# Dead ... lines



## method1 (May 31, 2020)

Just blowing off some steam.
Working on a series headed for a major streaming platform, 6 x 45 min episodes, two weeks to complete. 
Might be able to wangle an extra week.
Producer used the most cliche line ever in the brief.. "think Hans Zimmer.." 
Hans, if you're reading this, I could do with an assistant!
Sometimes I question my sanity. I'm sure many of you have been there, regale us with tales of ridiculous deadlines...


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## RyanBarryMusic (Jun 1, 2020)

Haha! They often tell us to "think Hans" and we automatically know what they mean, but that doesn't necessarily give us much of a choice to leave our own print on it, they're basically asking for a budget version of Hans Zimmer, which sucks sometimes. As much as I like him, his influence is so far spread into his sound that it's the go to for most film makers these days.

While not for a major film, a certain local film maker wanted 35 minutes of music in little over 2 days. He told me "something along the lines of Hans would be great". Because we all know what that should sound like as composers, I guess it made that a lot easier to make and the deadline was eventually met with 2 hours to spare.


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## Daryl (Jun 1, 2020)

If someone suggests a stupid deadline, just say no.


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## RyanBarryMusic (Jun 1, 2020)

Daryl said:


> If someone suggests a stupid deadline, just say no.


Also agreed, if something absolutely insane is pushed upon you. Take into consideration the fundamental things here such as your own health and well being. It's not worth killing yourself to try and make a deadline you simply CANNOT physically do.


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## Jeremy Spencer (Jun 1, 2020)

I hope there’s some $$ involved, that always provides incentive. Otherwise, I’d avoid that gig like the plague.


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## MarcHedenberg (Jun 1, 2020)

While I don’t have the kind of experience to give any weight to what I’m about to say, I would so hardball negotiate that. You should be getting a month at a minimum for that if you’re doing it all by yourself. Alternatively, ask for a lot of money or just won’t don’t do it. Don’t destroy your body trying to accomplish an asininely stupid timescale. Giving you two weeks shows absolute ignorance on their part.


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## method1 (Jun 1, 2020)

Completely agree with the saying no part, I've turned down gigs for less. 
In this case I felt somewhat obligated due to a long term good relationship with the showrunner.

This isn't the norm with this particular company, and today I negotiated some more time.

That said.. enough with the personal advice, lets hear some horror stories!


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## Daryl (Jun 1, 2020)

I had a huge wake-up call around 10 years ago. There were a lot of coincidences that led to my agent agreeing to a gig that I thought we'd turned down. Long story short, I worked 22 hours a day for 6.5 weeks. I made the deadline, and then was ill for around 3 months. I decided there and then that it was a "never again" moment, and I've stuck to it.


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## X-Bassist (Jun 1, 2020)

RyanBarryMusic said:


> 35 minutes of music in little over 2 days


This IS what I would call a dumb deadline. I don’t know why composers say ok. It really wrecks things for the whole industry. “My last composer did the whole film in a few days” How many times have I heard this, yet they are NOT using that composer again, are they? No, they have me doing it because the last music sucked and they need to find someone else. But they assume it was because of a bad composer, not the twp or three days they gave him to do it.

Truth is they will remember the music, not the time you did it in (ONLY YOU remember you finished 2 hours early). Regardless of what the client says, they can usually give you more time, but you need to insist. Believe me, there is a reason they are not going with their past composers, and it’s not because your work is so much better. It’s because they rushed the last guy and either got bad music out of it or burned him out and tensions rose.

The first thing I do is negotiate time. Before money, before anything else. Most of my clients just don’t know how much time it takes, so I educate them. “Here are my steps to making the music”. Usually by step 10 or 12 they are saying “Ok, ok, how much time do you need?. Use to be one half hour TV show (22 minutes) was a week, and hour show (44 minutes) two weeks, a feature? Six to eight weeks. I still stick to that kind of schedule and have yet to have a client say no once I explain the work. AND they are always thrilled with the music. I get many returning clients, which for many composers is rare, probably because they are more concerned with getting the job done on time (which clients don’t remember) rather than making it the best it can be (which clients do remember, especially when showing the film and planning their next one.

