So after seeing first hand how difficult it is to put on a good music licensing panel, I finally had a chance to do one myself. This past July I was lucky to be invited to host a workshop on music licensing at the National Association of Television Producers and Executives' LATV Fest, and I was really excited to test my theories about what folks really want and need to know about the process.
By the way, anyone looking to take their production chops in TV to the next level: this is a great little event. You know it's a great event when the opportunity to hang out with the attendees alone seems like it'd be worth the registration fee, let alone the panelists, whose talks were among the most intelligent and relevant I've ever had the pleasure to attend.
My workshop was booked full in advance and was slated to take place on the "patio" of the Sunset Strip's House of Blues, which turned out to be an astoundingly beautiful room—all carved sandalwood and velvety Persian rose patchwork—like the inside of Scheherazade's jewelry box. I started things off by showing a well known clip from The Big Lebowski—the one where the character Jesus (played by John Turturro) is lining up his shot at the bowling alley to the Gypsy Kings' Spanish cover of The Eagles' "Hotel California."
I showed this clip partly to demonstrate how big the artistic payoff can be when you start thinking about music in pre-production phase versus post, but also just to start things off in an un-tedious fashion (licensing talk gets dry, fast). I introduced myself and rattled off the topics I planned to cover in the session. I asked the participants if this list seemed to match what they were looking for, and It did, so we were off to the races.
We covered some serious ground. Topics of discussion included the benefits of using—at least in part—a "various artists" approach to music in television, the reasons you need to get a license to use the music in television, the two types of rights you need to acquire for each piece of music, the right way to approach an individual or organization to get those rights, strategies for negotiating licenses on a budget, strategies for finding and working with a music supervisor, and more.
I packed in as much information as I could, stayed as engaging as I could, took as many questions as I could, and before I knew it, the workshop was over and happy hour had begun in the adjacent room. There I met many of the people who had attended the workshop, and the more I learned about them, the more difficult it was to believe that I'd had anything to offer them by way of expertise; they were so accomplished already in their fields, so smart and engaged in their work, but well, there you have it. Music licensing is a funny thing. Even among the pros, it's easy to stay somewhat unclear on how it's done. I got what seemed like a lot of positive feedback on the session, and I was happy with how it had gone.
When I got home I found myself expanding the guide based on their questions. This guide of mine is becoming almost book like!
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