USING TV AND FILM TO LAUNCH A BAND'S CAREER

Using TV and Film to Launch Your Band’s Career

Posted on 04. May, 2009 by refe in STRATEGY

I had an interesting conversation yesterday about different routes new artists and bands could take to break out. There were a couple of people who very firmly asserted that TV and to a lesser degree film were the only places left for artists to successfully reach a large number of new listeners. I’m not sure if I agree with them, but they do make a good point. Getting noticed in the digital age is an incremental art. Music spreads by word of mouth, file-sharing, link aggregators. One person hears your song, they recommend it to a couple of other people, one or two of them posts a link to your site on Twitter and little by little you develop a decent following. It’s an organic process.

With TV and film you have a much wider audience all experiencing your music in the same way, often at the same time. If the show or movie is popular, your song could be heard by millions. It’s also worth mentioning the licensing fees that you would be earning in the meantime. So while I may not agree that it is the last remaining option for artists to find success, a licensing deal is a great thing if you can get it.

So how do you get it?

Basically, in order to get your music in a film it will have to get into the hands of a music supervisor. Here you run into the same problem that exists in just about every aspect of the music business: excess choice. The music supervisor has thousands of tracks to choose from, and your job is to make it as easy as possible for her to find yours.

There are lots of ways you could go about doing this, but one of the most obvious would be to start small. Find someone with an eye for video and get them to help you shoot an amatuer music video. This might sound lame, but in the YouTube age a video doesn’t need to have expensive production values to get attention. You just want to show that your song works well as the backdrop for a scene.

The next step up from that would be to begin networking with independent film makers. There are a million of these guys out there (trust me – I used to be one of them.) All of them are looking for good, inexpensive music for their projects. You can find them on MySpace, LinkedIN, or in film and video programs at colleges and universities. Start talking to them, get them listening to your stuff. If they like it they may have a project where they can use it. You probably won’t make any real money, but you will have something that you can post on your website, YouTube, and anywhere else you can think of where the right person might find it.

Remember, it’s all about removing the obstacles between your music and the people who need to hear it. Here you are taking away the guesswork. You want the music super to see the scene, hear your music and feel the emotional impact it produces. You want them to know right away if they have found what they’re looking for.

One more thing: if you are serious about this, start paying attention to your favorite commercials, TV shows and movies. What is it about the music that makes the scene what it is? What are some of the common elements in each of the tracks? How can you make those same choices in your own music? If you are going to spend the time, energy and money trying to get your music in the hands of the music supervisors of the world, make sure that you are selling a product they will be able to use.

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