And please ignore the note “like Hans Zimmer”. That just means they don’t know what they want, since even he does not repeat himself endlessly. Go through the film with the client, if not in person at least on zoom or skype, to see what they want scene by scene. Take notes, then see if you can do one better. I know a meeting like that is long, but often during that meeting I find they don’t really want HZ, but can’t express what they want until going scene by scene. And I often get to suggest new ideas that will work better and they are more thrilled than if they had gotten their Zimmer score pasted all over the movie. I realize a lot of composers hate these initial meetings, but keep in mind it will solidify your relationship with the client and allow them to trust you more, since you listened to their ideas first. And along the way you can often talk them into a much better score, which will help you both in the long run (more jobs) and allow you to ask for more time to do a better job.


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## Jeremy Spencer (Jun 1, 2020)

method1 said:


> Completely agree with the saying no part, I've turned down gigs for less.
> In this case I felt somewhat obligated due to a long term good relationship with the showrunner.
> 
> This isn't the norm with this particular company, and today I negotiated some more time.
> ...



I have burnt like this a few times (years ago). Are you being compensated up front, or at least upon delivery of the music? If not, then run for the hills. You are doing a lot of work for nothing, literally. I once scored a couple episodes for a pilot series, busted my ass to meet the deadline. Completely naive, I assumed there would be some sort of payment so I did not review the contract details prior....I was too pumped and thought "this will be my foot in the door, I don't care". As you can guess, there was no compensation....not only for myself, but everyone else involved. It actually aired a couple of times, but was soon yanked from the network and the dude was slammed with legal action (and blacklisted).

Do not, I repeat do not do this for "exposure", or as some sort of obligation.


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## MartinH. (Jun 1, 2020)

method1 said:


> In this case I felt somewhat obligated due to a long term good relationship with the showrunner.
> 
> This isn't the norm with this particular company, and today I negotiated some more time.



I can relate. I slipped into a deadline situation that I would never have agreed to if it had been clear from the start. Because of the Corona virus some things got delayed and now I have about a third of the time I had planned for. Not my clients fault, not how these jobs usually go, but now I have to deal with it...


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## method1 (Jun 1, 2020)

Wolfie2112 said:


> I have burnt like this a few times (years ago). Are you being compensated up front, or at least upon delivery of the music? If not, then run for the hills. You are doing a lot of work for nothing, literally. I once scored a couple episodes for a pilot series, busted my ass to meet the deadline. Completely naive, I assumed there would be some sort of payment so I did not review the contract details prior....I was too pumped and thought "this will be my foot in the door, I don't care". As you can guess, there was no compensation....not only for myself, but everyone else involved. It actually aired a couple of times, but was soon yanked from the network and the dude was slammed with legal action (and blacklisted).
> 
> Do not, I repeat do not do this for "exposure", or as some sort of obligation.



Yes, I'm getting paid, the show is going to air, contract in place. 
It's not one of those "exposure" situations.


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## dcoscina (Jun 1, 2020)

I think I'd shit twice and die if someone said "think Berg, Bartok and Ravel"... of course they could just say "Think Goldsmith". 

BTW- this in no way is a slight against Mr Zimmer. Or Jerry Goldsmith RIP.


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## dcoscina (Jun 1, 2020)

But seriously, I'm sure most of us have tried to provide the client with what they want but inject a bit of our own music personality into it with whatever influences we deem of value.


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## MartinH. (Jun 2, 2020)

Do you guys ever stress out about being too stressed out? Like serious health concerns or similar?


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## JJP (Jun 2, 2020)

Okay, fine, here's a long post...

