Me and two friend are planning a movie which we will be shooting this summer. If all goes well, we'll be sending it to some festivals as well, and then of course we don't get to use copyright-protected material. Does anyone have any idea how much it would cost us to buy the rights for "Questions in a World of Blue", the Julee Cruise song from "Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me"?
I made a short for Tropfest (Australias biggest short film festival) and for our clip we were going to use 1 minute of The Eels 'Love of the Loveless', to be played publicly just once, and they wanted us to pay $3000 for that.
It changes depending on the studio that owns the rights to the song, but if you call them they'll tell you.
Working with attorneys and record labels sounds like fun and all, but will you ever make your money back to cover the license fees? It might be more cost-effective if you scour the internet for an unsigned indie band that has the vibe you are looking for and send them an e-mail and ask them if you can use one of their songs. I've talked to a couple bands in the past, and they've all been very helpful and open to the idea of having one of their songs in a short film.
Another alternative is to have some original music. I know there are a few musicians who visit this board, and one of them might be able to write something for you that is heavily inspired by the specific song you want to use.
Good luck.
Julie Cruise? She's pretty good. I'd say $10,000 at least.
I heard that to just hum a few bars of "Happy Birthday" in your film will set you back a few thousand dollars.
PS: anybody looking for an excellent indie musician for your movie, check out Bill McGee aka Composure (on my website below -- click on the soundtrack page).
His stuff was so good we released a soundtrack CD ahead of the movie's completion. It is being played on various internet stations and people are paying, yes, paying to download tracks from it.
Bill has a bit of experience with movie music so he may be what some of you low budget filmmakers need.
How about these guys...
8mm
If you don't contact them about using a song, I will!
<font color="#a62a2a" size="1">[ May 07, 2005 04:09 AM: Message edited by: sn-films ]</font>
<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">It's a mad world.Originally posted by TJ_the_director:
Julie Cruise? She's pretty good. I'd say $10,000 at least.
I heard that to just hum a few bars of "Happy Birthday" in your film will set you back a few thousand dollars.
i think that's why even on films with huge budgets you hear them complaining that they wanted a certain song but couldn't afford the rights.
Music rights are getting higher and higher as record companies realize that they can get the cash. My suggestion is that you get a guy on the street to write you a song.
Good Luck
I feel sorry for the newbie in the indie filmmaking business that spent a heck of a pile of dough (he didn't have) to make a film around a hit song as the central theme only to later realize he shoulda read at least one book on filmmaking.
"happy birthday to you . . ."
That'll be $3,000 Mr. Director. Will that be check or Visa?
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