The Commodification of Placements

[nineofkings]

Recently I've been on this kick to try to write music for other people. Writing for myself and my band is great, and fulfilling, but branching out is an interesting experience, and often the limits of writing to a certain aesthetic are helpful rather than restricting (at least with the artists I've worked with so far). And who knows, it might lead to some money eventually.

So I turned to Google to find more opportunities. I thought, there must be so many people who need songs, with ideas that need to be fleshed out, or for media, or whatever. I was right, but get this - you have to pay to submit to the vast majority of them. Your money. For the privilege of just being CONSIDERED.

How has this become so prolific? It seems like the choices are either music X-Ray and similar "give us your money so we might maybe think about possibly helping you," or sketchy Craigslist ads. And this works for these companies? Somehow I doubt that the majority of TV shows get their music from some hopeful band or artist paying $10 to submit their mp3 to some faceless media corporation through a website that advertises "FREE signup!" Along the bottom.

tl;dr: Having to pay to submit for a job is ridiculous.

[ntom]

I think it's basically the "Rule 34" of money.
If there is any chance to make money off of it, someone is doing it.

In this case, Google is going to bring up WEBSITES dedicated to this, but not actual people. It sort of becomes the ebay of "people in need of creative direction", where people have realized there are desperate artists out there and therefore tacked on a price to gouge you out of your money, and the real value of having a creative advisor has sunk below the actual value of the money.

But, that's not to say there aren't people out there who would appreciate your help. Hell, if you want to help me with a song I tried writing a song that has a good chorus and a verse but I'll be damned if I can figure out how to make a full sound out of it
Small time Youtubers or content creators almost always are appreciative of getting support, and usually they don't have the budget to pay, and I doubt they have the gal to ask to be paid to listen to your stuff. I've gone down this route before, and I wish I could say it's been successful, sadly, it has not been - but this is the thing: It doesn't hurt to ask. And considering your music, in particular, is way more relatable than the noisey racket I write, you probably would have been luck than me.

in short, turning to a website dedicated to the idea you are looking for is going to find some way to take your money from your wallet. It's probably better to do your own research by contacting people.

Finally, I do want to include a link that...well, you probably won't have much luck at either, but it's another source to check.
https://www.elance.com/

When I signed up I noticed there were game-modders and very small-time developers requesting support. Their pay was godawful or nonexistent, but that's not what it's about right? It's about expanding your horizon. Contacting them and seeing what it is they are looking for wouldn't hurt.

[jancivil]

Placement is a means by which production entities in the picture bidness can get more or less passable content a lot cheaper than the usual professional channels.
I hate to say it but cheaping out tells on itself more often than not. But it exists to serve the producer that's run out of money to license things that are established, or to get around paying the composer in some cases. To cut costs for the music direction. In a way it's smart business because of all the people that try to live the dream but have yet to take the steps (for many this means make the hard choice of giving up your day job, essentially) to establish themselves as players in the game. There is a lot of fodder out there to exploit. There is a lot of competition.


There was a classic KVR thread about it a little while back where someone thought this was a good place to shill for a well-known (and successful) placement service. I forget the name of it. They place a lot! Before I said too much I did my due diligence and the things I was able to absolutely verify were such crap.
I found one thing that a composer would enter and it would be a SHIT TON OF WORK on spec for a chance to be considered. Instead of paying the person scoring the picture to do this one cue, they contacted this placement service. Could be this one cue would mean a bigger budget than anything else (full orchestra and choir).
Maybe they didn't even think they had to hire someone to score the picture, I don't know. This entry was from Bizarro World afaic.

I don't have a good attitude about it. I'm "bitter". Meaning realistic.

[ntom]

I don't have a good attitude about it. I'm "bitter". Meaning realistic.

And I personally could never ask you to change that. Makes for some of the best, most-sound minded in an aggressive way posts on KVR

Yeah, I personally was not talking about scoring a whole project - in that case I probably would ask to be compensated. What I was referring to is that sometimes, for the best example, a project may need like...an intro song, or an credit song. Or just some music assets, either way, you have the skills to provide that, and I don't necessarily think it would take too much work (whether you should be paid or not is debatable, but not relevant to the point I am trying to make) to help contribute to the project. In this case, you get some minor exposure plus you help another struggling artist out with their creation. Honestly, I see it as a win for everybody, but I'm not quite as bitter as some people

[jancivil]

Well, the things I verified were definitely placed through that thing - in conjunction with IMDb - it was C&W songs, and I imagine they already had the songs.
But it cost to produce the songs (I don't think these folks are KVR type producas). Yep, they were getting a review off of somebody hearing the thing in the TV drama and something to put on their website so it is a win; if they think paying a fee is ok, it's got to be ok by me.

But the other side of the coin was I saw the thing where somebody needed the Canadian National Anthem for a cue, with full orchestra and choir, and while my mind went to "I could use any payday at all" it was a couple of minutes to see that the winner of this little contest is someone that is nicely set up (FULL_ORCHESTRAL_CHOIR. Think about that for a second.) already and doesn't need the money, that's an expensive cue. And it occurred to me probably more expensive than what they'll pay someone in the actual business of scoring pictures to do. And they're not paying to license something already extant to do that. So that's kind of nuts. They want someone with a hobby ready to go through all these changes in order to say "I GOT PLACED! "

[nineofkings]

I've been wondering how to find YouTubers in need of music, now that you mention it, ntom. And I'd be glad to give your song a look if you were serious about that bit.

I'm glad that jancivil is letting me express my cynicism vicariously . Oh well. It just seems so predatory and unconducive to a meritocracy.

It sounds like there's a lot of schmoozing behind the scenes.

[jancivil]

I don't think recognizing the "commodification" is cynical, it is what it is, that's a succinct word for it.

From the perspective of, really I'm more the age of your grandmother than you, the internet and the technology has birthed a whole thing where there is a glut of people needing to be noticed, so the natural tendency of people that gravitated towards music as something to exploit - as people to exploit - has this natural result of big organizations to do it. I mean there are so many more people that have something on the order of 'product' today, that once upon a time would probably have not bothered to make music, you couldn't really fabricate a record out of other people's loops.

It's what ReverbNation is all about, all of these kind of middling opportunities for exposure parceled out to the subscribers of it... there have been one or two from Music XRay might have been viable for me but I'm not really avid about all that, it isn't a problem to toss money at.

But as per a chance to get yourself out there in order to cultivate more chops, I think the thing to do is be very generous with other people and their music via social media, 'sociable', and things would tend to present to you more organically. When I was a very young musician, you went out all over town and got friendly, you went into Reliable Pawn and 'tried out' instruments and showed off a bit, hung out and people would notice you and call you. There was no internet.

[ntom]

I've been wondering how to find YouTubers in need of music, now that you mention it, ntom. And I'd be glad to give your song a look if you were serious about that bit.

Of course I wasn't kidding I'll render what I have and send you a PM...eventually. I got several projects on my plate plus a job, but by next Wednesday you should have it.

As for Youtubers....well, it's a matter of discovery - which can be kind of tough. Honestly, there aren't many tools out there to help with discovery of small youtubers, so the next best bet would be small game developers - which you can use Steam Greenlight's function to not only downvote the crap that all too often gets approved through Greenlight, but you can also, more than likely, find some small game devs that could use some music help. How much and whether you should be paid for the work or not, again, is not really part of the discussion here just making a point of where to find small time developers.