy” by Brenda Harp.

MM: Something that Barry touched on because the film is so rooted in spirituality, the back-drop of it is the church and this is an environment that many people are familiar with already, but maybe not as fully as the character. So it was a challenge trying to find music that played into that spirituality without being specifically Christian music, if that makes any sense. It’s hard to find music that can play both ways, secular and religious, and I think we did a really good job of finding music that has a spiritual element to it, but at the same time could be used in an edgy way.

BC: Whether the bands were Christian or secular, one of the things we secretly did was have religious phrases or images in the lyrics whenever possible.

JR: Any other stories about posting this film?

BC: On the last day of dub stage we had to make three emergency music searches on MusicSupervisor.com. First we had a scene we edited perfectly for the picture, and then Mi-chelle found some really great footage of a skyline at night, a 24-hour high speed passing of time, and cut it into the film. Then music no longer worked for that scene. So opened up my laptop added the new picture and re-edited it, showed it to her. We tried two or three differ-

ent ways, finally got it right, walked into the studio with a thumb drive, gave the guys it to the guys mixing the film and we were done. Then in another scene they said “We got all of your music cues Barry except for the this one for a jukebox.” We all missed it, but mostly me. So I’m going “Oh crap!” so Michelle and I go into the next room with our two laptops and log into Musicsupervisor.com. We finally find one, she goes “yeah that works,” so I do the music edit and make it sound like it’s coming out of a jukebox, walk in and hand it to them. They plug it in and it’s perfect. Finally, we knew we were going to need a second end title song for the credits, so I found some other stuff, and played it for Michelle. She loved one and boom -- there’s our second end title song. So three things were placed on the very last day using the technology that we built. Yea us!

JR: Right, because you had it right at your fingertips and could search through a very large catalog (over 125,000 tracks), find something – know it was pre-cleared and ready to li-cense... What an amazing tool!

BC: Yeah, we also found this guy named Gary Hill in a search, and he sounds like the second coming of Johnny Cash. He’s killer and we plugged him into one of the restaurant scenes. From Tracy Lawrence, who’s a country star who has his own production company and label, we have a former American Idol artist he’s developing in our system Lacey Brown. She got the second end title slot I was talking about.

JR: Barry, who scored the film?

BC: A composer named Scott Szabo, and actually, funny enough he and I both went to the high school of performing visual arts. He and I were always bantering stuff back and forth. It was really a nice collaboration. Michelle has assembled a lot of really great people for this project. Kelley Baker who did the sound design and dialogue editing also did a great job. World class talent!

MM: Typically, one of the biggest problems that plague indie films is sound. So we certainly had our fair share of issues come up once we started posting the film. We had scenes that literally had no dialogue recorded. We were having some major issues like popping and background noise. I wasn’t really sure how bad it was, I knew there were some challenges

Continued

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but I honestly couldn’t guess how much it would cost me to fix. So Kelley Baker, who is a long time friend, is a professional sound designer in Hollywood. He did a number of Gus Van Sant’s films and Todd Haynes’s Far From Heaven. I sent him the Quicktime of the film and said okay, how bad is it? His reply was, “Don’t worry, whatever problems you have can be fixed.” He’s a real pro, but he is also a true guerilla independent filmmaker. He goes around the country teaching classes on how to make microbudget films -- so he gets it. Kelley brought together a team up in Portland, Oregon that, I mean, there’s no way I could assemble a team like this on my own. Like, my dialogue editors worked on films like Gladia-tor and The Talented Mr Ripley. They are highly experienced people who agreed to help this little indie out. I did pay them -- but certainly not as much as Hollywood! So it was nice to be able to have that level of experience to contribute to the film. What they did with the sound is absolutely mind blowing.

JR: Yeah, that’s so important! As we know, more than 50% of the impact of a film is the sound and music.

MM: I would even say 60%. I put it up there with importance with having a good script for the story, having good actors. Sound and music play such a huge part in the telling of the story. I have been editing and watching the movie over the last year. When the music and final sound mix were added, it was like watching a whole new movie. It was such a beauti-ful experience as a filmmaker to finally see your vision, your words on paper realized into something that you can be proud of, and say “I did that” along with all of these other brilliant people.

BC: I know you are trying to be modest about this, but literally -- you did that. Yeah, you ral-lied people to your cause, but you were the evangelist, you were the creator. You don’t write those words, nobody does anything. Making a movie is such an epic journey; don’t even feel bad about taking a little credit.

JR: Both Barry and I have been down the road as producer and writer on some long-term, difficult film projects!

MM: Oh yeah I’m taking credit! You see my name twice in the opening credits (laughs) so I’m taking my due credit, don’t get me wrong. But with that said, there is absolutely no way that I could have done this without the help of everyone involved. All the way from my script supervisor to my first AD to my sound guys, to craft services, everyone involved were such an instrumental part in getting this film realized and where it is now. I’m so proud of the film we created and no matter what happens, or where it goes distribution wise, to me, we have succeeded with this film. Despite all of the challenges we had to face and obstacles to over-come, tensions, craziness that happens on ultralow budget sets -- at the end of the day all that matters is that we told a good story and we told it well.

