Running a Production Company

[ LiB ]

Running a Production Company

The big business of the record industry is screwed. Napster started killing it and Kazaa is finishing the job.

Figure 15.2. What Kazaa would look like illegally downloading audio files. This is a simulation that I, um, created in Illustrator.

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Record companies prosecuting file sharers is like if horse buggy manufacturers had gone after the first car drivers. Record companies are acting dumber than a bowl of mice and twice as cranky.

They're so backwards that they're shooting their own grave and digging their own foot by going after their customers. The horse is out of the burning barn and there's no putting her back.

You can't stop file sharing by arresting folks. There's too many tens of millions of people doing it. And many of them consider the arrests a challenge. It's war. And The Man will lose.

You can't stop file sharing by technological means, either. The Internet, by design, routes around interference. It was designed by the U.S. Army to be a communication system that could survive a nuclear war. Any software or hardware that attempts to block free use is perceived by the system as a cranky little obstacle far less detrimental than an A-bomb and easily ignored. Byte packets are slipperier than water. They will always find the path of least resistance.

Some media conglomerates are even considering or taking steps toward divesting themselves of their music units. Sony is finding that they are making far more money in their home computers, MP3 players, and MP3-enabled cell phones than they are in putting out music. And these MP3 hardware divisions encourage (or at least enable) people to bootleg music. So they have come to be in direct competition with themselves!

I think that part of the appeal of file sharing is that it makes you feel involved. It is more active than simply buying a CD and passively consuming it. I think that people are tired of being passive consumers.

NOTE

There's nothing you can do about bootlegs. It's part of doing business in today's digital economy.

I have a girlfriend who speaks Chinese very well. She offered to do translation subtitles for a DVD I did so that I could have them sold in China and Hong Kong. I asked a distributor if he could market there effectively. He said, "I had a sub-distributor there and I only had one order from them. They bought one copy each of 15 titles."

I said, "Was it by chance your 15 best selling titles?"

He said, "Yeah. How did you know?"

"I'll bet they pressed a hundred thousand copies of each one."

He said, "I think I'm gonna be sick."

By the way, the best way to copy protect DVDs is no copy protection at all: Make them DVD-9 format (with dummy data if you need, to make them more than 4.7 megs). Home burners can't copy them easily.

I've met [4.] a huge record producer who has done a lot of top ten records, including two records I love. One of them more or less changed rock and roll forever. The guy's a multimillionaire.

[4.] Notice I didn't say, I know him, even though I didn't drop his name . But he has been to my house. He's sat in the chair I'm sitting in right now.

He doesn't want people to know this, but he's almost been put out of business by Napster and Kazaa. He hates them.

I'm not going to name him, because I have a lot of respect for him as an artist and a person. But I'm not going to feel too sorry for him going from making millions a year to just having the millions he's already made.

But here's what he's doing: He's starting a production company.

This kind of takes the business model used in film and applies it to music. You know how when you go see a movie nowadays, there are often four or five or six company logos in the opening and closing credits? Films are now usually produced as big independents by ad hoc corporations that come together and kick ass for a year, go their separate ways, and sell the result to a major studio. Sometimes directly, sometimes through one of those other logos swimming on the screen.

My Prediction

The new business model will sidestep the big centralized intermediary of the huge record company. They will still be in business, but basically as distributors and marketers, which is what they do best anyway.

They are basically going to let the independent production companies farm out the A&R, development, and creative (recording and producing) side of it, which they aren't very good at anyway. This is where you can come in. And shine .

The old business model (think car companies, oil companies, and beer companies, as well as media concerns) is outmoded. You don't need a brick-and-mortar office or factory. That can always be outsourced.

A centralized system is vulnerable to all manner of attack and attrition economic and otherwise . Information is business, and today a business can be one person with a laptop in her backpack . You can even leave the country at any time. (I always keep my passport up to date. Especially in the last couple of years .)

One or two people (or a few more) can change the world, and they don't even have to be in the same place. Take for instance this book: I'm writing this in Los Angeles. I sent all the files this time to my editor by FTP (including 500+ megs of high-rez image filesall the photos and screenshots in the book). I didn't even mail him a CD. I will be making changes from Internet caf s in Europe while I'm on tour next month. My acquisitions editor is in Indianapolis. My agent is in San Diego. The copy editor is in the Midwest somewhere (I don't know wherewe only deal via e-mail). The tech editor is in Northern California somewhere (ibid). Most of these people work out of their homes . The company headquarters is in Boston. The books are printed in and shipped worldwide from Kentucky.

A similar methodology can and will work for audio and video production and dissemination . Basically to do this, you need to be smart, talented, hard working, and a little lucky.

I do almost everything across the Internet these days. Here are some MP3 files I temporarily loaded on my site for one of my assistants to grab and transcribe in a different city. I've never met the guy who did this for me:

Figure 15.3. Warren's interview as four MP3 files on my server.

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I do stuff like this all day every day. It's my life.

