Exploiting Hollywood 1980.

Chapter 737 Music Copyright
"Ronald, would you like to take some pictures?"

"immediately!"

Ronald took the main actors of the crew to the hot spring to rest this time, and also arranged for a cameraman to shoot extras and stills, and also arranged for an assistant cameraman to shoot some video tapes.

These can be used as promotional materials after the filming is completed.If you get the chance, go on a talk show and play some great episodes.If there is no chance, the photo can be cropped and modified to make a poster.

"Come closer, please. Okay, the two protagonists are in the middle. Very good... Cheese! Another picture."

The photographer pressed the shutter continuously and took a few group photos for everyone.He was about to leave when Ronald stopped him, "Let me take a group photo with all the dancers. Patrick, Cynthia, and Jennifer come too."

Pulling the crooked backup dancers, they were either alone or in pairs, and they took a separate photo with the main creative staff shoulder to shoulder.The fat female dancer with excellent shoulder movements also pulled Patrick Switz to a solo one.

"Write down their names and addresses, print them out, enlarge one, and send them separately with the negatives."

Ronald asked the photographer, and asked Bud Jr. to write down the photographer's phone number and check it when the time comes.

This is the experience gained from "Longwei Kid". The action director and stand-in actor Darryl Vidal hired by Ronald, relying on the photo with Master Miyagi and Daniel's master and apprentice, the business of the karate club Hot.

When he enters his guild hall, he wears a wig and puts on the unique trick of "Crane Kick", and hangs his wings on the white crane with Morita Noriyuki, who plays the role of Master Miyagi.

Behind the front desk, there are pictures of news reports and TV reports, including the text of Ronald saying that he is the real Mr. Miyagi who kicked the crane. It is displayed in an extremely large size, which makes all the children who come to the guild hall jump for joy. Parents are required to sign up to learn real Goju-ryu karate under the guidance of real "Miyagi masters".

The budget for "Dirty Dancing" is limited, and the invited dancers are all dancers who can only work as dance instructors in the industry because of their poor appearance.They usually rely on teaching some dance lovers to dance to earn living expenses.

They can take a photo with the protagonist and the director in a movie that is shown in the cinema, and when the time comes to recruit students, they can also increase their fees.

They train hard, and compared to their outstanding dancing skills, the minimum wage of the actors' union is considered cheap.Ronald hopes to compensate them as much as possible later.

After the rest at the resort, the actors went back to rehearse.

Ronald himself, sneaking to the MGM offices, met with Weintraub.

"Do you want to find a broker for copyright purchase?" Weintraub was very busy, MGM's heart was fluctuating, no one worked seriously for more than half a year, and now many things had to be cleaned up from scratch.

But he still took the time to meet with Ronald, the biggest contributor to his rise to the top leadership in Hollywood.

"Yes, my current music director seems to be playing tricks. I don't want to wait for the film to be finished. When it's in post-production, I suddenly find that I don't have money to buy music." Ronald put his small production needs a lot of 50s I talked about the copyright of the song, and then asked Weintraub to recommend a capable candidate.

"Five 60s? That's very convenient. I happen to have someone here. It was the copyright management manager of the original RCA record company. I had a lot of dealings with him when I opened the record company.

After Columbia Records acquired RCA, his copyright department was merged and he was laid off. Now he is buying music copyrights for movies and TV shows and working as a full-time copyright broker. "

"Tear..." a sound.

Weintraub wrote down the contact information on a sticky note, tore it off and handed it to Ronald. "You'd better hurry up and finish your little production, we are going to start the preparations for the sultry moonlight."

Ronald took the note with Jimmy Reiner's name and phone number written on it.

"Thank you, you are busy."

Ronald resigned, called the broker named Reiner, and asked him to come out to negotiate.

"So, your movie needs about fifteen to twenty old songs from the 50s for background music and interludes, right? What's the budget?"

"The total budget of the film is 450 million, and I left about 40 for the music copyright. Can you buy all the songs?" Ronald handed the music list made by the screenwriter Eleanor to the other party.

"It's a piece of cake. If I don't mention your name, even half the price is enough. I watched these songs, most of them were on some small swing dance music labels in Nashville and Detroit. Records in recent years There are many mergers and acquisitions in the industry, and most of the copyrights should be in a few companies such as RCA.

Except for the two top three songs on the list that year, and the two famous bands, such as this song by the Four Seasons and the Raspberry Band, which requires a licensing fee of [-] US dollars, other [-] to [-] can be bought Down. "

Jimmy Reiner ticked off the list and added up the total, which came to less than $20.

"Very good, how much time do you need?" Ronald was very satisfied with the broker introduced by Weintraub. Independent brokers like to close the deal as soon as possible so that they can move on to the next order.

"How much time do you need to buy all the copyright licenses?"

"At least three days, at most a week." Jimmy Reiner was straightforward.

"However, my film already has a music director registered by the union, and your name cannot appear on the subtitles as the music director."

Jimmy Reiner waved his hand to show that he didn't care, then picked up the efficiency notebook, and began to plan the time and object of the next negotiation.

"By the way, do you want a complete copyright authorization, so that you can make an original soundtrack if you get it." Jimmy Reiner asked Ronald a question while writing.It's like the grocer who has sold you a bottle of wine, and when looking for wine, asks if you want an upgraded version of the old wine.

"Oh? How much will that cost me?"

