My boss at the time Professor Ian Whalley, had me compose music for the campus television production company. He also allowed me to record local bands and do the sound and music for student’s short films.

I worked on many short films and theatre productions before being offered my first feature film. It was a horror thriller called ‘The Ugly” and I was credited as sound designer. It was a definite crash course in sound post production and design. There was certainly a bit of sound library milking in the early days, but I did my best at the time to manipulate sound to create something unique. Through that process I learnt the importance in recording a fresh palette for every film.

DS: I can see that you are working in other projects with Peter Jackson… How is your relationship with him? How did you become involved with District 9?

DW: Peter is a driving force in the New Zealand film industry and he has an incredibly good ear for sound. He is always fantastic at articulating his minds ear and appreciates what we as a team bring to the table. I think most people who have the privilege of working with him would say any “relationship” would be one of respect for him.

We were all based at Park Road Post and we had just come off ‘The Lovely Bones’. The sound team down here in Wellington was primed and ready to move onto the next film. Fortunately for us, it was ‘District 9’.

DS: How was the communication with the director and the rest of the team?

DW: It was absolutely brilliant. Neill Blomkamp made himself available to us on any given day. He was fully open to experimentation and gave insightful and focused briefs. He really did know what he wanted, and enjoyed happy sound surprises from us too.

Supervising Effects Editor, Brent Burge and I discussed what needed to be done and he mapped out who was going to do what. My job was to come up with the alien technology palette and the language. The rest of the team new exactly what they had to do so the process of moving toward predubs was very smooth.

DS: How the concept of the film affect your decisions as sound designer?

DW: Initially on seeing the artwork I started building a very hi-tech palette for the alien technology. The Exo Suit is the classic example. We had an intensive record at a New Zealand Air Force base for hydraulics and all kinds of servos and tech devices. Version one was definitely more classic blockbuster sci-fi. Neill reviewed it and said he wanted it to be far more grungy, more real. He wanted it to be based on real world sounds, but with an alien core. So my concept took a 180° turn and I started on a new palette.

Neill also said the aliens were insect like and that their social structure was very hive like. The decision to record as many insects as I could was an easy one and the concept became one of the keystones to the design.

One of the major concepts was the lo-fi treatment in the security cameras. It was decided early in the piece that this would be done on the stage by re-recording mixers Mike Hedges and Gilbert Lake. That way they could control the amount and type of futz that was used in the final.

DS: Which were your main tools/processes for recording, edit and design sounds?

read the full article on designingsound.noisepages.com

The protocol of that job required that we do it all by hand, and I worked for 36 days without a break, 8-10 hours a day. Despite our usual precautions of slanted table-tops, good posture, adequate lighting, etc., I still found myself about a week later conducting a recording session with a right arm that was growing more sluggish by the minute. The quick of the story was that 36 days of being locked into a position had caused the muscles in my neck to inflame and spasm, pulling it out of position enough to rupture a disk, with consequent pain and diminished nerve flow. Fortunately, most such neck problems relax and work their way out in several months. (Mine did.) The moral of that story is that too much of anything, even work, isn’t necessarily a good thing.

Obviously, now that we do the job with lasers and toner instead of pens and ink, our posture has changed, but not the potential hazards of physical overwork due to poor planning. Let’s start with the basic setup. For each micro-task we do, if we could mentally draw a graph, with one axis measuring time spent and another showing how often we do it, the resulting plot would help us prioritize and strategize the positions of our tools to save time and avoid personal injury. Take into account things like standing and sitting (knees,) leaning (spine,) head position (neck,) unvarying depth of visual focus (eyestrain,) chair height (leg circulation,) speaker placement (ear strain,) etc.

Here’s how my analysis dictated my basic setup (your mileage may vary…)

(1) Monitor placement: directly in front and slightly down, since my emphasis (scores, parts, etc.) is graphic and therefore visual. I use two monitors stacked vertically, as notation primarily demands vertical real estate, compared to sequencing’s obsession with the horizontal.

(2) Computer keyboard/trackball: at elbow level, directly in front of and nearest to me, as more time is spent editing than strictly inputting.

(3) Midi keyboard: front-to-back, between computer keyboard/mouse and computer monitor, and slightly elevated. (Not the optimal position for hours of playing, but the need to maintain body orientation through constant back-and-forth on the two keyboards wins out.)

4) Workstation orientation: When possible, and for both acoustic and ergonomic reasons, placed with its back to one of the short sides of a rectangular room, but not forcing one to look at or out a window (glare and shadow.) Allow space between workstation and back wall to minimize speaker/wall interaction, allow access to component/network wiring and, not insignificantly, for video monitor placement at a different focal depth from the computer monitor, forcing you to change focus frequently to avoid eyestrain.

(5) Telephone: within easy arm’s reach without leaning, preferably on the same side as the more skilled arm (for dialing.)

(6) Printer: Again, within arm’s reach, both for retrieving completed prints and for manual feed access.

(7) Easel: For holding scores, manuals, etc., at eye level. Since this is used less often, but for longer stretches, I built one onto an old-style computer/video monitor platform with a swing-out arm to be available when needed, or quickly swung back and folded out of position when not.

read the full article on www.filmmusicmag.com

Why live revenues have grown so stridently is beyond the scope of this article, but our data – compiled from a PRS for Music report and the BPI – make two things clear: one, that the growth in live revenue shows no signs of slowing and two, that live is by far and away the most lucrative section of industry revenue for artists themselves, because they retain such a big percentage of the money from ticket sales.

(It’s often claimed that live revenues are only/mostly benefitting so-called ‘heritage acts’. Unfortunately, the data doesn’t shed any light on this because live revenues are not broken down by type of act, gig size or ticket price.)..