Stress and health are absolutely a real concern. I work with people in Hollywood who have had heart attacks and other health problems from pushing themselves too hard trying to make a client happy. As I've mentioned here before, Oliver Nelson, whom most people know as a legendary jazz musician and arranger, was also a TV film composer in the 70s (Columbo, Six Million Dollar Man). He had a reputation as a guy who could always get the music written by the deadline no matter the circumstances.

Nelson died of a heart attack at his desk at age 43 while pulling an all-nighter to meet a deadline. My former boss carried his coffin at his funeral.

I find the stress hits me in physical ways on the occasions when I've been put in awful situations. I start to feel ill. That's usually a big warning sign that something needs to change. I'm good at my job and have a lot of experience, so I know that shouldn't be happening.

Now I always ensure there is enough money to provide the necessary people and resources to complete work within a particular timeframe. People can work very hard, but there is absolutely no cause for me or anyone else with whom I work to be denied sleep for anything more than a few hours -- certainly not for several days. Even then they need to be compensated for the overtime they put in. No gig is worth your future health. I have left projects when people have been unreasonable about schedules or signing an agreement that protects everyone when it's clear people could be harmed. I plan on doing this job for a long time and also being able to live a healthy life.

A few years ago I had someone literally crying on the phone saying I had killed their company's whole project because I was pulling out 3 weeks before they were scheduled to record. However, the people had spent weeks asking ME to do rewrites on their 10+ page agreement which had finally been been signed the day before. Then the next day they were reworking the numbers of my estimate themselves based on their own calculations (downward with no contingencies, of course), and then asking me to sign off on it as a hard cap. All the while I couldn't pin them down on how much music was going to be coming and how much work would be required to turn it around. When I asked for a sample of at least part of a cue to see what was going to be delivered for orchestration and copying (MIDI, some sort of sketches, does audio need to be transcribed, is it organized or a total mess?), I received a photo of the composer's DAW screen. Literally, a photo where I could only see colored bands on DAW tracks. That was when I was done.

After a laborious process to get an agreement together for which I had to bear most of the work, they were asking me to agree to a different budget literally hours after signing. The new budget was based on numbers they had no expertise to calculate. There were no resources to call in help if things didn't go as planned, and they were showing signs of being woefully unprepared, perhaps terminally clueless, and were expecting me to save them. My experience told me there was no way this would end well, and these are usually the projects which give you trouble about being paid.

The difficult part was the contact on this project was someone with whom I had worked before and whom I considered a friend. However, I am also a professional. I'm responsible for myself, and if I'm in charge, I'm responsible for the people who work with me. If I saw that the timeframe, resources, and terms were inadequate complete the work in a reasonable way, it would have been irresponsible for me to ask anyone else to come on board. I had no choice but to tell them so. They begged me to stay, but they weren't changing the situation, so they were still asking me to sacrifice myself and my colleagues.

If it didn't turn out as well as they had hoped, I also knew no one would have sought any explanation from me. They simply would have moved to someone else for their next project and probably would have told others that I didn't live up to my reputation. That would be a loss for everyone involved.


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## RyanBarryMusic (Jun 3, 2020)

X-Bassist said:


> Truth is they will remember the music, not the time you did it in (ONLY YOU remember you finished 2 hours early).


That is very true. Noticed it right away, the only reason I took that job was because the director offered a decent sum of cash and I already had some of my own unreleased music saved up that essentially worked for the project (covered around 12 of those 35 minutes without actually sitting down to write anything specific which was nice). Definitely not worth taking those kind of jobs, learned the hard way on that one.


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## method1 (Jun 3, 2020)

JJP said:


> Okay, fine, here's a long post...
> 
> Stress and health are absolutely a real concern. I work with people in Hollywood who have had heart attacks and other health problems from pushing themselves too hard trying to make a client happy. As I've mentioned here before, Oliver Nelson, whom most people know as a legendary jazz musician and arranger, was also a TV film composer in the 70s (Columbo, Six Million Dollar Man). He had a reputation as a guy who could always get the music written by the deadline no matter the circumstances.



