What Percentage?

Just getting a feel for the traditional budget ratios...

Films allocate a 2%-3% actually... (to the composer). I would imagine that the whole audio should be around 5%-6%, but it involves orchestras, dubbing folleis, etc, none of which will bother you.

In your case, it really depends on the team and how many people are working, etc, etc. I mean when someone is making a movie/computer game with a couple of friends, it makes sense to give even 20% to the composer. The films I mentioned are Hollywood films which have 1000s of crew (maybe not 1000s but 100s certainly). It really depends.

I agree with Nicolas. It largely varies depending on the size of the project, the amount of people you have, and how much budget you have. "Negotiable" isn't a bad thing to include when considering hiring a composer, probably. I wouldn't know.

Films allocate a 2%-3% actually... (to the composer). I would imagine that the whole audio should be around 5%-6%, but it involves orchestras, dubbing folleis, etc, none of which will bother you.

In your case, it really depends on the team and how many people are working, etc, etc. I mean when someone is making a movie/computer game with a couple of friends, it makes sense to give even 20% to the composer. The films I mentioned are Hollywood films which have 1000s of crew (maybe not 1000s but 100s certainly). It really depends.

Hmm. In the little picture, a single, smaller production for a larger project would run in the $10,000-20,000 range and might have a crew of up to 12 persons involved in said production to a considerable degree. No specific opportunities for royalties could be on such a small scale.

In the bigger picture, that same project has an estimated ghost budget of 1.5+ million and will probably involve over 1,000 persons altogether, roughly 50-60% of them in the minimal development phases, which means that only about 40-50% of those involved would really be getting any significant sum outright. Royalties obviously come in on this scope, and the scores for a project so large can be expected to yield at least 10 commercially released CDs with their royalties to the musicians, singers and composers.

How about a little feedback on the budget allotment percentage for the two above scenarios?

Hmm. In the little picture, a single, smaller production for a larger project would run in the $10,000-20,000 range and might have a crew of up to 12 persons involved in said production to a considerable degree. No specific opportunities for royalties could be on such a small scale.

It depends a little on how impotant is music for the project.

There are, what people call, music libraries. Huge databases with music tracks that you can buy with different options: Buy them so they can't be used again (expensive), buy an exclusive for some amount of time, buy a license, buyt 1 usage (for 1 project). These are more... generic tracks however, that won't be made for your project, but you wil have chosen them for your project.

So if you can actually use the above method, then music is not 100% important to you and you can drop somehow the price, since there is an alternative out there. (check prices after you google "music libraries"!)

I'd say that for $20,000 and 10 persons (simplifying things), everyone should get a $2,000 part of the pie and be somewhat fair... For the musician, I would assume that you could even drop it at $1,500 since he is the last wheel in a webcomic! Cause it IS a webcomic and not something music driven...

In the bigger picture, that same project has an estimated ghost budget of 1.5+ million and will probably involve over 1,000 persons altogether, roughly 50-60% of them in the minimal development phases, which means that only about 40-50% of those involved would really be getting any significant sum outright. Royalties obviously come in on this scope, and the scores for a project so large can be expected to yield at least 10 commercially released CDs with their royalties to the musicians, singers and composers.

$1,500,000... In that case I would weild the 2%-3% actually. 2/100*1,500,000=$30,000. It is a highly acceptable number this. And this number could include complete buyout of the tracks (copyrights that is), but probably some agreement to publishing rights and royalties. Do remember that the musician will be taking only 2% of that budget (which is a small percentage no matter what), and will cover al the expenses himself by his fee (with his own studio, because still the ghost budget is not enough to hit the live orchestras just yet).

The only thing that would then matter to the composer is the amount of music you're talking about. Because $30,000 is fine, but if you are to compose 5 hours (for example) of music for it, most will step down.

The royalties issue. I'm not sure that the CD would sell, if the music is close to "film music", but you never know. Still imagine selling 10,000 copies of something that IS in fact 90% the work of the composer. The composer NEEDS a part of this. It's is what usually happens.

Anyways, this is what I roughly know about things and what I've read...

It depends a little on how important is music for the project.

There are, what people call, music libraries. Huge databases with music tracks that you can buy with different options: Buy them so they can't be used again (expensive), buy an exclusive for some amount of time, buy a license, buyt 1 usage (for 1 project). These are more... generic tracks however, that won't be made for your project, but you wil have chosen them for your project.