"It doesn't cost much. Your music is mostly old songs from the 50s. Many singers at that time gave up their performance rights in copyright and sold them to the company. So as long as you are willing to bid, the record company is willing to sell more of.

That is, the songs of these famous bands require separate authorization from songwriters and performers. "

It turns out that the use of episodes in movies involves two types of copyright.

One is the right to use the song itself after it is recorded into a record. This part of the right can be leased to the producer, and they can record and mix the original soundtrack of the record into the soundtrack of the movie.

Songwriters and singers can receive part of the remaining dividends in the box office of movies that use their music.

This part of the money, after Ronald has filed with the musicians union, will be transferred to the two major union organizations ASCAP and BMI according to the agreement, and then the union will be responsible for distributing it.

Another kind of copyright is the right to reinterpret and publish, also known as the full copyright.

You can use this copyright to re-record the record and publish it as a collection.It is also possible to give priority to inviting the original singer to re-sing a new performance version for the movie, and the copyright of this version will remain with the production company, not the original record company.

Even without re-recording, in order to obtain the right to publish the original soundtrack, the production company will have to pay another one-time transfer fee of about [-] US dollars to the star singer.Lesser-known singers are on the decline.

"I suggest you buy the complete copyright, old songs are not expensive. Then you can also have the opportunity to release an original soundtrack record, and I have no problem reading it back. We can sign a five-year or ten-year license period. During this period You don’t recharge the one-time transfer fee as many times as you reprint, you just pay them royalties every six months.”

Ronald calculated his own money, and almost all the money allocated to music in the budget was used up.Many of the top-grossing movies now have pop music on the charts to help out and market the movies.

I don't have the money to ask pop singers or bands to write new songs for the movie. If I want to re-release the old classics, I can also make a little noise.

"Okay, just follow your recommendation."

It took Jimmy Reiner only three days to obtain the copyright of all the music designated by Eleanor. Ronald called his private lawyer from New York to review all the contracts in Los Angeles.

"No problem, there are no major problems with these contracts. You can sign them." Miss lawyer Lindsay Dole stretched her waist and pushed all the contracts in front of Ronald.

"There are still a few blank music copyright purchase agreements. After you find a suitable new theme song, you can use this template to sign a contract with the songwriter and singer. Just fax the contract when the time comes, and it will save me a lot of trouble. trip."

"Okay," Ronald gestured to the lawyer lady with his eyes, and he understood.

He was also on the phone with art director Ryan Weaver.When he reviewed the photos and storyboard drawings of all the scenes in the script again, he found many problems.

"So how do they solve the problem of set continuity?"

"The exteriors were split into two shoots in different states, but the movie is actually one location, and there's a lot of tedious work to be done here.

David Chapman, the location designer, thought of many ways.For example, in the scene where the protagonist Baby descends from the ballroom to Johnny’s log cabin, the first half was filmed at the mountain lake house in Virginia, and the second half was filmed at the boy scout camp in North Carolina.

We need to add some people to make sure that all the scenes are in order and all shot together.There are no flaws in the film as much as possible.

For example, on the way down the mountain, there are many lampposts on both sides, so you have to hire one or two props personnel to make props and street lights exactly the same as those in Virginia Mountain Lake Villa here in North Carolina.

So I got David Chapman to make a list of all the props that could go wrong, and we cross-checked.The scene notes of this movie are also unprecedentedly heavy.The two locations require a lot of meticulous work, I suggest you find a few more to enrich the set recording team. "

"You make a list, I'll let Richard LeWitt read it, and then I'll recruit people."

Ronald hung up the phone and added a sum of money to the budget usage list.

"Spending money like water... Aha." Seeing Ronald's bad face, the lawyer lady began to joke.

"Yeah, what I'm most afraid of now is hearing about additional manpower and additional money.

Fortunately, there is no bad news that I am most afraid of "not enough time for a certain job, and the overall shooting will be postponed. The money wasted as soon as it comes is terrible, hundreds of thousands every day." "

"Okay, anyway, you don't have to worry about having no money. If you have no money, go direct a new film and earn back." The lawyer lady yawned again.

"You're so boring here, I'll go and see a movie."

"I'll ask Little Bud to take you there." Ronald didn't lift his head.

"What good movies are there to watch now?" The lawyer lady picked up the "Hollywood Report" on the coffee table and flipped to the box office column.

"Stand by me seems to be good. It won the box office champion for four weeks in a row. You directed a lot in the top ten. Top Gun and Longwei Kid 2 are all yours, right?"

"Yes, and I also produced the film "A Family with an Evil Husband."

"I've already seen that one. Helen's acting is so funny." The lawyer lady couldn't stop giggling.

"No, this is last week's box office. What about this week's new newspaper?" Lindsay Dole looked at it for a long time and found that the date was wrong. He wanted to see what new movies were released this week.

"I found a fun movie this weekend, it's from Australia, it's called 'Crocodile Dundee', and the new newspaper seems to be at the door."

"Oh, I'll check it out." Lindsay went out and brought in some new newspapers.

"Oh, God..." Lindsay turned to the latest box office report, screamed in fright, walked over quickly, and pointed it out to Ronald.

"Your Top Gun is No. [-] at the box office again."

"Huh?" Ronald was also surprised, and took it over to have a look.

In the No. 19 week of its release, the box office in North America is close to breaking through 6000 million. The blockbuster "Top Gun" once again topped the box office list with a weekend box office figure of 350 million.

(End of this chapter)