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Thursday, January 29, 2009

Sonoton

I hope Sonoton doesn’t make it big in India. There is nothing wrong in picking already composed music for movie’s background score, but in India it will make our composers (who already are too lazy to compose background scores) totally ignore this aspect of the movie. While in the west, scoring background music is THE job of a movie composer but here it is not.

6 comments:

Vijay said...

I hate this guy too. Bhagyaraj has signed up Dharan to compose music for his next film and Sonoton for the background score.This guy is already notorious for flicking songs without paying royalties.
However , I think the system of using other film songs in the movie OST should be encouraged here just like in Hollywood.This way the background score and the various 'other' songs which are bought by paying royalties can be used in tandem enhancing the completeness of a movie score.

P.S. Suresh Kumar said...

Vijay - and i actually came to know about Sonoton while reading a news about Baghyaraj using the library for the background score of his next movie 'Pudhiya Vaarpugal' (the movie has his son shanthanu as hero).

But my concern that they should credit the original composers properly.

kannan said...

I think it is a useful concept, but I don't think it will be a good fit for the Indian film industry. In Hollywood, the focus of composers is only on creating background score, and such libraries can help to enhance the movie. Secondly, there is a strong culture of independent film making in the west. Such films can often benefit from these libraries, as they may not be able to afford the John Williams's or Hans Zimmers of the industry.

In India, however, the focus is quite heavily on songs. I have heard that even Raaja, the king of BGM, has been known to leave background scoring to V.S Narasimhan for some films so that he can focus on songs, in the mid-80s when his hands were full with movies (not sure how true this is, but it illustrates the relative importance given to songs vs BGM).
This kind of development is going to let half-competent composers get away with just using library music. One thing I hope is that upcoming composers are not denied opportunities to compose ad jingles; this library system is best suited for the generic music often needed in ad films.

On a lighter note, maybe mega serial BGM will get less corny thanks to Sonoton? ;)

p.s. Is Dharan terrible at BGM or something? I remember even Parijatham wasn't him, it was Sabesh-Murali I think.

P.S. Suresh Kumar said...

Kannan - True. True. Definitely those who have no enough budget to rent out big orchestras would benefit from such libraries.

And serials already uses such stock music without paying any royalties to the original composers...

I heard that Dharan's background score is good in 'Sivi' but I haven't seen the movie yet...

Bharath V said...

FWIW, I have been providing pieces to a content aggregator just like Sonoton. Nothing has been licensed or bought yet, but my understanding is that it saves producers load of money and helps music supervisors build up temp trakcs (or sometimes even final tracks) pretty quickly for way way less cheap. It is very difficult to track usage in India though. One of my friends gets a cheque for few thousand dollars every 6 months or so for a 2 minute piece he wrote in early 90's.

P.S. Suresh Kumar said...

Bharath V - Good to read some inside information about the library and its usage. It is fine, it they are used only as temp tracks. It is fine even if they license and use it in the films, but a composer should not take credit for creating it. In the film credits, the library from which the piece was sourced should be mentioned.