Should I use royalty-free music??

 Readers, a key element of any production is music, but especially so in the teen drama genre. 

In Paste Magazine's review of "The 10 Best Teen Movie Soundtracks of the 21st Century", here, many indie songs popular at the time of each production's release were used during the sound production of the film. This is partially because of the feeling that music evokes in an artistic sense, but more practically, it's also a useful tool to engage viewers with songs they may already listen to that deal with similar themes.

So, keeping all this in mind, I made a Spotify playlist of a few songs that I was thinking of using for my film opening.

I knew that, after discussing my storyboard with my instructor, that my initial establishing shot of the car and the slow zoom-out on Charlie sitting in the backseat of the car was going to need music. This was done for multiple reasons. Not only is a common theme of teen movies and all of adolescence using music to express and understand one's feelings as an escape mechanism, but- as a musician- music also helped me get through the events Charlie's story and Unpacking are based off of. But personal reasons aside, I also knew that the emotional intention of the shot would work well with a soundtrack, because a large part of the themes I wanted to communicate within my initial sequence were those of alienation, loss of support, loss of innocence, and loneliness, while also (it must be said) imbuing my work with a certain cinematic quality that only music can ever provide. So, I turned to my existing body of knowledge as a musician and consumer of music: I knew that I wanted grungy, distorted electric guitar, and perhaps some moody vocals to play. I didn't want anything too upbeat, and I wanted something slightly dramatic. I also needed, at maximum, 15-20 seconds. Based off of all these criteria, I settled on Phoebe Bridgers' "Motion Sickness" as the best choice; the vibe of the opening guitar perfectly matched the slightly nostalgic yet melancholic tone I was aiming to imbue Charlie's introspection with, and the opening lyric "I hate you for what you did/ And I miss you like a little kid" matched the themes of childhood innocence transitioning to adolescent struggle present in the conflict which causes our viewer to be thrust into Unpacking in medias res. (In the middle of things. Forgive the Latin, it's a personal failing.)

However, that led me to an issue: "Motion Sickness" is not royalty-free music, and therefore I had to figure out who could grant me permission to use it in my production. This was a multi-step process: first I used Google to frantically search things such as, "Phoebe Bridgers copyright owner?" and "Phoebe Bridgers Motion Sickness copyright" before I came to my senses and decided it was probably a better idea for me to find her representatives. So, I came across her website, https://phoebefuckingbridgers.com/. Under the "Contact" tab, and under "Management", was listed Darin Harmon, of Blue Raincoat Music. I navigated to their website, with little success. So, I decided to use the email address listed under Mr. Harmon's name on Phoebe Bridgers' website, and wrote him a professional email using the guidelines my instructor had previously communicated on what the appropriate way to ask for copyright permission for a royalty.

However, that was on March 2nd; today is March 8th. My instructor had previously said that sometimes copyright requests can take as long as a month to come back; however, I need to wrap up production and post-production in two to three weeks; my first day of shooting is this weekend, on Sunday, March 12th. This timeframe, then, does not work with my timeframe. Such is life; however, that does put me in a bit of a pickle.

I think my current strategy will be to conduct more research on what royalty-free music sites I can use to find music. If I can't find something I really like, then I'll compose, perform, record, and edit an original score for the opening music, since it's really important to me that I have music to carry that opening sequence; but that takes time, a lot of it. You'll see the evolution as it happens, though.

Yours always,

Clover Fields

Sources:

The 10 Best Teen Movie Soundtracks of the 21st Century. (n.d.). Paste Magazine. Retrieved March 9, 2023, from https://www.pastemagazine.com/music/booksmart/best-2000s-movie-soundtracks/