So if you can actually use the above method, then music is not 100% important to you and you can drop somehow the price, since there is an alternative out there. (check prices after you google "music libraries"!)

I'd say that for $20,000 and 10 persons (simplifying things), everyone should get a $2,000 part of the pie and be somewhat fair... For the musician, I would assume that you could even drop it at $1,500 since he is the last wheel in a webcomic! Cause it IS a webcomic and not something music driven...

$1,500,000... In that case I would weild the 2%-3% actually. 2/100*1,500,000=$30,000. It is a highly acceptable number this. And this number could include complete buyout of the tracks (copyrights that is), but probably some agreement to publishing rights and royalties. Do remember that the musician will be taking only 2% of that budget (which is a small percentage no matter what), and will cover al the expenses himself by his fee (with his own studio, because still the ghost budget is not enough to hit the live orchestras just yet).

The only thing that would then matter to the composer is the amount of music you're talking about. Because $30,000 is fine, but if you are to compose 5 hours (for example) of music for it, most will step down.

The royalties issue. I'm not sure that the CD would sell, if the music is close to "film music", but you never know. Still imagine selling 10,000 copies of something that IS in fact 90% the work of the composer. The composer NEEDS a part of this. It's is what usually happens.

Anyways, this is what I roughly know about things and what I've read...

To my mind, the music is a 30% determination of how good a movie is. I think that should apply at least as equally to C-Vs webcomics. I might stoop to using a music library, but it would be a waste of money in the end, and considering how much editing and cutting would need to be done for most such tracks and allowing the time factor of wading through such libraries to find well suited pieces, I doubt it could begin to be worth it even in the short term. No, I would rather pre-release a C-V webcomic without themes and scoring, rather than with ill-fitting music which will just be replaced anyway. I'm not even going to Google "music libraries"...

On a $20,000 budget, that spells about $4,000 for circa 20 minutes of scoring material in the actual presentation of the webcomic episodes, mostly original and custom tailored pieces, many of them very short - 8-20 seconds - and featuring only 2-3 instruments at a time. And possibly 1-3 bonus tracts for theme and inspired songs. Successful CD releases obviously depend on original and fairly unique Intrumentals in the scoring - possibly made up of the shorter clips - and theme and inspired Songs from each episode. I expect a CD can be released every 6-8 episodes/issues.

It is true that a visual medium like webcomics might not be nearly as "music driven" as film, but if the music is not alloted a role of importance, it seems to me I can hardly expect to attract a good composer for only $4,000 per production if he is aware that his music is not considered vital to the presentation. The visual material and audio dialogues should be good enough to stand alone, but I want music put to these productions that viewers would miss, if it was taken away.

And you mentioned the musician being "the last wheel"? Not in many of C-Vs domestic productions. The score composer will have preliminary work almost from the start of a production. Between character and locale themes, an episode themesong and one for each of various series and whatever short "inspired" materials he want sto try out, not to mention the possibility of test pieces to experiment with different sounds to find something that fits an episode/series well.

In the case of the 1.5 million dollar "ghost" budget, that would hopefully be 100+ productions on an average of at least 20 minutes of material each; which is no less than 20 hours of material... If $30,000 won't compensate most musicians for 5 hours of material, I assume it will take at least $160,000 to do so for circa 20 hours of material...which approaches 12% percent of the overall budget. And on top of that, I plan to be as generous as practically possible concerning royalties, assuming the publishing agreements are in the favor of C-V. Have I mentioned I'm not in this for the money? As long as C-Vs productions are perpetuated by its portion of sales and subscription fees, I don't intend to care who is making more of a profit that C-V. Collaborn Visions is nothing without its freelance production "staffers" and I'll never hesitate to admit it!

I personally used to by - almost exclusively - soundtracks from movies. The CDs released in connection with C-V will be comprised of the better Songs written for the various productions and only the best Instrumentals. They will be self-published through a service a musician/singer friend of my recommends and available to order only through C-V, the site which might possibly be constructed to host various of the C-V produced series, and the publishing service itself if possible. Profit margins on these sales will be reasonable and might be cut as tight as practical to begin with.

And you mentioned the composer being 90% responsable for a CDs content. That is cut when vocal artists are brought into the picture. And I intend to cut in on that percentage myself, by doing a good bit of melody-setting for the scores of certain productions. Which means the composer will be working to a certain extent from leading materials I provide, while retaining much freedom as to the exact nature and sound of the compositions.

