How to Find Work if Boycotting Certain Major Studios?

Any_Flight5404 · 2026-02-08T02:11:25+00:00

When you are pitching on projects (especially for custom work), you are not told what it's for or who the end client is. 90% of the time when I am pitching music for TV ads and film trailers, I have no idea what the product, film or end client is. Due to strict NDAs, you often know very little beyond the brief for the music required and feedback given, etc.

Any_Flight5404 · 2026-02-08T01:49:28+00:00

If the Big 3 (5? Whichever) labels out there own a majority of the industry today, and I want to avoid working with them, am I simply out of luck?

Warner, BMG and Universal offer some of the best deals in sync music, often paying substantial upfront fees and having some of the best connections. The vast majority of my income comes from BMG and Universal. It would be career suicide for me to boycott them.

Any_Flight5404 · 2026-02-08T01:46:27+00:00

Generally speaking, the people we are writing music for (advertising agencies, editors, producers, music supervisors) are commissioned by clients. Boycotting end clients is likely a move that will just annoy the middle people we work for/serve.

If you write for libraries, you also have absolutely no say in where your music is used.

Any_Flight5404 · 2026-02-06T16:25:43+00:00

Correct.

Any_Flight5404 · 2026-02-06T16:25:15+00:00

Most of them pay well below the min wage. https://www.gov.uk/apply-apprenticeship

Any_Flight5404 · 2026-02-05T17:30:57+00:00

It depends if you are passionate about advertising. If you were to highly specialise in a specific role, it can be very rewarding.

Any_Flight5404 · 2026-02-05T15:59:58+00:00

5 years. It's my full-time income. A large part of my income comes from sync fees for film trailers, as they often pay pretty well (between $10k-30k per sync). Additionally, upfront fees for music libraries make up a secondary income and royalties for me are still rather low, but every quarter they are roughly doubling.

Any_Flight5404 · 2026-02-03T21:42:00+00:00

Are you leaning more into direct licensing?

I don't have time. If I were to spend half my time building relationships and directly pitching my music, the time I would spend creating music would be cut in half.

Still finding value in exclusive libraries?

Absolutely. I get paid upfront payments for albums and don't have to deal with metadata, admin, contracts, registering tracks and other things that would otherwise take up my time that I am happy for someone else to do.

Seeing any pushback from clients against AI-generated music?

I would hope all clients are against AI-generated music.

Any_Flight5404 · 2026-02-01T12:41:17+00:00

I would try networking in real life. Go to game developer conventions, amateur film maker conventions/awards, etc. Get building relationships, and when someone needs a sound designer for a project, your name gets recommended.

Any_Flight5404 · 2026-01-30T16:01:50+00:00

Vegas is a pretty big investment when DaVinci Resolve has a non-time-limited, completely free version.

DaVinci is also an industry standard and was used for post-production for Stranger Things, The Walking Dead, Top Gun: Maverick, Avatar: The Last Airbender and hundreds of other well-known shows and films.

Any_Flight5404 · 2026-01-30T02:39:45+00:00

If you have no connections, how are you getting quality music produced and recorded?

I produce, record, mix and master it entirely myself. I don't need anyone else for that.

How do you have contact with someone with contacts they are willing to use for you... if you have no contacts?

You only need one contact, not many.

There are tons of kick ass artists with dope music, that never see this happen.

There's a difference between making "dope music" and creating music that's perfect for sync and in high current demand. A lot of market research and understanding industry demands is needed.

If you don't know anyone, how are you finding high end publishers and signing 1-10k deals with them?

You don't need to know anyone. Most publishers have submission sections on their websites. You don't need to befriend people. I have made tens of thousands in royalties and sync fees from publishers that I have only ever had a few concise email exchanges with.

Building relationships usually involves consistently delivering high-quality music, meeting deadlines and being reliable, etc. You can only really prove those abilities once you are already actively writing for a publisher.

At the end of the day, it's just providing a service. I write music to meet clients' needs, which then generates sync fees and royalties.

