‘Sorry, we were delayed in the edit, can you turn over the music in a week?’

‘The special effects are costing more than expected, we had to dip into the music budget.’

‘Sure the budget is small, but you don’t need to rent a studio, come up with some music in your home studio.’

‘Forget the musicians ­ a mini-synthesizer will doŠ’

These are the tunes film and tv composers are hearing played over and over of late as producers, faced with financial constraints, squeeze music budgets dry. Falling at the end of the production line when the final crunch of being out of time and over budget draws sharply into focus, composers are used to doing a lot with a little.

But they’re beginning to raise warning flags, pointing out that budgets have bottomed out to the point where their ability to produce quality work and to make a living in Canada are at stake.

According to Glenn Morley, vp of the Guild of Canadian Film Composers, music budgets for mows vary widely ­ between $30,000 and $50,000 for anywhere from 30 to 50 minutes of music ­ and the deals are usually cut long before the composer knows exactly how many minutes are contracted.

Alberta native George Blondheim has been scoring for film and tv for the past 20 years and says in many instances producers are now allotting less than 1% of their total budget to music. ‘They spend more on craft services,’ he says.

And even when music budgets start out in the $50,000 range, Blondheim claims that by the time audio production begins, producers have already dipped into the music kitty and $20,000 is often all that’s left.

One-hour episodic tv music budgets generally range from $15,000 to $30,000, but can go as low as $10,000, sometimes less.

Tight time lines

Turnover times are compounding the composers’ dilemma, with two to three weeks the average allotment for a film score whereas one to two months used to be the norm, says Blondheim. ‘You have to be real fast and real good or employ a whole staff of people and make no money.’

Blondheim just completed a Great Dame Productions’ docudiary on Olympic swimmer Greg Lougannis, and schedule setbacks left him with a mere seven days to produce 40 minutes worth of music. The delayed sked meant the job ran into a previously booked commitment to score nine 30-second commercials, so he was forced to do both projects within the same time frame.

The end result of small budgets and impossible schedules is mediocre music, composers agree.

‘Almost all the films I’m seeing these days are suffering in the sound and music department,’ says Blondheim, who has worked on big American pictures like 9 1/2 Weeks and Jewel of the Nile and smaller Canadian productions like the wtn series Metro Cafe (BTV Productions). ‘The mixes are rushed and music budgets have been robbed to pay for looping or some other overage.’

Death of live music?

Not only are music budgets falling, the costs of employing live musicians and renting large studios are on the rise, and to stay in the game, composers are forced to work out of home studios, invest in electronic gear and forego live sessions in favor of less costly synthesizer and computer-generated music.

Like many composers, Vancouver-based Terry Frewer, whose credits include The Adventures of Shirley Holmes, MacGyver and Neon Rider, is cutting costs by working out of a home studio. Although he d’esn’t miss carting equipment to live sessions and setting up and breaking down studio sets, he worries that live recording is becoming a dying art form on the film landscape.

Frewer says cg music and synthesizers have their place, but composers and producers are basing their decisions to go electronic on accounting, not creative considerations.

Electronic music that attempts to sound like a live recording is always second best, he says. When scoring the Telegenic series Lonesome Dove, Frewer compromised by splitting the work 50:50 between his studio and a large facility with a live orchestra.

Many producers are now offering lower music budgets, expecting composers to work with home gear and without live players, says Toronto’s Louis Natale, who is currently scoring Atlantis’ Traders and Psi Factor series out of his own studio. It is rare that musicians are hired for either series, says Natale, and he misses the input of other musicians and the creativity collaboration inspires.

Mickymar Productions’ partners Micky Erbe and Maribeth Solomon have 20 years of composing under their belts and are trying, when they can, to keep with the tradition of recording musicians in studio.

The pair just completed Alliance’s Nothing Too Good For A Cowbody where they brought in country musicians and Dixieland jazz players. ‘You can’t get that feel with a synthesizer,’ says Solomon.

Careful planning, tight recording sessions and finishing up with a synthesizer is their strategy under budget restrictions. But Soloman claims some composers are coping with the crunch by hiring non-union musicians, a practice she refuses to take part in.

Although digital technology is saving composers time and money, music budgets can only be stretched so thin, says Magnetic Music director/composer David Greene.

‘Even with the more sophisticated digital systems there are fixed costs in terms of facilities and personnel, and I think we have reached the point of limitation in terms of how far you can drop budgets and still create meaningful music,’ Greene says.

One-man bargain basement bands

The advent of high-tech, low-cost technology has also swollen the ranks of composers vying for work. Newcomers are breaking into the field by offering to do the music, sound effects, sound design, score, looping and audio mix on their own consuls for half of what just a score should cost, says Blondheim, and some producers looking to cut costs are eagerly hiring them on.

