Advice for a request for music change

[Roy Schneider]

Sometimes honesty is the best approach. Explain to your client, what you just wrote. Explain to them that you create your budget based on the time it takes to do a project and that this seemingly simple change would mean you spending additional time in post.

Roy

Long Live the Cow
Roy Schneider
Executive Producer
Vintage Production Group
516-659-4596

[Greg Ball]

Knowing that you were cutting to the music, did you let your client hear the music and approve it before you started cutting? I always let the client hear the music first, if I’m using music that way.

This comes from my years of experience working in corporate video. I once had a boss who hated every cut of music I selected. So I was a bit shy about cutting to a song. Finally I did one cut with a lousy music track that did not match the action. When they said they hated it, I’d come back later with the cut I had already done (cut to the beat), and they loved it!! LOL!

Greg Ball, President
Ball Media Innovations, Inc.
https://www.ballmediainnovations.com

[Dave Bowman]

Hi Greg. Thanks for your reply. There was an agreement that I would select the music (bad idea probably), and that would probably have been fine… until he put it to his wife. She then said she wanted something with a more Celtic feel to it which threw a spanner in the works. Anyway, I’ve since managed to get an agreement on a slightly Celtic tune that works, so hopefully no more issues from hereon in.

[Bill Davis]

[Dave Bowman] “I guess I’m looking for a reasonable and delicately worded argument that would persuade the customer that their idea is a bad one ☺ “

I have a different perspective here.

With modern editing software, making an alt cut to try out new music should be pretty trivial.

There’s no downside I can see to sending a watermarked copy of the project for the client’s composer to play around with. He or she can strip out the audio and play around to their hearts content.

If they can improve things – GREAT.

If not, the only thing that’s happened, is that somebody new (the composer) has seen your work. That’s a PLUS in my book.

If they come up with something interesting, It’s equally trivial to clone the current project and adjust things for the new score.

Heck, I edit in FCP X – and I bet I’d find it really interesting to create a new Audition for the alt music – adjust the scene timings to the alternate score (should take maybe half an hour?) – and switch back and forth between the two versions to see how the different scores affect the visual layout.

Isn’t this exactly WHY we all use non-linear editing today.

So we can make changes easily in search of the best result?

FWIW.

Creator of XinTwo – https://www.xintwo.com
The shortest path to FCP X mastery.

[Greg Janza]

[Bill Davis] “With modern editing software, making an alt cut to try out new music should be pretty trivial.”

On this point I can agree with Bill. Music selects for video pieces seems to always engender a lot of differing opinions from clients. It’s also an area of post production that goes through the most revisions.

Instead of looking at it as a negative, maybe you can look at it as an opportunity for a serendipitous moment in the editing process. You’ll be surprised at how easy it is to swap music selects.

And yes, watermarked tracks make the whole music selects process even easier since no money has been spent. All you have to do is swap out for another track.

I Hate Television. I Hate It As Much As Peanuts. But I Can’t Stop Eating Peanuts.
– Orson Welles

[Grinner Hester]

Show them what doesn’t work then bill them for your time.