CDCosta I know if we had used union actors we would definitely have had to provide certain things, but non-union actors don't have the same rules.
Zensteve, no problem. I used to have a ton of questions on getting music licensed for my films, and no one seemed to be able to give me a straight answer lol.
So far for the film, we have several songs that we were able to get the rights to, including 'Low' by Cracker and 'Candles' by Dirty Vegas, to name a few. Getting an artist or label to grant you the rights to use their song is actually not too hard,
if you can get ahold of them. That's the hardest part. Smaller artists are the easiest to reach, and most can be contacted directly through their websites. Bigger artists are tougher, and you may need to track down some contact info on their label's site. A few sites (like The Doors official site, as an example) actually have the licensing forms for you to download and fill out right there. Most do not. There are a few sites that supposedly help you get contact info, but most are not up to date or charge a fee.
You need to get yourselves a really good music licensing contract for the artists/labels to sign. This covers your butt legally, and proves you have the right to use their song. Most labels will also have their own contract for you to sign as well.
Many artists (like Cracker, Dirty Vegas and Alexi Murdoch) have allowed me to use their songs absolutely free of charge, because I was so passionate about my projects. That's what the artists seem to care about. That someone has a film that they are so proud of, and so passionate about, and they feel that using that particular artist's song will give so much depth and emotion to the shot/scene that the film just wouldn't be the same without the song in it.
Labels, on the other hand, almost always want money. That's why I always try to circumvent the label and deal directly with the artist. Artists understand other artists. Labels understand cash money.
Some artists and/or their labels will only grant you licenses for festivals, and if your film gets picked up for distribution then the distributing company will re-negotiate with the artist/label to keep the song in the film.
In general, and I do mean this in the broadest sense of the term, I have found that if I do have to pay a license fee, it is "generally" 1 half of 1 percent of my total budget. That's .5% of the budget, or in my film's case, that would be $31.00 of the budget. Not too bad to get a known artist's song in the film.
Now, some labels and artists will flat out laugh in your face when you tell them your budget. For this film, I had one guy from the label of a semi-known group laugh and tell me the band who's song I wanted was used to getting thousands for their song, and their was no way they would even deal with me, and then he hung up on me after claiming I wasted his time. Be prepared for this, because it happens probably 25% of the time.
Also, getting an artist to grant you permission to use their song for a specific shot/scene does NOT mean you can use it for marketing/advertising, so keep that in mind. That's a separate thing, and requires spesific permission, which they can absolutely grant you, but it must be specified in the contract.
Any other questions feel free to ask!
