Lifestyle-driven movies with a youth element have the best potential for a soundtrack deal, says Toronto music supervisor Ron Proulx, even if the films are put together on a shoestring budget. Small films, he says, can approach small indie labels and bring on board grassroots artists looking for exposure as opposed to money.

Take The Fishing Trip, for example, a film being produced for under $500,000 by Amnon Buchbinder, who is also directing, and Anna Newallo. Camelia Frieberg is exec producer on the film, which follows three young girls who drive up north to deal with their feelings about a sexually abusive father.

For The Fishing Trip, Proulx asked up-and-coming folk singer Oh Susanna, who is making a buzz in Toronto, to write a song for the film, and he convinced music publisher bmg to fund the song, titled River Blue. It will be the film’s closing credit song.

Proulx looked to indie bands Lillith and Stem to provide a track, and since the film held a socially significant message, they agreed to do it for ‘next to nothing.’

Forte Records owns the master and represents the song by Lillith used in the film; Stem owns and represents its own master and song. However, another artist who was planning to donate a song to the soundtrack just signed an American record label deal and the price tag for his involvement soared out of the producers’ reach.

The director made the decision to use score music for the rest of the film. If more songs had been incorporated, Proulx says that he could have brought on a number of indie roots artists and a soundtrack might have been more viable. Still, if the film creates a buzz on the festival circuit, he is thinking of rounding up a number of performers and approaching an independent record label to put out a soundtrack.

‘I see it as a companion album to The Fishing Trip with the best of North America’s alternative, politically correct female artists,’ says Proulx.

‘These low-budget indie films need all the marketing help they can get.’