Andrew Edwards / Blue Police Box Music

ASCAP “I Create Music” Expo 2010: Recap, (or, A Supposedly Business-Savvy Thing I May Never Do Again)

April 26, 2010

But so, I just spent 4 rather cold and rainy days in LA for ASCAP’s annual expo. Though it is skewed heavily towards songwriters, there was enough geared to my interests as a composer that I felt it would be a worthwhile trip. It was — needless to say — an excuse to see friends as well, and that part of the trip was a huge success.

Here is a recap of the events that I attended, and my ever-humble thoughts on the whole thing…

Thursday – April 22

I arrived at the Renaissance Hotel in Hollywood, and parked under the bizarre-looking mall next door to it on the corner of Hollywood and Highland.
The mall parking lot was cheaper than the hotel’s. Plus the walk from the parking garage to the venue involved walking a half a block down the Walk of Fame — past the film character impersonators — and through the very odd mall itself.

I checked in at the front desk and got my bearings. The event was spread out over three floors in the hotel, and required some significant navigation skills. The opening event was ASCAP’s annual meeting in the Grand Ballroom. There was a very nice setup — several performances by many notable performers were to be held in this space later on — and the welcome speeches were quite informative as to what ASCAP is doing in support of its artists. Paul Williams, ASCAP’s new president, is a hilarious individual, and I found myself enjoying everything he was a part of moreso for his participation in it. They were particularly fond of pointing out the following things (I have not fact checked):

1. ASCAP payments to its artists went up 6% this year. BMI’s payments to its artists remained flat this year.
2. ASCAP was taking several digital organizations to court for non-payment to artists for using their content.
3. ASCAP was fighting to make sure that artists today, and in the future, will continue to be able to make a living through their work.

I then went to the TV composer’s panel. It featured James Levine (Glee), Bear McCreary (Battlestar Galactica), and Wendy & Lisa (Heroes, Nurse Jackie), all of whose work I really like. I was pleased to see — here and in the film composer’s panel — some women represented. More on that later. They discussed the time pressures in working in television. All expressed insane jealousy at Bear’s working with a 55-piece orchestra every week for Human Target. Everyone hopes he’s setting a trend. Wendy & Lisa were incredibly erudite, discussing their fascinating careers, and being very blunt about the realities of working in television — both as composers and as women. Sadly, after their clips (Levine’s clip made me re-realize how brilliant the incidental music for Glee is) and before the Q&A started, the fire alarm went off for no reason, and we had to clear the building. A lame way to end a good panel. Bear McCreary is very short, and I was sad I couldn’t get an autograph for L. Wei (his biggest fan).

That afternoon, I went briefly to the big songwriter panel discussion with Jason Mraz, Tricky Stewart (“Umbrella”), Brian Tyler (film composer), and Phil Vassar (country artist). Since it was hosted by Paul Williams (who I learned co-wrote “The Rainbow Connection, which made him even cooler), I stayed and watched for a while. At this point, my being in Pacific time caught up with me and I went home for the day.

I missed a networking event and an interview with John Mayer, though I wouldn’t say I missed that exactly.

Friday – April 23

I started off Day Two with a great panel on diversifying yourself as a concert composer. This featured Avner Dorman, Kubilay Uner, Mateo Messina, and Alex Shapiro — none of whom I had heard of before this event. They all had terrific stories, and it was a particularly encouraging and inspiring panel. Mr. Messina was notably hilarious, relaying the tale of how he bull-shitted his way into getting a symphony premiered at a new concert venue in Seattle. Brilliant!

