[John Davidson]

FCS2 had me at “The footage you are placing in this sequence is a different format from the sequence settings. Would you like to change the sequence settings to the correct format?”

That gave me the vapors!

And if that goose needed more sauce:

Color = awesome color fx.

STP/FCP omf ins/outs and hard limiting = goodbye protools, well, maybe not goodbye, but for sure me and protools are going to have an open relationship now.

Motion = new templates and 3D stuff. I will now get off my butt and learn this program for more than just mockup graphics.

Goodness, I need a cold shower!

[John Davidson]

After rereading that first paragraph I wrote, I was like “Boy, I’m a jerk”. It’s just annoying when you want to give somebody region/market specific advice and their profile is blank. Sorry if I was brisque – I have no reason to believe you’ve ‘sniped’ at anybody.

Probably shouldn’t respond to posts when I have a migraine :-).

John Davidson____ writer | producer | director____https://www.magicfeather.tv

[John Davidson]

And no, I don’t keep copies of sync licenses. My company is an outside vendor under the creative direction of the networks who maintain all paperwork and responsibility for what they air. I provide creative, they provide approval and clearance.

Sometimes when promoting a movie or series, music is already cleared in the promotional use of the film/series for x number of years. For example, every syndicated promo for “Friends” uses the Rembrandts “I’ll be there for you” music. Another example is for the movie “Last Action Hero”: specific songs by Megadeath and Alice in Chains were available for promotional use, free of charge, because they had been paid for for use in the movie.

Clearance for each song is different, some are very expensive and some are surprisingly cheap. For cable networks, my submissions gravitate towards songs that will likely be more affordable to the network (like catchy 80’s music). For broadcast networks, I go a little more mainstream (Barenaked Ladies, Pink, etc).

Nothing gets aired without clearance. Ever. That would be a nightmare.

[John Davidson]

Every network has their own music person who obtains clearances through the license holders. TNT, ABC, Disney, FX, etc., each has it’s own method of handling it, but there’s usually one company that handles the actual aquiring of licenses from the labels that all the networks go through. Some clearances are quick (Big Head Todd was pretty fast), some take forever to never (Electric Light Orchestra, surprisingly).

I can’t remember off the top of my head who handles most of the clearances. I think it’s a division of BMG or Killer Tracks. Some tracks take longer to clear if there are multiple owners of a song. The John Parr song was held by 3 different labels 1 in London, 1 in NYC, and one in Nashville (I think), so it almost didn’t get cleared in time.

I assume they get paid by royalties in check form.

[John Davidson]

Places I get ideas:

The shower
Dropping the kids off in the pool
The treadmill (with ipod blaring Hybrid) at the gym gets me going.
When my fiance talks about something like shopping or wedding centerpeices.
When people complain to me I zone out and get ideas.

Plugins for After Effects. Often my ideas are built around experimenting with AE or Maya. I then merge a current project to incorporate my experimentation.

Read design books on color theory and typography.

Good movies:
Watch “The Matrix” – just the first one – even though it’s sorta ruined now (after 2 and 3).
Spidey 3 was semi inspirational. Love Sam Raimi.

Lay in bed, kick my leg till 5am watching the project in my head.

For last minute ideas, I usually pull out whatever has floated to the top of all the stuff above. Of course you can always pull from a tried and true idea that you’ve used before, but that’s boring and often drains me of the inspiration needed to get that last minute idea through.

I can’t stress enough how important music is to my creative process. Scour production music. Find really good tracks and sit back with your eyes closed and just take a ride until your mind associates the pictures you’ve been staring at with the sound you’re hearing. Listen for crescendos, peaks and ebbs, breaks and restarts, and find a way to blend that with what your working with.

Hope that helps.

[John Davidson]

My network clients license all the music in the spots we produce for them, so in my particular situation, the method I describe actually makes artists quite a bit of flow and garners them national broadcast exposure.

For example, this year some of the artists that made a great deal of cash from this are:

John Parr (Man in Motion song from St. Elmo’s Fire)
Big Head Todd & the Monsters (my favorites)
Everclear
Barenaked Ladies
Scissor Sisters
Persiphone’s Bees
Ursula 1000

It would be even easier if I didn’t have to deal with DRM forcing me to waste a cd every time I try to test a song out in a spot.

John Davidson____ writer | producer | director____https://www.magicfeather.tv

[John Davidson]

First I would fill out your profile and add a demo reel. Unless you’re in the CIA, anonymity will hurt you in the professional realm. People either assume you’re not legitimate, or choose to make crass posts, snipe at other posters, and then hide behind a blank profile.

I think what you meant on your post was that you want to make trailers for TV shows and Movies, not that you want to make TV Shows. In the television realm, promos are typically produced by the creative services and/or marketing deparments. As an editor, you want to get in touch with producers that work in these departments. Sometimes inhouse producers can’t do all the work networks need done, so the networks call companies like mine to take up the slack.

So, you’re two options are, find a posthouse that caters specifically to promo producers (Riot! Atlanta would be one) which will be difficult because post houses prefer editors with their own clients in tow, or find an inhouse production department that services promo producers from within a media company (Turner Studios in Atlanta services all networks within Turner Brodacasting).

In either situation, unless you’re an accomplished freelancer with a stellar reel of spots, you’re going to need to come in at entry level and work your way up the ranks, from tape op to avid editor.

It’s better to go the post-house route, because you’ll have access to better spots and more experience producers.

Just my two cents.

John Davidson____ writer | producer | director____https://www.magicfeather.tv

[John Davidson]

Did you know that you can burn those songs via itunes to a regular audio cd?

Did you also know that you can import regular audio cd’s into itunes, encoding the files into any format you like, many of which (like aiff) are extremely functional in Final Cut Pro?

iTunes is a pretty functional program….

John Davidson____ writer | producer | director____https://www.magicfeather.tv

[John Davidson]

Or organ pirate movies…wait, I think those are rated XXX, if they’re anything like the organ pirate movies i’ve seen…

John Davidson____ writer | producer | director____https://www.magicfeather.tv

[John Davidson]

Not sure, but they do seem to have a product called “edge” for smaller businesses. Maybe check that one out?

John Davidson____ writer | producer | director____https://www.magicfeather.tv