What is Durban Film Mart? DFM is a co-production forum that connects Film in Africa to the world. A platform where Filmmakers, producers, actors, musicians and people alike connect with the common goal to deliver unforgettable feature films/documentaries and audiovisual experiences.
Sheer Publishing’s attendance at the DFM 2016 was met warmly by enthusiastic Filmmaker’s and Producers, keen to explore the avenues of music our supervisory services and exceptional production music library. Filmmaker’s were very pleased to find Music Licensing Experts in attendance, as music in film is a very integral element in bring the picture to life. Filmmakers and producers alike were astonished at the prospects of having all their music related needs catered for by a professional music agent thus enabling them to focus on other aspects of their visual product.
In attendance, the Sheer Publishing Creative team comprised of Mandrew Mnguni (Head of Creative), Brett Vortser (Transaction Licensor/OCW) and Zwelibanzi Sisilana (Senior Creative Liaison) carried out an informative narrative with local and international filmmakers/producers about the challenges involved within Music in Film, but more importantly, viable and cost effective solutions to overcoming these challenges.
In addition to an extensively valuable narrative, Sheer Publishing graced the June 2016 Edition of Screen Africa, accompanied by informative articles with “must know information” for Filmmakers and Producers in the film industry. As a result of this, attendees and delegates found themselves exposed to the various aspects of music in Film.
With Mandrew Mnguni’s forte being Library/Production Music, he explained the advantages of utilizing this music for visuals productions such as films and documentaries that are to be aired on broadcast channel such as DSTV, ETV and SABC. He further highlighted the procedure of exploiting Library Music, explaining that it comes free of charge to production house’s as the music usage is covered under the blanket licenses paid by Broadcasters to collection societies for the music’s usage. He then added that the music’s credentials had to be documented on Cue Sheets and submitted to the broadcaster in order to credit and remunerate the composer’s.
With a focus placed on the transactional licensing of Library Music, Brett Vorster continued to add to Mandrew’s statements, placing a special focus on how the Production Music works for usage outside of a Broadcaster. Brett explained how direct usage as stipulated by the Capasso rate card, would be subject to license fees, as the music would not be covered by the blanket license. After having a looking at the affordable rates for production music in this discipline, it sparked a keen interest in attendees and delegate’s minds as it served as a cost effective solution to giving their productions a sonic identity.
What if we would like big well-know song’s in our production they asked. Zwelibanzi, the liaison for Commercial Music at Sheer Publishing explained the intricacies, time factors, rights holder and usage factors involved in getting the necessary permissions to utilize commercial music in productions. Unlike library music, Commercial Music will for almost all licensing applications involve cost’s. He explained how fee’s for licensing differed from request to request based on the song requested, the term of the request and the usage parameters. He highly advised that producers and filmmakers alike look into music supervisory services, which would cater to all the legalities, searches, requests, licenses and possibly replacements. Pleased with all the information they received, filmmakers and producer were eager to explore the possibilities around creating an unforgettable sonic identity for their films.
Till DFM 2017, take care.