‘It’s putting pressure on all of us to work for less money,’ says Russell Walker, at Toronto’s Kitchen Sync Digital Audio.

Low-balling is hurting the film and tv audio industry across the board, putting specialized foley artists, composers, audio designers, loopers and sound cutters out of work, claims Blondheim, adding that by trying to be a jack of all audio trades, the undercutters are eroding the overall quality standards of film and tv scores.

Royalty issue

Royalty battles remain another beef for composers. With smaller margins left in music budgets to cover their fees, composers are increasingly looking to performing royalties to make up the shortfall, but these rights are also in jeopardy, with the Canadian Association of Broadcasters lobbying forcefully to cut the 2.1% tariffs substantially.

Broadcasters are also seeking to break the exclusive licence composers have with the performing rights society and negotiate directly with composers. ‘This ultimately means no performing rights, because the composer will have absolutely no negotiating power against multinational corporations,’ says the gcfc’s Morley, adding:

‘If broadcasters are successful, I think we will see a significant drain of quality composers from Canada, they simply can’t make a living under these conditions.’

While many composers are finding expanding opportunities with the high volume of series for the specialty channels, they have yet to see a nickel in royalties from the new channels.

The Copyright Act was amended in the late ’80s to include cable networks in the royalty framework, but court wrangling between the cable operators and specialties as to who is responsible for coming up with the cash has stalled payments.

According to Morley, close to $70 million, including accumulated interest over 10 years, is owing to composers.

The court battle is resolved and payments are slated to begin this year, but, says Morley, ‘I will believe it when I see a cheque and it clears.’

Craft in jeopardy

Experienced music scorers are starting to turn down jobs because they don’t want their name associated with the low-quality work that inevitably results when there is little time and even less money to do the job properly. One composer, for example, has turned down 80% of the jobs offered, calling the music budgets ’embarrassing.’

In Montreal, composer Daniel Scott says of the roughly 20 to 30 full-time composers in the city, only half are actually making a decent living

But composers’ biggest worry is for the future of their craft.

‘If they gave me more bucks I wouldn’t put it in my pocket, I would put in on the screen and create a classier product,’ says Natale. ‘Film producers have to become more aware of how important underscore is to a dramatic scene ­ it can ruin a great performance or take an average performance and pull it up a couple of notches.’

The most qualified composers are looking south where music budgets are higher, programs are sold worldwide and royalties are guaranteed. Already, many Canadian composers have a base in l.a. to pick up American projects to be shot and posted in Canada.

According to one l.a. agent, some American producers are giving l.a.-based Canadian composers budgets in the $25,000 range for one-hour episodic series, whereas they are offering Canadians on home turf $15,000 to $20,000

He also notes that composers in Canada are also losing out on Canadian/American copros as producers often skirt Canadian labor restrictions by hiring Canadians based in the u.s.

‘Many of those jobs are taken before we even have a chance at them,’ he says.

High cost of high-tech

Although the price of digital gear is falling, the overall cost of investing in a home studio is taking its toll on composers’ bottom lines. While a 24-track recording machine can be had for $15,000 to $20,000, to stay competitive composers are forced to keep up with an increasing number of software options and packages, and the costs are accumulating.

‘We used to amortize our recording studio costs over a 10-year period,’ explains Greene. ‘But now with non-linear systems you have to look at the amortization over a two-year period ­ this stuff d’esn’t have a great shelf life, it’s in a constant state of evolution and you have to plan for upgrades.’

‘You can be eaten alive trying to keep up with technology,’ adds Frewer, who spent $40,000 in a major refitting this year, and this investment isn’t close to keeping up with technology, it’s only managing to keep his studio at a quality working level.

Natale has also stocked up on $40,000 worth of synthesizer and computer upgrades. Not only is it important to stay competitive, he says, it’s also necessary to keep creative juices flowing. ‘Without new sounds and approaches to keep your interest up, you go nuts composing all by yourself in your own little world.’

Producers today also expect top-quality demos, and in order to land jobs, composers have no choice but to invest in expensive new gear, says Montreal-based Daniel Scott, the composer behind Cinar’s Wimzie’s House and the new Cactus Animation/Coscient series Fennec.

Toronto’s Tantrum Productions just landed its first tv pilot, ytv’s Gag Me kids’ show, and a big Coors Light account through fcb. Partners Elizabeth Taylor, Doug Pennock and Chris Tait also note that increasing competition is forcing composers to produce extravagant, full-quality demo tapes to land work.

New era dawning

But with the advent of dvd, which utilizes Dolby 51 surround sound, Greene sees a light at the end of the tunnel and speculates that audio will become a greater priority for producers and broadcasters.

‘I think in the next few years we are going to see more production in surround sound, better quality audio systems in the home and the technical quality of the audio will become more important.’