Un / fortunately I seem to have carved out a bit of that "get it done" niche for myself. 
If I had to say how much work I've delivered in the last few years no-one would believe me 

The stress is definitely a thing, but more importantly for me is the family time I miss out on.

I wonder why the industry is like this though? Too many cowboys? It's definitely not getting any better with streaming services now and the insatiable need for more "content"


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## JJP (Jun 4, 2020)

method1 said:


> The stress is definitely a thing, but more importantly for me is the family time I miss out on.
> 
> I wonder why the industry is like this though? Too many cowboys? It's definitely not getting any better with streaming services now and the insatiable need for more "content"



The family time is definitely an issue. The number of divorces in this industry is one indication of that.

Part of why it is like this for composers is that there hasn't been sufficient willingness to change things. Other parts of our business have formed guilds to negotiate things like overtime pay and set conditions for work based on health, safety, and quality of life.

With composers, we've been willing to shoulder more and more of our producer's responsibilities. We form our own companies, provide our own benefits, take on the hiring of other musicians, studios, engineers, coordinators, and being responsible for their work. Silently, we are also assuming the producers' costs. In the USA most people don't understand how much taking on those tasks saves producers in taxes, insurance, and other payments.

Part of the problem is that as new people enter the industry, those who have gone before aren't mentoring and passing along knowledge of what to watch out for. It began a few decades ago and now many of the established folks can't pass it along because they don't fully understand what they are missing.

Sadly, a few big-name folks are just passing the pain down the line and exploiting the new people to preserve the status quo because they've gotten to a place where it is making big money for them.

Definitely a complicated issue.


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## Akarin (Jun 4, 2020)

Yesterday, I had a chat with a director about a potential job and he went...

..."have you seen Inception?"

I let you guess what comes next.


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## method1 (Jun 4, 2020)

Inception? Is that the biopic where Keanu Reeves plays a young Edith Piaf?


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## Akarin (Jun 5, 2020)

method1 said:


> Inception? Is that the biopic where Keanu Reeves plays a young Edith Piaf?



Shit, man... that's what I should have answered, instead of the "yeah" accompanied by a massive facepalm.


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## michalioz (Jun 7, 2020)

Akarin said:


> Yesterday, I had a chat with a director about a potential job and he went...
> 
> ..."have you seen Inception?"
> 
> I let you guess what comes next.



Sounds like the director has confidence issues and lack of respect for him(/her)self and for others. Why on earth would you create a film where the music and who knows what else is similar to a recent existing film?

Isn't directing all about being creative, unique and daring? Pathetic.


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## jononotbono (Jun 7, 2020)

6 x 45 min episodes in 2 weeks!?! Ridiculous to be honest. That’s about 23mins of music a day. Guess it will have to be 6 Omnisphere drones then. 😂


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## Manaberry (Jun 7, 2020)

Akarin said:


> Yesterday, I had a chat with a director about a potential job and he went...
> 
> ..."have you seen Inception?"
> 
> I let you guess what comes next.



You just have to seed an idea in his brain. The idea that he has to double the budget and allow more time for such a demand.


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## method1 (Jun 7, 2020)

jononotbono said:


> 6 x 45 min episodes in 2 weeks!?! Ridiculous to be honest. That’s about 23mins of music a day. Guess it will have to be 6 Omnisphere drones then. 😂



Actually 3 omni drones, each one can then be reversed.


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## MartinH. (Jun 29, 2020)

method1 said:


> Just blowing off some steam.
> Working on a series headed for a major streaming platform, 6 x 45 min episodes, two weeks to complete.
> Might be able to wangle an extra week.
> Producer used the most cliche line ever in the brief.. "think Hans Zimmer.."
> ...



Almost a month has passed, how did your crazy deadline project turn out? I hope the toll on your health wasn't too high.


