Music in Media Day [The Great Escape Uncut]

Music in Media Day

Posted on May 18, 2007 6:10 PM
0 comments

I'm just in time for the Beyond the box: music and broadcast in the 21st century session. I almost ended up in the building across the road - obviously I can't tell the difference between an Old Victorian Court Room and a 'dome'. I thought the Palace-esque royal Pavilion was the meeting point - thank gawd for friendly, direction divulging locals.

The scheduled speakers in the first session are:
Simon Hopkins, Somethin' Else
Tom Laidlaw, GCap Media
Andy Rock, PRS
David Ferguson, Composer and Chairman, British Academy
Gary Maclarnon, Sparklestreet (Mr Scruff)
Shaina Galvin, Stream

The topics of the day are:

• How valuable is music compared to other entertainment content?
• Is music TV in danger of becoming too dumbed down? What’s the impact of so many talent shows on opportunities for promoting new music?
• What opportunities and challenges does interactivity bring to music related television and radio?
• Does internet radio and new online music services spell the end of the traditional radio DJ?
• How niche will music television become in a multi channel, digital and net-based environment?

These guys sure can talk... they only really get through the first two. It's like being at uni again - the lecture room, the panel of speakers, the intelligent (and not so intelligent) questions and the annoying guy next to you that doesn't stop flicking his pen and tapping his foot. The difference is, these sessions are INTERESTING. Genuinely, addictively interesting. We'[re all from different fields, we all have different agendas and somehow it all fits. Music ties the delegates together in an erratic, loosely spun web and we're able to put names to faces and questions to people we wouldn't normally get a chance to recognise, let alone approach.

Coffee steels the nerves before session four kicks into action: The Big Screen: Music and Film
Session Chair: Kirsty Williams, Wiggin & Co.

Panelists:

Nick Angel, Working Title Films
Darrell Alexander, Cool Music
David Stopps, FML
Andy Barlow, ex-Lamb
Alan Pell, Stage Three Music Publishing

Now, I don't work in the film industry and the closest I've got to discussing the music rights for movies is a chat with Simon Pegg about his dressing room parties and with Helen Mirren about howling corgis. Despite this, the ninety minutes of discussion about the limitations of opportunities for musical rights owners, the money in Hollywood and the governing of choice between specially commissioned and copyright music had me hooked. It turns out; the creative challenges in writing music for films are an absolute nightmare. The poor composer sods work for peanuts.