If you’re like most artists, you’ve probably at some point had the thought that it’d be awesome to get your music into movies, TV shows, or other widely-consumed media. If so, you’re right. It is cool. It also pays well. What you probably don’t know too much about is HOW to accomplish this.
Do you have to move to Los Angeles and bang on people’s doors? Do you need a publishing company to push your music into the right hands? Do you have to be signed with big money promoting your music to garner these types of opportunities?
The answer to all those questions is “sure, that would help.” But it’s also “no, you don’t have to do or have those things to find success in film/television licensing.”
Here are things you DO have to do, though.
You DO have to write great songs. Getting songs into major media is difficult enough without them being crappy songs.
You DO have to have very well-produced recordings of those great songs. The sonics of your material might even be MORE important than the writing in some cases, because some of the usage you might get involves primarily instrumental versions of your material.
You DO need to have a commercial presence as an artist. Think about it from the perspective of a music supervisor (the person who decides what music to use in a piece of media). They’ve got a couple songs they’ve narrowed it down to. One of the artists has a robust social media presence and appears to be playing gigs. The other seems to only exist in a vacuum. Who do you think they’re going to choose?
You DO need to actively, purposefully market your music to music supervisors, publishers, and music libraries. How do you do that? Well, libraries of books have been written on that topic, because honestly there’s a lot of money in it for those who succeed.
We occasionally help our artists try to achieve film and television licensing opportunities. We guide artists through the winding road of steps necessary to have a chance to succeed in getting their music heard by the right people at the right time to get deals done!
If you’re interested in discussing that prospect with us for your project, please Contact Us today and we’ll see what we can do!
