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Topic: Pre-Show Music?
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Frank Angel
Film God
Posts: 5305
From: Brooklyn NY USA
Registered: Dec 1999
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posted 09-23-2016 01:42 PM
The CinemaSounds website gives precious little information about how the service works or its fees or even how the programs are delivered; it also seems like they feature a very narrow music style, i.e. primarily contemporary artists which may or may not be what would be most appealing audiences in every market. Certainly it wouldn't be right for our art house demographic mix, which is heavily younger baby-boomers. We mix classic rock and instrumentals for our preshows. If we were to play play the spastically gyrating Kala Bhianna video or the threatening Skrillex videos at our place, my patrons would walk out of the theatre. Even some of the less aggressive offerings are picked by what are new releases, i.e., a marketing collusion between CinnemaSound (DMI Music and Media Network) and the record labels. There is no suggestion that music is programmed for a specific demographic in any meaningful, scientific way.
When I worked for the LaBrie FM Network (we packaged music for FM stations in one hour blocks, and the formulae that they developed was done with a team of musicologists and marketing experts and was honed down so specifically so as to select cuts targeting what demographic was listening at what quarter hour of the day to what tempi and what actual instrument sounds were appealing (or not) to their ears (strings vs. horns & brass for example, for women vs. men age 25 to 45, etc). A station had a choice of four very different types of music to buy. Lots of very expensive R&D went into the development of those formulae and they were patented by the company.
CinemaSounds doesn't seem to offer that kind of science to what they package together and for what markets. They are pretty much just promoting the latest albums of the labels they are in cahoots with and marketing. You could do that yourself and probably know your audience's taste and do it much better.
And from your question about licensing, it does seem like you are indeed looking to create your own preshow material, not looking to buy a pre-packaged program which would of course be more expensive than you picking out your own album cuts. You just want to be sure you are cleared with the proper licensing, yes? If that is the case, then as Buck says, getting blanket licensing coverage for your venue(s) is not at all very expensive or difficult. All three licensing agencies, ASCAP, BMI and some third one which I can never remember the name (Sescam? perhaps) cover 99.99% of all the music you are ever going to find on CDs. Their annual fees are based on theatre seat-count or if you are like us who have a large seat cap that is never more than half sold and many times much less than that, you can petition for a lesser fee if you can show your annual ticket sales. Bottom line is, you buy the big two (ASCAP and BMI) coverage and you are good to go for any music you play anywhere in your theatre. The third agency covers mostly gospel music, so unless you are a church, you really only need the two majors. Once covered, you never have to worry again what music you choose to play.
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Frank Angel
Film God
Posts: 5305
From: Brooklyn NY USA
Registered: Dec 1999
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posted 09-25-2016 04:45 AM
Fantastic idea, Scott...wasted on an unimaginative exhibitor. Hey, now with digital, you could aim a cam at the player piano and project it on the screen as preshow content. It sure would be more entertaining that the commercial crap they run now. In fact, given that 99% of the cinemas don't have curtains, the image of the piano workings would avoid the mortal sin of an audience walking in and seeing a "naked" screen. With just a bit more ingenuity, you could set up small cameras in the belly of the piano looking at, say, the hammers, one looking at the keyboard, one at the paper roll, etc and feed them thru a switcher set to auto-change the inputs so the audience sees all the moving parts while listening to the music. And they have some incredible music now available for player pianos. But who knows, they may also need license clearance.
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Jim Cassedy
Phenomenal Film Handler
Posts: 1661
From: San Francisco, CA
Registered: Dec 2006
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posted 09-25-2016 04:39 PM
I was doing some temp 35mm projection at a multiplex theater recently
and noticed they were using a service from MUZAK. I got some info from
the theater manager at the time, which I have since lost, but it wasn't
all that expensive, and there were a number of audio "feeds" with
different musical theme-beds that they could select from.
(but with their hook-up, all auditoriums got the same audio feed)
Unlike 'the old days' where MUZAK service required a dedicated 3k or 5k
leased line from the telephone company, which significantly added
to the monthly cost, it's now delivered over the interweb by a dedicated
IP-modemthingy.
I don't know the (audio) bandwidth, but since walk-in music is usually
not played at a loud level, it's probably adequate for the purpose.
They could switch feeds by logging into their account and selecting
from the music menu on MUZAK's website.
As I said- - IMO it wasn't all that expensive, so you might look into it.
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