MUSIC FOR FILM, TELEVISION, ADVERTISING, AND NEW MEDIA

JOB OVERVIEW

The business affairs office is responsible for obtaining clearances for all music used in film, television, trailers, and other media produced by the company.

PREREQUISITES

A background in publishing or knowledge of music licensing is required. “You have to be able to handle multiple tasks at the same time,” say Julie Butchko. “Literally, you're talking on the phone, researching a song, making notes as you're going along, and thinking about what your next step is as far as clearing or finding a song. You have to be organized. You have many different projects at different junctures. You're working on movies that are in post-production and movies that are done, from the initial clearing of songs, to writing up the cue sheets and registering copyrights. You really have to be resourceful, as far as tracking down the owners of songs and the artists that recorded them, and who owns the master rights.”

A DAY IN THE LIFE

Julie Butchko beings her day handling incoming faxes. “Normally, there are one or two pieces of business that I'm waiting for an urgent answer on. I like to make my London and New York phone calls in the morning and get those out of the way. I try to touch base with as many people as possible. The rest of the time is spent reading scripts, sending out quote requests, researching music, and doing budget estimates. Guiding the producers and the production staff of television shows, as far as music. How much it's going to cost and how much time we're going to need. What they can and cannot do with a piece of music, and other obligations and costs that they are not necessarily aware of. Throughout the day we get phone calls from our TV shows, from our marketing staff, and from the producers of the films we're working on as far as new music that has come up that they want to get cleared for their projects. We start researching that and I start contacting the publishers and the record labels for clearances, and getting the quotes, clearing the songs for sound track use, and negotiating those deals. Because the world of DVD has opened up, they put a lot of extra bonus materials on them to make them more consumer friendly, so you might have outtakes from the movie, behind the scenes footage, or interviews. This extra programming either isn't cleared because it was not in the film, or it was dropped out of the film, so we didn't pay for those rights. We work with our DVD department and try and clear things at a reasonable rate for them to include all these extra little goodies.”

“Getting people checks; getting people paid for their music. Requesting licenses and reviewing licenses that come in. Doing cue sheets for the numerous television shows and films, and different marketing specials is a normal part of the day. Working with our copyright registration people and the score side of our business. Reporting to Todd Homme and Mary L. Jacobs on the music status in the films that I'm working on for them. Licensing the film scores that DreamWorks owns—I don't just spend money, I make it. E-mail is constant.”

POINTERS FOR THE JOB SEARCH

“Don't be embarrassed to start out as an assistant. Soak up any possible information, that you can while you're at that desk. When you're an assistant, you hear a lot more about what's going on, about all kinds of different transactions and pieces of business, that you may not necessarily hear if you're just in one specific position in an office. I think when you're an assistant, you have a good opportunity to be exposed to a lot of different sides of the business. You can learn how things are done and at what stage they're done.”