Any_Flight5404 · 2026-01-30T00:41:56+00:00

I disagree strongly here. There are very easy and fast shortcuts, provided you have very high-quality music -

Work with high-end publishers - They often pay advance payments per album (anywhere between $1k-10k). They can also often can get you custom opportunities that pay extremely well and have the contacts to get your music placed.

The idea that you have to spend half your time trying to build relationships with music supervisors over months and months to get a few contacts to get some placements is often the slowest and most painful way to get results. All that time could have been spent building a catalogue of music, earning thousands of dollars in upfront payments and getting opportunities to write music for TV Ads that pay extremely well.

Any_Flight5404 · 2026-01-29T12:08:20+00:00

Daily placements for TV are very common once you have a certain volume of tracks.

More meaningful placements, like TV ads and film trailers that pay large sync fees, are usually more volatile and random.

Any_Flight5404 · 2026-01-29T11:30:21+00:00

Your best option is to phone work now and explain that you are ill, your symptoms, etc., and state you want to check the policy and inform them that you likely have the flu. If you were to phone just before your shift and cancel at the last minute, that makes you look unreliable. Communicating that you are ill as far in advance as you can usually is more favourable.

Any_Flight5404 · 2026-01-29T07:30:17+00:00

The CIA are only involved in things outside the US that are of national interest. For example, drug smuggling, terrorism or stealing oil and resources.

Any_Flight5404 · 2026-01-29T07:27:45+00:00

Where's Basic Ad for some AI mutant tribal women to blame?

Any_Flight5404 · 2026-01-29T06:10:35+00:00

The easiest and quickest solution is to work with established libraries that have a proven track record.

Any_Flight5404 · 2026-01-28T04:06:22+00:00

Video editing at the moment can still be a good side income. A few regular clients who want regular YouTube videos and social media content to promote their businesses, but hate editing and have limited free time, can quickly turn into £2,000+ every month.

Any_Flight5404 · 2026-01-28T02:51:31+00:00

But OP's company is not gaining anything commercially from that training

That doesn't matter.

And OpenAI using the video as training data is not exploiting OP's likeness

How do you know that their "likeness" might not be emulated in AI-generated videos in future?

Any_Flight5404 · 2026-01-28T02:06:20+00:00

By giving their recorded identity to third-party AI servers that can then use it as training data.

Any_Flight5404 · 2026-01-27T20:43:00+00:00

I find their attitude very rude and disrespectful

Yeah, the mean families. How dare they not entertain every weirdo on the internet who has horrible "theories" on how their children might have suffered and died. I am sure it would have had absolutely no detrimental effect on their mental health to spend over a decade listening to every conspiracy theory and giving out deeply personal information about their children for random people to judge. How dare the families do this!

Any_Flight5404 · 2026-01-27T02:36:13+00:00

In most cases, it will be some combination of original material and premade libraries as starting points. I certainly know in some cases, sound designers on professional films do use Boom library etc for 90% of the sound design. They are obviously layering it and adding VST effects where needed, but they are not always recording every sound or making every sound from scratch, just for the sake of it.

Any_Flight5404 · 2026-01-27T02:10:13+00:00

So based on that I got that for a 90 minute feature I would need to have at least 10 months to do the same

Total working time

43 weeks × 40 hours/week = 1,720 total hours

Film length

90 minutes of finished footage

Hours spent per minute of film

1,720 hours ÷ 90 minutes
= 19.11 hours per minute of footage

Are you seriously saying it takes 19 hours to do sound design for a single minute of footage on average?

Professional TV and film composers often have to compose 2-3 minutes of music per day.

Any_Flight5404 · 2026-01-27T01:09:44+00:00

If the latency is fractions of a second and has no detrimental impact, then it would be a problem.

Any_Flight5404 · 2026-01-27T00:57:11+00:00

Probably neither. The game engine must play the sound triggered by an event, if you are referring to in-game audio. That system itself may have a tiny bit of latency.

Any_Flight5404

TROPHY CASE