BC: Making a good movie -- nobody really wants to say it, but it is pretty close to a miracle! When you consider that they make 5,000 feature movies a year, and less than 450 of them even get commercially sold, your odds are already not good!

JR: Michelle, what is your background before this film?

MM: Well, I’ve written, produced and directed a number of short films. I’ve produced TV episodes, shot music videos, just a hodgepodge of things. Here in Houston there just is not a lot of feature film work, so you kind of have to make your own work, and build your own resume. So that’s the path that I took. I was really fortunate that I worked for a non-profit media organization that is one of the oldest in the country called Southwest Alternate Media Project (SWAMP). It’s been around for 34 years, and I was a program coordinator for them for eight years. SWAMP enabled me to make many valuable connections within the industry and in the independent world as well, and many of those contacts ended up working on this film, like Barry and Kelley. They knew me, they knew my work in the community, they knew my work as a filmmaker and wanted to support me and my project; supporting a Houston film maker! So that’s my background. I’m also a preacher’s daughter so I feel like this is a story I really wanted to tell and not in the traditional 7th Heaven way so I think that hopefully people will see the film and at the very least say it is a well made film that tells a story that is honest, and real and ultimately has a positive message.

JR: Wonderful. When are you going to screen it?

Continued

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MM: We’re not sure yet. The next stage of this process is to start submitting to film festivals. Hopefully, we will get a nice festival premiere in the early part of next year. We’ll see where we go from there, hopefully we get a distributor on board who will take it out into the world so more people can see it.

JR: That’s great. So is there a growing Houston film making community? Other filmmakers that you know of that are working on movies there?

MM: Absolutely, in fact I just came from a meeting with a producer who is making a feature film here called Patriot Act - definitely one to watch. They are doing it right. There are a lot of people in Houston who are trying to make films - some better than others, just like in any community. I’ve been able to meet a lot of super- talented people who I believe are going to be the important filmmakers of the future.

JR: Tell us about the next project you are going to do and where do you think filmmaking is going in the future?

MM: One of the areas I’ve become interested in, looking at my own career and where I’d like to go, is “transmedia.” This is multi-platform storytelling where you use a variety of media -- anything from film, TV, internet, mobile to live performances --different options you can incorporate into your storytelling. It engages the audience in a very direct way, so the audi-ence actually becomes a part of the storytelling process. To me that is such a revolutionary concept; the story will evolve with the audience actually participating. I went to a conference in New York back in April to learn more about some of the people leading the transmedia revolution as I like to call it, and they just had another meeting in San Francisco. To me the beauty of all the technology we have now is that storytelling can evolve into something a lot more interactive and interpersonal. Ultimately, it will change the way that we consume media in the future.

JR: Can you talk about how music underlines your drama? I think it tells your audience when it’s okay to laugh and cry and really prompts them to feel things. Audiences don’t know how to feel sometimes.

MM: Even as a writer, music is important. I actually listen to music that sort of puts me in that mental mode of the script. So for instance with Preacher’s Daughter I listened to a lot of home grown, folk, country, some rock like Lucinda Williams, Sheryl Crow -- a lot of different music that I felt like was female centered and had the female perspective, and had a lot of storytelling in the music itself. That helped me to keep the tone of the story where I wanted it. So I use music more than just in the final product.

JR: Barry, do you think down the line there could be a soundtrack compilation?

BC: Oh yes there’s a bunch of great artists and songs in the film and even though there are a lot of diverse styles there’s the spiritual through lines that I think will hold it all together. We’ve got Barefoot Servants in the 7-11 scene, the song is called “Box of Miracles.” There are two cool indie songs about angels and we even have a hip-hop track. The majority of the music has a real Texas flavor because there are quite a few artists from Houston & Austin.

JR: That’s great.

MM: That was something that was really important to me because it is shot in Texas. I don’t consider myself a Hollywood filmmaker, I’m a Texas filmmaker. I sort of like to try to keep things down home, and make it feel like we’re telling a story from this region - not Hollywood.

JR: That’s great, congratulations!

MM: Well thank you so much.

Continued

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The Supervisor Spotlight: Barry Coffing

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Triumph of the Heard

Brenda Harp "Giver Of Mercy"This is my favorite musical moment in the film -- the "Love Scene" between the young preacher’s daughter and music minister. The director was in love with a Sarah McLachlan song and they even edited the film to one of her tracks. Needless to say some of her songs have been licensed for more than the entire budget of this film so we needed to find a replacement. We wanted something female and rootsy with reli-gious images so when I found this track I thought, oh please let it work with picture, and boy did it. It was spiritual and sexy and right when she is in a hot embrace on the Sunday school floor it cuts to a picture of Jesus looking down and the song lyric says, “Lord of Creation.” After looking at Brenda’s bio I saw she was a worship leader and I thought, oh no I've got to call her because she may not want to have her song in this movie. So I left her a message but Michelle and I thought we would be finding something else. She called back and I said I want to use your song but it's in a very edgy film. Brenda said, "What's it about?" So I said it's about a preacher’s daughter who has an af-fair with her music minister and she said, "Oh like that never happens.” I looked over at the director and gave her the thumbs up. Needless to say she agreed and we just did a cast and crew screening of a rough version and you could really hear them react.