NOTE

You could make records over the Internet, but the file sizes are a little large, even for DSL. But you can easily write and even record music through the mail. Death Cab for Cutie side project The Postal Service even gets their name this way. It's two guys. One guy writes and records the music and mails a CD to the singer , who writes lyrics and melodies, sings them and records them to the backing track. The results are very cool.

How to Stand Out as a Production Company

You need to be excellent at the creative side and the business side to pull this off. If you're only good at one of these, get a partner to do the other part. And put your relationship in writing. This is one of those things where it wouldn't hurt to go to the family lawyer to help draft a short, equitable contract. And make sure that either party can get out if it turns out you hate working with each other. And you might consider forming a limited liability corporation (LLC) to cover all your asses (and assets).

NOTE

AGAIN, NOTHING IN THIS BOOK CONSTITUTES LEGAL ADVICE. ALL INFO IS PROVIDED FOR ENTERTAINMENT PURPOSES ONLY.

You find a great band and sign them to an equitable contract. Produce the band , record them, and work with them to design the packaging and videos . You deliver two data CDs to the distributor for lots of money. (One CD of music, one of the artwork page layout file. Or better yet, a data DVD with the album, video, and page layout!) You split the money with the band and move on.

You don't even need to think in terms of albums. I think that songs are going to take the place of albums. This is a by-product of file sharing, also a result of labels charging 20 bucks for one hit and nine crappy filler songs. Apple has the right idea: They have actual physical brick-and-mortar stores that have no physical product. They only exist to sell 99-cent files downloaded to your iPod. Heck yeah!

You can be a production company that operates a song bank . A song bank is a repository of songs to be perused and licensed by people for films, compilations, and so forth. You just need to work out your own unique interface and payment methodology. And get one hit so you'll be in demand. Don't sign crap. Be picky. Don't follow trends. Start them. You will become known for your quality.

It's a decentralized world. Don't have an old-school centralized mindset if you want to survive.

Figure 15.4. Rock energy onstage.

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What Makes a Good Producer?

A good producer makes things work out a lot better overall with your art. They aren't someone to meddle with things; they are someone to make you shine.

A lot of young people refuse to be produced, but that's kind of foolish. I think that being teachable keeps you young. When you stop being teachable, you start getting old.

Figure 15.5. Rock rock rock rock rock and roll high school.

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A good relationship with a producer polishes a diamond in the rough. And you get to utilize the experience of someone older and more adept and get to use it while you're still young and cute enough to sell records.

Below is a flipside of the whole "do it yourself " argument. It's a letter (reprinted with permission) from my friend Beau Brashares. It was part of a conversation between the two of us talking about a band we loved back in the old days in D.C. The band name has been removed to protect the egos of the guilty.

I've known Beau for 23 years, and I know he's being pretty facetious in a Modest Proposal kind of way about the gun in the second and tenth paragraphs, but I wholeheartedly see his point. After all, one of the sayings I made up back when I started making (good) records on my own in 1984 was "The problem with every one being able to make a record is that everyone makes a record."

Beau is an extremely talented person, and very smart. And I don't just say this because he broke up a band (Amplifier, from San Francisco) that had everything to make it: excellent songs, great singing , great playing, unique arrangements and production, major management, even stunning good looks. He was about to get signed and walked away and went to law school. He is now a practicing attorney in New York City and records music and takes fine art photographs for fun.

This may seem like it runs counter to my D.I.Y. ethos, but in some way, it doesn't. I agree with all of this:

NOTE

Michael

XXXXX was one of those bands that never made a definitive record. That first tape was a classic, but their first EP (called "YYYYY") was merely a few butchered remixes of randomly chosen songs from that tape. Long after they broke up they recorded (their first LP [5.] ), which again recycled songs from the classic tape but remixed even more poorly. For instance, the cheesy drum machine beats that were somehow perfect on the tape were replaced with booming beats from an 80s-sounding drum machine. The songs were so good to begin with that a few people bought and liked that record despite its failures, and it started a little ZZZZZ cottage industry for (the singer). He went on to form a whole bunch of really shitty bands that were also called ZZZZZ, and in them his vocal schtick, without the context of (the guitar player)'s and (the bass player)'s playing, gets incredibly tiresome.

[5.] Long Playing record . Archaic vinyl format. Full-length 12-inch record with about 45 minutes of music on it.

So the post-mortem on XXXXX is as follows : That first tape and their early live shows are a great memory for those of us that were there, but that's all there really is. If someone like you or me could go back in time with a gun, point it at the band and say, "We're releasing this whole demo tape, exactly as is, on an LP and then you are going to tour the world and play those same songs for a year," they would have become hugely and justly famous.

Unfortunately , nobody outside the band took control of the situation and they were their own worst enemy (and not just from the drugs).

You know, there's a lesson in all this. It starts with the fact that almost all artists , musicians , and writers are utterly clueless as to what others find appealing about their work. In fact, they are usually embarrassed about the very elements that make their work unique and special.