Mathew,

You really need to realise that almost noone knows what you have in mind. You keep your ideas to yourself, which is a great thing, since people might steal the ideas, but without some basic info noone is able to help you. The numbers and % I gave you are what's going on in real life films, etc.

I'm not sure what you have in mind or if you are debating, but what I said is pretty much valid for most real life situations... End of story. If you know something else, feel free to share. If you want to prove that C-V will be different, etc, then by all means, get 100% ready and then advertise once and for all about C-V.

I have no idea what you're talking about. I was just stating a possibility, nothing more.

Films allocate a 2%-3% actually... (to the composer). I would imagine that the whole audio should be around 5%-6%, but it involves orchestras, dubbing folleis, etc, none of which will bother you.

Ha. So many film students expect you (the composer) to be the folly artist as well.

Anyone in films with some kind of budget treats sfx/audio and music differently.

And either way I did mention that the % rised for the whole of audio. If one person takes care of it (which is NOT the case in any serious film) then fine. Other wise it will be shared.

This depends on if you're a good composer or a crummy composer. It depends on the score as well as business intentions. Some scores called "fillers" are what James Horner can do quick and cheap, he doesn't ask for much, but he does a wonderful job. Unless your work is genius and virtually expansive in contrast to the feature film, you shouldn't deserve more than 5% of the gross.

The film "E.T. The Extra Terrestrial" for example was nothing without the John Williams score. Usually the ends don't justify the means. Because there was much effort put into the movie by everyone else but Williams, he could not recieve the real worth of his score by Spielberg's stamp or the production agency until the CDs (soundtracks) were sold. Films are more of a gateway for aspiring composers, and it's wrong to ask for too much even if you think you're the only one available capable to score the film to what you consider accomplished. There are much better composers out there composing for movies you only wish you had the chance on because they know how to work their way in and out of any situation without attracting too much negative attention to themselves. The real money makers are the ones with the natural talent of course.

Good film composers are like kings. They're respected by most, but they can't change the laws of the world. If I'm working on a video game with a team of three and I'm one of the three designers as well as the music composer, I still take in 33% of the web gross. But for major projects with hundreds in the crew, it's more of a talent contest.

In an extremely priceless case, my partner/movie director is giving me way more money than I deserve when his feature films are completely developed and in theatres across the globe, and this is mainly because my music has had an ongoing impact on the films and his writing and directing work throughout a large time in the industry and even before then. We are worth so much to each other, and even though I only write the music, I am like the second director because of the imagery and company I influence him with. We invested in each other because we recognized talent, intelligence, and loyalty. Sorry that I'm not giving you more information on my director and me; I'm keeping the details in serenity for personal benefit.

So this being said, you have to be a friend and not only a musician if you wish to earn your deserved salary in today's world, and it's been this way for a long time, so it's not bound to change soon unless you're the next Beethoven figuratively speaking. I can't say I'm one to show the disloyalty of Beethoven even if I have various musical talents such as he had. I'd rather be as selfless as I can be to where I will help the movie develop gracefully. I'm only speaking in figures here, as I'm generally stating that you have to put up a firm fecade of a casual businessman.

It helps to build your profile if you compose for movies you love. Jerry Goldsmith had a major problem with this aspect, and lack of love and care toward the unscored movie rather than the score itself is generally why his scored movies didn't gain much recognition. He was too much of a hothead in my opinion.

So personality factors play a big role in the film world (Spielberg/Williams or my director/me). Talent, business intentions, and most importantly the score itself are other roles of soundtrack gross.

This...gross.

Umm. Thanks. I'm not going to pretend I grasped all of that, but I can truthfully say I hope to work with aspiring and able musicians/composers who are a lot like yourself. Music should mean passion and passion means a relationship will have to be built, shared and maintained for success. I think I can hold things up on my end...I have to make myself refrain from caring too much as it is and just keep my mouth shut. I really can't help with the personal problems of those I "work" with. Shamefully, I have a lot to do and to get it all done I can't afford to care in such a way as to invest much time in each business relationship I will have to forge. Pretty sad what business ambitions do to you if you bite off more that you realistically reckon you can chew ably...

I wish all success to you! I have got to listen to a few of your pieces...