The afternoon began with a film composer’s panel. Featuring Klaus Badelt (Rescue Dawn, Pirates of the Caribbean 1), Ramin Djawadi (Clash of the Titans), and Deborah Lurie (9, Dear John). I was skeptical going into this panel, as Mr. Badelt and Mr. Djawadi are closely associated with Remote Control (Hans Zimmer’s studio), but I was willing to be open minded since Mr. Badelt had put some distance between himself and the studio. Again, I was glad to see that a woman was represented on the panel. However, rather than being outspoken about being a woman in a notorious boys’ club, Ms. Lurie had some rather alarming observations. She said that she had never really noticed any discrimination against women in the film music business, and she didn’t know why there weren’t more female film composers. Now, I may be wrong — and any women that I know who are in the business should feel free to set me straight if I am — but to my mind, the fact that she could only name Rachel Portman (and required audience members to shout the names of other prominent women film/tv composers at her (Me: ANNE DUDLEY!!!!)) doesn’t speak much for how keyed in to this issue Ms. Lurie is. It was a strange comment and one that didn’t go unnoticed. They all showed clips, except for Mr. Djawadi, who couldn’t get a Clash video clip. Mr. Badelt’s opening for Herzog’s Rescue Dawn was really nice. Ms. Lurie should have showed a clip from her excellent score for 9, but instead showed a cue from Dear John. She got points taken away for doing a Nicholas Sparks film (I really hate that guy). Mr. Djawadi played both his mockup and the orchestral recording of a cue from Clash. Playing the mockup was just more proof that live music will always be needed in this world. This panel was more interesting than I thought it would be initially (Mr. Badelt served coffee to Mr. Zimmer for a year before he worked on a note of music), but I was incredibly frustrated by Ms. Lurie’s comment. Please let me know if my frustration was unwarranted.

On a side note, nearly every mockup I heard from professional film/TV composers during this event sounded terrible. I figured this was either because of time pressures, or done as a subversive way of ensuring that live musicians get hired more often. Either way, I completely support this, and it made me feel a lot better about my mockups (and the mockups of most everyone from Columbia’s MFA program).

To finish off the afternoon, I attended Ron Jones’ (Family Guy, American Dad) orchestration workshop. This was almost worth the entire fee for the Expo to attend. Mr. Jones is snarky, witty, and he knows his craft cold. He gave us an excellent packet of tools and ideas, and a roadmap for new ways of approaching orchestration. We covered everything from Ravel to Family Guy, providing us with a thoughtful, informative, and impressive 1.5 hours. He finished up by showing us a clip of him conducting the extended Star Wars homage that he did for a Family Guy episode, featuring Stewie vs. Peter’s Death-Star-Chin. It was a deeply humbling thing to see, and definitely something to aspire to. Hands down the best event I went to during my time there.

I went home at this point, confident that the Justin Timberlake interview that night would not be able to top Ron Jones’ orchestration seminar.
(You don’t see that sentiment every day.)

Saturday – April 24

The final morning started with a panel in the Grand Ballroom about international copyright law. I thought, as I sipped my Diet Coke attempting to wake up, that they better have some lively panellists if they want to hit that topic first thing on a Saturday morning. They more or less did, covering copyright law, copyright legislation, and current cases that ASCAP, CISAC, and NMPA are litigating on behalf of artists. For a generally dry subject, these guys did a hell of a job making it all very personal and relevant to the artists in attendance. I quite enjoyed this, and felt a newfound sense of outrage at internet and new media outlets who consistently drive down the value of music and deny artists their due credit for the use of their content.

Finally, I went to a panel about Production Music Libraries. Since I just started writing for two of them, I thought it would be a good idea to see what the state of things looked like. The panel itself was very informative — they had the big-wigs from 4 PMLs there — despite the audience being incredibly rude. Many people in the audience seemed to think that their input was far more important than the responses of the people on the stage. Irritating. Regardless, I learned a great deal about the mechanics of these companies, and some of them might be hearing from me soon. You have been warned.

All in all, it was an interesting event. There were a few sponsor demos that I wish I would’ve taken in. West LA Music had several demonstrations on optimizing and improving home studios that would have been good to attend. They probably would have just made me want to spend money I didn’t have, so everything works out in the end.
I don’t know if I would spend the money to attend again. As I told ASCAP in my final survey, I felt like the conference was skewed heavily towards songwriters. The panels I detailed above were literally the only panels that dealt with issues pertaining to media composers exclusively. It’s clear that their bread is buttered by songwriters, but I know that I was not the only composer there who felt like a homely step-child.

Please feel free to leave a comment or ask a question, or read me the riot act on the state of women in the film music industry.
Thanks for reading.

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