A great editor, producer, A&R person, or manager can recognize the artist's charm and originality and emphasize those features to the public despite the artist's wishes. In the same way, a band can have a balance of power that enables each member to filter the work of the other members (the Beatles being the classic example). Almost all great art involves some kind of intermediary between the individual artist and the public, and as an ironic consequence, the creative minds behind such art usually are bitter because the end result doesn't reflect their exact intentions. (Artists are very insecure and narcissistic, as we know, and intuitively they think the best possible art is that which most closely resembles what's going on in their own heads.)

Unfortunately, many artists eventually get enough power to take control of their work and force their idea on the world, and that's usually when it starts to suck. Frequently, this same thing happens when one member of a band gets the ability to shout down the other members. What XXXXX had in the early days was:

(I) A productive balance of power between the members

and

(II) A very talented producer/engineer in VVVVV.

Before they got a single record out though, (the guitar player) sort of took over the production and creative direction of the group , and of course everything went to hell. Now, (the guitar player) is still a hugely talented personpossibly the most talented person I know. But his very strong personality has been his downfall in some respects, because he's always been able to bully others into doing things his way, and even though his way has a lot of merit, that filtering effect is lost when one person is in charge of the whole artistic process. So what we've gotten on XXXXX's records is basically (the guitar player)'s take on what that band had to offer, which is vastly different from what the rest of us liked about them.

You may already have thought about all this stuff, I realize. As a big proponent of the whole "D.I.Y." thing, it's probably occurred to you that most artists who truly do everything themselves have a very, very limited appeal. On the other hand, they are very happy with the art they make, because it really does display the artist as he or she wishes to be seen by others. So the D.I.Y. thing usually leads to bad art and happy artists, whereas the commercial art world, with its more collaborative process, tends to make the artists unhappy but, when the right mix of talents coincides, generates the occasional masterpiece. (Of course, usually the commercial art world causes the wrong mix of talents to coincide, so it's usually the worst of all worlds , leading many to decide on going totally in their own, D.I.Y. direction.)

What the world needs is more talented artists who understand how this all works and have the maturity to recognize when an editor or band member or producer is changing their art for the better, even if it's diverging from their personal vision. We don't necessarily have to rely on the business interests to shove this idea down our throats in their clumsy and scattershot way, but unfortunately for many, getting free of the business interests also means getting free of any intrusion on their personal artistic vision, which in turn means a lot of art fails to strike any meaningful resonance with a broad cross-section of people.

Perhaps you and I should start an armed management/production team and force great bands at gunpoint to do exactly as we say.

Beau

Large Hollywood movie studios and record companies are not going to be replaced this week. But they are going to have to reckon with the lone eccentric genius working in his or her bedroom or garage. Microsoft and Apple started in garages. This archetype has also worked for media companies.

Now that you are strong and excellent enough to go up against the Goliaths, consider not going up against them at all. Create a better, parallel universe that does not include the Goliaths. You can do it yourself and keep it all for yourselfall

Figure 15.6. An Albatross guitar.

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Figure 15.7. Keys.

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the control and all the money. Independent music can be more than just a farm system for the big guys. It can truly be the alternative. [6.]

[6.] That's what "alternative music" used to mean, when I helped start it, before it got co- opted as a marketing term by very un-alternative corporations.

Know your options. It's your call. Make sure it stays your call.

Importance of Follow Through

Someone said to me, "I wish I'd had your movie idea."

Ideas ain't much. I have 50 ideas this good each year; I just follow through on two or three of them at a time.

When I was a drug addict, I had notebooks full of great ideas that never came to fruition. Ideas are nothing. They are free. It's the work that counts.

The Universe rewards hard work, but you have to be ready .

Be the Ninja: Practice daily at follow through so you can become excellent at being able to jump in the correct direction at will.

When opportunity falls in your lap, stick a twenty in her garter and watch her wiggle.

Slow and Steady Wins the Race

I've lived in LA for two years. When I first got here, I hung out with some people who talked constantly about how they were gonna get a huge record deal and a huge movie deal and a huge book deal and all kinds of deals. They were all about The Deal. I got sick of their boasting, name dropping, and desperation; quietly quit hanging out with them; and went home to work on art , not deals.

The deals pretty much found me. I now have a good movie and two new books that I've finished in that time. I have a small cool movie deal and a small cool multiple-book deal. None of those boasters have anything. Several have moved back to Ohio and now hate LA. None of those people remember that I exist because my deals are below their radarnot big enough to count. And some of it was stuff I put out myself . And to people with stars in their eyes, that means you do not exist.

I'm living a small, reasonable, happy reality. These people are miserable and still living vast spectacular fantasies.

I've heard a Hollywood saying that you should "Do six things each day to further your career."

Forget that. I'd rather do 137 things a day to make art and get it out the door. There is a difference.

[ LiB ]


[d]30 Music School
The Angel Experiment (Maximum Ride, Book 1)
ISBN: 1592001718
EAN: 2147483647
Year: 2006
Pages: 138

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