# Ever think the client is wrong?



## clisma (May 10, 2015)

And if so, how do you personally deal with it, knowing that it's your job (not to mention smart for the future of your livelihood) to give the director/producer what they want/think they need? Been doing this long enough that I know how the cookie crumbles, but boy, I wish people could see past a particular fad or current trend. Limits the creative possibilities that could have been.

Bigger, faster, higher, louder! Where's the scotch when you need it... :roll:


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## PerryD (May 11, 2015)

The best is when you submit a "new" version with no changes and the reaction is, "ah, let's go with that one, it's much better!" 8)


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## Dean (May 11, 2015)

clisma @ Sun May 10 said:


> And if so, how do you personally deal with it, knowing that it's your job (not to mention smart for the future of your livelihood) to give the director/producer what they want/think they need? Been doing this long enough that I know how the cookie crumbles, but boy, I wish people could see past a particular fad or current trend. Limits the creative possibilities that could have been.
> 
> Bigger, faster, higher, louder! Where's the scotch when you need it... :roll:



I think thats the ultimate challenge,..usually that means they 'have'nt heard it yet'..that feeling or sound they want,..and thats up to you as the composer to find that in a way that also keeps you happy(if possible) D


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## bbunker (May 11, 2015)

I think you need to start a new thread:

Ever think the client is right?

Now THAT I'd have to think long and hard about.


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## reddognoyz (May 11, 2015)

I often and indignantly think the client is wrong, and they are sometimes. Not always but often. I smile, take one for the team, do the revision, and remind myself, "your money is in their pocket"


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## guydoingmusic (May 11, 2015)

reddognoyz @ Mon May 11 said:


> I often and indignantly think the client is wrong, and they are sometimes. Not always but often. I smile, take one for the team, do the revision, and remind myself, "your money is in their pocket"



EXACTLY what I was going to say!

I have asked to have my name removed from projects before because I didn't want my name associated with it after the changes were made. In fact, I recently finished a documentary film that very scenario occurred. The changes that were made were really laughable. The editor and director even said "You guys are making a mistake!". But the executive producers (the ones with the money) said to make them anyways. At which point - I finished my job and removed myself from the project.


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## clisma (May 11, 2015)

Whoa, great to see more people wrestling with similar issues. I appreciate all the feedback.

Yes, ultimately, of course, it is our job to find a way to balance things so they clients are happy, and we are happy. However, compromise is rarely the ideal companion of art.

Which brings me to a tangent: how many of you, who do this for a living, consider yourselves artists?

For me it's a loaded question. Music is art, naturally, but film music is functional, and while we can argue the merits of functional art (a beautiful Ming Vase can be a work of art with or without flowers in it), I feel that when such compromises have to be made, which is often, art loses out. I might be equating art with artistic integrity here.

Maybe the artistry is in finding that compromise? I'd really like to hear everyone's take on this...


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## impressions (May 11, 2015)

clisma @ Mon May 11 said:


> Whoa, great to see more people wrestling with similar issues. I appreciate all the feedback.
> 
> Yes, ultimately, of course, it is our job to find a way to balance things so they clients are happy, and we are happy. However, compromise is rarely the ideal companion of art.
> 
> ...



Not sure if there is a reality where someone can actually make pure art as his day job. for me it has always been this formula:

have enough artistic power and inspiration>go commercial
low on inspiration>go art projects, even if they pay cheap.

loop until balanced.

p.s.
even still in the so called "pure art" projects, which are in it for the purest art form, disregarding any commercial aspects, still in these you have to "work", as in find the right thing for them, and not for you.
the best pure you can think of is by yourself, or with others who think exactly like you and you can flow with them without ever needing to change something inside yourself.


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## gbar (May 11, 2015)

reddognoyz @ Mon May 11 said:


> I often and indignantly think the client is wrong, and they are sometimes. Not always but often. I smile, take one for the team, do the revision, and remind myself, "your money is in their pocket"




We have a saying in Big Data computing world.

When the customer is being nasty, claims they are losing millions of dollars per nano-second and points out they paid 98 million dollars for the hardware that isn't responding the way they'd like...

it's important to silently chant this mantra in your head when they are being nasty and telling you to do something dangerous that might result something terrible like them losing a bunch of their data:

_It's not my money, it's not my hardware, and it's not my data._

Same idea. You get to pick the hill you will die on, so do you want to die on this hill?

After the silent mantra, I usually calmly tell them they could lose their data or whatever the risk really happens to be, but I am more than happy to do whatever it is they want if they are willing to accept the risk.

Not my money, not my data, not my machine.

Kind of like, not my Movie, not my money, etc.

It's the director's movie, right? You're just there to help him tell his story, I would think. I don't ever remember a movie bombing because the soundrack sucks, so? Maybe you don't get to do your best work, but is that a hill worth dying on?


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## JohnG (May 11, 2015)

gbar @ 11th May 2015 said:


> I don't ever remember a movie bombing because the soundrack sucks, so?



I have seen plenty of movies whose soundtracks were so bad they ruined the movie.

I think clients are wrong often, and it's our job to be professional about it and do what we think is right. Sometimes that means doing some of what the client is asking for and still steering it the way we want, sometimes we just do what he asks for -- it's a judgement one can only make at the time.

Two examples:

1. Terrible temp music -- feature film with temp music that tried to pull the film toward a romantic comedy, which it decidedly was not. It was as though they had made a film but all the while in their heads thought they were making a different one. So I sagely nodded when they told me how great the temp score was and agreed to do something like it and did something totally different.