Wayside Drive "The Great Divide"This is perhaps one of the most interesting stories because they had written a song called "Come Get Some" that the director loved. She wanted the lead character to sing this song in club scene. In preparation for shooting the film I got the instrumental tracks from them and I recorded a version of their song with the lead actress singing it. I did a rough shooting mix and we were ready to go. During production it was decided to cut the entire scene and the song with it. But during the last week of finishing the film it was decided to add some great high-speed shots of the Houston skyline during a driving scene. Guess what? The song for that scene didn't work with the new footage so Michelle suggested another one of their songs and I cut it in and it looked great. So they lost a placement when a scene was cut and got placed when some footage was added. Talk about full circle.

Normally in triumph of the Heard we interview one of our success stories but this month we thought we would tell 11 stories from Heard to Licensed. Even though all the songs were chosen by the same people for the same project the stories are all very different. (as told by the Music Supervisor Barry Coffing)

Brenda Harp "Giver Of Mercy"

Wayside Drive "The Great Divide"

Stories of music from "The Preachers Daughter"

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Jonathan Clay “Back To Good”Jonathan is a Houston native who is now out in LA and his song has been in and out of this movie in two different places so many times I've lost count. It's a great song about getting back to a good place and Lord knows this girl could use that. It plays in a long driving scene where she is going back home with her father after being busted and during a walking scene where she thinking about trying to do better.

Krome “Makes Em Move”The director wasn’t sure about using Rap or Hip-Hop but she wanted to show that small town kids listen to hip stuff. Krome is from Nashville and the nephew of The Fairfield Four gospel quartet, so he was raised in the church but this track sounds like a party and guess what -- it plays during a party by the lake. We tried Rock and Metal but Hip-Hop won the day and Krome beat out a lot of other tracks for this spot.

Gael MacGregor "We're Hot Tonight"Gael is not only a great singer but a music supervisor herself. Needless to say her songs get licensed a lot. This song was one of three that was presented to the director with the idea being something up, positive, female and country/real. It's play-ing in the background of a restaurant for about 10 seconds, so don't blink.

Jonathan Clay "Back To Good"

Krome “Makes Em Move”

Gael MacGregor "We're Hot Tonight"

Barefoot Servants“Box of Miracles”

Neptune Crush“Dinosaurs In The Garden”

Barefoot Servants “Box of Miracles”This track is mixed down low in a 7-11 scene. We wanted a 70's rock sound and these guys really have it. It's a bit of an all-star band featuring Singer/Guitarist Jon Butcher and world famous bassist Leeland Sklar. I hope we have a soundtrack because this track really rocks and you can't tell in the movie because it's just there to add a blue collar feel to the scene.

Neptune Crush“Dinosaurs In The Garden”This is the big opening song that sets the tone for the movie. This one was found by the director using our program so I get no credit for finding this track but I did music edit this thing within an inch of it's life. It's during a drug trip part scene with crazy special effects so I'm turning it up & down, cutting out verses, making it sound like it playing through a door and then like it's part of an acid trip and then part of a paranoid delusion.

ContinuedTriumph of the Heard

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Sally Semrad “Grace of Angels”I had this track in a long list of cool songs for one of the driving scenes. Michelle logged on and listened to all the tracks and made notes and her note by this song was "I Love! Love! Love! this song where can we use it?" I wrote back how about the end title? And so it is. This is the only song that was even tried and that is very rare.

Lacey Brown “Let It Go”We needed a second end title song and we had tried Lacey in several other spots and her stuff never worked to picture but we loved her stuff. She was a top 12 final-ists on American Idol and is signed to Tracy Lawrence's production company. They are making a great record with her -- and now she's in this movie.

Sally Semrad“Grace of Angels”

Lacey Brown“Let It Go”

Gary Hill “Looking For A Woman”I love this guys voice because he sounds like the second coming of Johnny Cash. I submitted several of his songs for scenes in the movie and I even cut one to picture but he got beat out or passed on ev-ery time. On the last day of the mix we got to a long scene (4:08) in a restaurant and they asked where the music for this scene was. Oops somehow it never got on the list! I ran into an office with my lap-top and the director and started playing songs I said how about this guy, and the director said let's see it. So I cut it to picture and moved it around a bit so his lyrics didn't fight the dialogue and she approved it on the spot.

Albert & Gage “I Used To Be Lonesome”We needed something up and happy to play in the background at a restaurant where Hanna sees the music minister years later with his now pregnant wife and 4 kids. This Austin duo really hit the spot. They beat out 6 or 7 other tracks for this slot.

Gary Hill “Looking For A Woman”

Albert & Gage“I Used To Be Lonesome”

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Triumph of the Heard