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## method1 (Jun 30, 2020)

Thanks for asking! 
Makes me feel like someone cares in this cruel competitive world of media composing 

It was intense, 7 days a week. The story and style was HEAVILY music dependant.
Health wise, I'm ok, at least it kept me off the corona-filled streets. 
Not something I'd want to do again in a hurry.

I missed hanging out with my five year old daughter and have been trying to make that up to her.

I tried to make the project fun as possible for myself by including some new (to me) libraries and trying out a few new tricks.

I ended up leaning quite a bit on EW Hollywood Orch (which was a revelation as a first time user) and VSL Synchron stuff.

The result was, I think, decent given the schedule & budget 

Team seemed happy and I made it clear that I wouldn't be doing revisions due to the nature of the thing.


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## MartinH. (Jun 30, 2020)

method1 said:


> Thanks for asking!
> Makes me feel like someone cares in this cruel competitive world of media composing
> 
> It was intense, 7 days a week. The story and style was HEAVILY music dependant.
> ...




I'm glad to hear you're ok! Good thinking trying to put some fun spins on it to at least keep it interesting if you're gonna have to spend so much time working anyway.


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## Rasoul Morteza (Jun 30, 2020)

Has anyone had any success in extending the proposed insane deadline through negotiation? Any viable tactics?


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## MartinH. (Jun 30, 2020)

Rasoul Morteza said:


> Has anyone had any success in extending the proposed insane deadline through negotiation? Any viable tactics?



I don't work as a composer, I'm just extrapolating from being a creative freelancer in another field:

You can tell them with some more time they'll get a better product for the same price from you.
If the deadline is mandated by people further down the line needing the time to work with your output, you can ask if some kind of splitting up deliverables is possible, e.g. deliver the first few cues at agreed upon deadline and get a couple more days for the rest or something like that. However that may be less practical for music than it is for other creative work, depending on the project and how you approach it.

If it's a really stupid deadline and you're not hellbent on getting the gig, you could try saying "I don't think it's possible to meet both the deadline and an acceptable quality. If you think you can find someone who can pull off both, I suggest you call them asap. Otherwise I'll be happy to do it, but I need X time to do a good job on it."

I know it's much easier said than done, but I strongly suggest to build up savings. Having an empty bank account makes you a bad negotiator. Ideally you should be in a position where you're able to walk away from every negotiation without it being a real financial threat to you.

Just my cents, I'm not even a composer...


P.S.: personally I think I've regretted more jobs I said "yes" to, than jobs I said "no" to.


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## Rasoul Morteza (Jun 30, 2020)

MartinH. said:


> I don't work as a composer, I'm just extrapolating from being a creative freelancer in another field:
> 
> You can tell them with some more time they'll get a better product for the same price from you.
> If the deadline is mandated by people further down the line needing the time to work with your output, you can ask if some kind of splitting up deliverables is possible, e.g. deliver the first few cues at agreed upon deadline and get a couple more days for the rest or something like that. However that may be less practical for music than it is for other creative work, depending on the project and how you approach it.
> ...


Thanks for sharing your thoughts. I think your point about having an adequate savings account is gold, in regard to which I'm fortunate enough to have some dollars intact, at least for now.


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## JJP (Jun 30, 2020)

Rasoul Morteza said:


> Has anyone had any success in extending the proposed insane deadline through negotiation? Any viable tactics?



I've always found it useful to point out that if the deadline is tight, I'll need more help and those people expect to be paid, potentially with overtime if it's required, so they will have to pay for that.


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## Rasoul Morteza (Jun 30, 2020)

JJP said:


> I've always found it useful to point out that if the deadline is tight, I'll need more help and those people expect to be paid, potentially with overtime if it's required, so they will have to pay for that.


I have to say, your signature quote made me laugh


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## MartinH. (Jul 1, 2020)

How do you all feel right after finishing a bigger job (4 weeks and longer)? Better or worse than the days prior?


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