Laws for movie clips?

Question

What is the scoop on using scenes for personal demo reels from Hollywood movies? Can I put it up on my site, or is that illegal? I'd want to use a clip from LOTR or soemthing similiar. Thanks!
J

Answer 1

Hi Soundscore,
That's a big no-no, mainly because it's illegal.
Heck, it's even difficult to sometimes get a client to grant permission to use clips of a movie you scored for use in a demo reel! For example, this very situation is addressed in the scoring contract I signed for direct-to-DVD animation I recently scored with a partner. It says that we can only use up to 30 seconds of footage for promotional purposes, with the added 'gotcha' that we can't feature footage that contains any of the actor's voices!
I once spent quite a bit of time considering doing exactly this -- re-scoring scenes from already established movies -- to "show my wares". After all, if you have "big budget, big drama" (BBBD) musical sensibilities, how is a wants-to-be-in-the-big-leagues composer supposed to be able to show off this kind of talent without access to BBBD drama footage?
Well, I reconsidered this approach. First of all, the music for such movies has already been composed and this represents the director, producer, and composer's vision for how those scenes were to be conveyed to the audience; especially in the case of a blockbuster movie like LOTR with its Oscar-winning score, it would be hard to get anyone to accept that you've done better than Howard Shore. That's not to say that you don't have the talent to equal or even exceed what he did, but still, "putting it out there" that you can compete on his level might come across as disrespectful, at best.
OK, let's say you go this route, re-scoring scenes from established movies. Show your reel to the right person, i.e., an independent filmmaker or someone doing C and B-level films and you could end up making a big impression! They might even take delight in how well you treated scenes from such a venerable movie as LOTR, and, as well, to have been so audacious to take on such a task!
Show the reel to the wrong person, i.e., someone on the B to A level who might know the players involved in the original movie, and you might get a bad reaction. See, even if that person liked what you did, in order to convince other people that you're "the guy" to score their next big blockbuster, your little bit of re-scoring "sacrilege" would have to be shown around, and the "sacrilege", not to mention the precedent set by the original music in that movie, might just turn off the wrong person at some point in the decision-making process. In short, it would be hard for a powerful person in the movie industry to "endorse" what you did in the light of the BBBD and Oscar-winning nature of the original film(s).
Shopping such a re-scoring reel to independent filmmakers is a much safer bet. But then again, there's a chance that their kinds of budgets for making films don't fit into the BBBD category. And I've learned through trial and error that taking a BBBD to the music on a "cheap" looking independent film doesn't always work.
So my advice would be to join a local filmmaker's group, advertise yourself as a composer, and shop an audio reel of your music to them. If you get a bite from a director who's interested in having you score their film, don't be terribly picky about how good it might be. There's a lot to be gained from the experience of scoring any film, including:
• the very interaction with the director, understanding his wishes and understanding your role
• the choice of in and out points for cues
• judging the correct tempos and selecting hit points
• knowing how to score so that the music doesn't come across as cartoony when it addresses action
...and so on and so forth.
Working on independent films is a great way to build up your reel, make associations, and even make mistakes that you can learn GREAT lessons from!
Also, what's interesting to note is that rarely if ever do you come across a film composer's website where scenes from a movie are posted. 99 out of 100 times (if not 100/100), film composers simply link music tracks, often with descriptive blurbs describing the emotional intent.
What I've written here is just my personal opinion. That's not to say that I'm right or wrong. For all I know I'm being overly cautious (illegality aside) in my decision to not take this approach to get to the BBBD films that I think I'm capable of scoring. You may get very different advice from others, so just take what I've said as an opinion on this approach, FWIW.
Message was edited by: iSchwartz