Sing a Song of Freedom – Music of Bold Native.
Hush Hush for Haiti Jan 29, 2010
During the editing process, we utilized about a dozen temp tracks. I tried not to put anything in the film that we had absolutely no chance of getting permission to use. However, the difference between having a chance at getting permission and actually being able to get in touch with those who might give you that permission can be pretty stark.
Every time a piece of music is used in a film, two separate permissions must be granted – master rights for the use of the actual recording and publishing rights for the use of the song as written. Neither of these rights are generally controlled by the artist (though this is changing with more and more artists retaining ownership of their work). So just finding out who you need permission from and actually getting in contact with them can be a real challenge… which is why it’s part of an entire job called music supervision. Without a music supervisor on the project, we were left to navigate the wilds of the music business on our own. Fortunately, we’ve had the help of music supervisor friends Mark Wike, Joel Sill, Philip Steir, and Andrea von Foerster to get us phone numbers, assure labels we were decent people, offer contract advice, etc.