2. "the one thing we don't want is circus music" -- so I look at this big scene they're struggling with and think, "what that needs is circus music." So that's what I wrote and they really loved it.

I'm not saying we should perversely follow our muse and ignore the clients. But I do think that after some considerable time learning music we should stand up and act like musical experts, which we certainly are more than (most) producers or directors. There are definitely exceptions; some of these guys know a hell of a lot. One director with whom I've worked played a piano concerto in public with an orchestra.

But if we are just some kind of typist who knocks off the temp (at the worst), then that is the definition of a hack.


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## Christof (May 11, 2015)

Many clients don't have any music comprehension at all, they clap on 1 and 3, they don't know how to express themselves:
"This piece has too much minor!" (It was in a major key)
This is understandable and normal, our job is to speak the same language and translate it into something the client wants.
Any ego and lofty attitude is out of place in this job.
Our creativity is limited by the demands of the client, we have to deal with that, if not we have to become concert composers.


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## Living Fossil (May 12, 2015)

Christof @ Mon May 11 said:


> Many clients don't have any music comprehension at all, they clap on 1 and 3, they don't know how to express themselves:
> "This piece has too much minor!" (It was in a major key)



To clap on 2 and 4 is just a convention.
A (quite famous) pop singer once told me, how the audience claps differently in different regions/continents.

And of course pieces in major keys also may appear as if they were in minor, for different reasons. Sometimes phrygian melodies are harmonized in their submediant major (e-Phryg would be C-maj), that's something you can observe in some of Bach's choral harmonisations. 
Another one is the position of the harmonic notes and also the used chords. maj7 and maj7/9 chords may appear as "minor" to someone who is unfamiliar with that kind of music.

The important thing is that you realize that communication is about trying to understand what the other one means. It's not about feeling superior because one knows more accurate technical terms.


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## JohnG (May 12, 2015)

It's all about superiority. My minions can tell you that.


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## synthic (May 12, 2015)

"I want more tempo!"
"You want a faster BPM you mean?"
"No not faster. Just more tempo!"


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## gbar (May 12, 2015)

synthic @ Tue May 12 said:


> "I want more tempo!"
> "You want a faster BPM you mean?"
> "No not faster. Just more tempo!"



There are not enough notes?

lol

Opposite of that line in "Amadeus".

People don't all speak the same language when it comes to technical matters.


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## Living Fossil (May 12, 2015)

gbar @ Tue May 12 said:


> synthic @ Tue May 12 said:
> 
> 
> > "I want more tempo!"
> ...



Or not those which make one aware of the desired perception of time.
Could be that some groove is missing, or some hits that underline the intensity of the "time component" etc.

We could put our efforts together and write a dictionary "Director - Musician"


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## gbar (May 12, 2015)

Living Fossil @ Tue May 12 said:


> gbar @ Tue May 12 said:
> 
> 
> > synthic @ Tue May 12 said:
> ...



Or better yet, get the geniuses at Google to do it for us on their translate page 

Hey, when you think about it... there is probably an important lesson in here somewhere. People often know exactly what they want even if they don't know precisely how to ask you for it, and maybe interpretation is a real handy skill set to have in your toolbox, eh?

People skills too. I imagine those are all terribly useful when you are working with a bunch of people who are working on a bunch of different things.


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## dgburns (May 12, 2015)

I've come to the conclusion that I'm usually wrong and they are usually right when it comes to the music I write for them.

the big challenge is trying to understand what they are trying to communicate,especially since you are emotionally invested in the music you wrote for them in the first place.

of course the best place to get to is when they ask you to do "you" because that's what they want anyway.But for that to happen,you need a bit of success writing music for them first.then life gets a bit more pleasant.


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## JohnG (May 12, 2015)

VERBS:
to schmooze = befriend scum
to pitch = grovel shamelessly
to brainstorm = feign preparedness
to research = procrastinate indefinitely
to network = spread disinformation
to collaborate = argue incessantly
to freelance = collect unemployment

NOUNS:
agent = frustrated lawyer
lawyer = frustrated producer
producer = frustrated writer
writer = frustrated director
director = frustrated actor
actor = frustrated human

COMPOUND WORDS:
high-concept = low brow
production value = gore
entry-level = pays nothing
highly qualified = knows the producer
network approved = had made them money

FINANCIAL TERMS:
back-end = you, if you think you'll ever see it
residuals = braces for the kids
deferral = don't hold your breath
points = see "deferral" 

COMMON PHRASES:
You can trust me = You must be new
It needs some polishing = Change everything
It shows promise = It stinks rotten
It needs some fine tuning = Change everything
I'd like some input = I want total control
It needs some honing = Change everything
Call me back next week = Stay out of my life
It needs some tightening = Change everything
Try and punch it up = I have no idea what I want
It needs some streamlining = Change everything
You'll never work in this town again = I have no power whatsoever

source: http://www.jokebuddha.com/joke/The_Holl ... z3ZzG5inku


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## impressions (May 13, 2015)

^ sounds about right, bit cynical though.


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## synthic (May 15, 2015)

gbar @ Tue 12 May said:


> Living Fossil @ Tue May 12 said:
> 
> 
> > gbar @ Tue May 12 said:
> ...



Great idea! That could be a sticky here at the forum  haha..

Hint:
In my experience, "more tempo" usually means that there's too little constant rhythm, i.e. too few continous 8th or 16th note patterns. Not that the BPM is too low.


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