It’s interesting too that, overall, industry revenues have grown in the period – though admittedly not by much – which arguably adds strength to the notion that, when the BPI releases its annual report claiming how much ‘the music industry’ has suffered from the growth in illegal file-sharing, what it perhaps should be saying is how much the record labels have suffered.

The graph the record industry doesn’t want you to see (via We Make Money Not Art)

You don’t want to build an infrastructure if you have no use for it, and therefore, no means to support it. In simpler terms, you don’t want “dude” hanging around the rehearsal space being “managerial” by drinking your beer and telling you to work on the second verse of the song, while he hits on your girlfriend.
Instead, the manager must be actively engaged in furthering your career.
In order for the manager to do this, he needs tools to work with.

The first tool is the demo.
The second tool is some kind of fan base, which is typically built by playing live. Certainly, there is no absolute order to the progression, and many bands have management that helps guide the band long before they have demos or play gigs.
But for the most part, you’re going to have a hard time attracting a manager and keeping him busy if you don’t have some groundwork already laid. There are as many types of managers and styles of management as there are types of bands and styles of music.
This chapter presents some of the more common ways in which bands connect with management, and what role management plays in the artist’s career. It is not a set of absolute rules.

The Three “Must Have’s” of Management
However you and your manager come together, and whatever role the
manager finally ends up playing in your career, there are three characteristics that a manager must have in order to help your career effectively—both before and after you get a record deal. Those characteristics are passion, connections, and funding. If your manager has passion, he may be able to succeed without the others. However, if your manager is without passion for your music, your chances of long-term success will be reduced. The best-case scenario is, of course, having all three.

Beginning-Level Managers
At a certain point—after you’ve made a demo, played some gigs, and started to develop a following—you may be approached by someone who is interested in managing you. Most likely, the people approaching you at this
early stage of your career will be friends, family, fans, or people who work at the venues where you perform. Some of the most successful managers in the business originally came from this pool.
Bertis Downs, for example, began working with REM when he and members of the band were college students together in Athens, GA. Brian Epstein worked in his family’s furniture store that had a little music division in it when he was asked to go see a band. That band was the Beatles, and he became their manager. Rusty Harmon was a college student and an intern at a management firm, who showed a young band around when they came through town. You may have heard of this band, since they’ve sold about a gazillion records and won two Grammys under Rusty’s management: Hootie and the Blowfish.

Why Passion is Important
Friends, fans, and families who become managers typically have one massively important thing in common: they all are extremely passionate about the artist they work for.
Typically, they feel that the artist is great, and while they often don’t have a surplus of connections or capital, they believe they can make up for this through sheer force of will fueled by their passion, which they have in abundance. As mentioned above, this can and does happen. Passion, combined with energy (often youthful) is a very potent mix that often knocks down many barriers and allows an artist to experience real career growth. Managers in this type of situation often believe that lacking the experience, knowledge, connections, or money actually allowed/forced them to try things that other more “experienced” managers would have dismissed.
In so doing, they createinnovative strategies that further the idea of career development. Necessity is the mother of invention, and I would add, it is also the stepmother of innovation. The beautiful thing about the record business is that there are very few rules.
When a manager is passionate enough to make the artist succeed—no matter what rules they have to ignore, break, or rewrite—that is often the best type of manager to have.
Such relationships force the band and management to work much more closely than they would in a more traditional management/artist role. This can create an open and honest relationship from day one. In other words, because a beginning-level manager is not going to be able to say, “I’m going to get you touring with this other artist I also manage, and I’m going to set up a showcase for you to perform in front of my A&R friend from Sony,” he or she must involve you—the artist—in the decision/planning. Instead, they must say, “Listen, let’s figure out what our resources are and begin building something in an organic fashion.”
This method, while perhaps being a slower route, is a good one, as it directly and closely involves you, the artist, in the process of your career development. A close relationship often has the positive side effect of being an honest relationship. Closeness and honesty are imperative, and will give you a far better chance of avoiding the all-too-common litigating over accused improprieties, resulting from the artist not knowing what the manager is doing, but believing that, whatever they’re doing, they ain’t doing it honestly.

Professional-Level Management
Passion is the key ingredient to making an artist management relationship work. If you find someone who has real and genuine passion and isn’t a complete derelict, you will be better off than many. Ideally, however, your manager will also have the connections and the funding.

The Importance of Connections
While it is fine (and often refreshing) for a manager to have a low-key persona, they must be able to sell themselves and, more importantly, the artist. In so doing, they will build connections. The record business is one
where you live and die by how connected you are. You can make the greatest music in the world, but unless you can get it heard, it doesn’t much matter.
Simply put, at all stages in your career—from getting an A&R person to listen to your demo, to getting your video played on MTV, to getting a gig to perform at the Super Bowl Halftime Extravaganza—it is often connections
that make the difference.

The reality is that the strength of the connection is frequently as powerful as the strength of the music. There are many examples of someone who makes mediocre music but is well connected getting a record deal before an
artist who makes great music but has few connections.
To get a record deal, you often must develop your connections from the ground up. The process can be accelerated if someone on your team, in this case the manager, has connections.
A fundamental role of the manager is to expose his artist to more people.
Therefore, managers spend much of their time casting a wide web around all the corners of the industry. In so doing, they develop relationships with booking agents, record labels, radio stations, press, and so on. When you
partner up with a manager, you are not only getting this person’s individual expertise, energy, and hopefully, passion. You are also gaining access to their connections and relationships. It is this quality that will catapult your demo from the bottom of an A&R person’s pile to the top. These connections help in many similar ways, from having your music heard by music supervisors at advertising agencies to introducing you to a music publisher to securing you an opening slot on a coveted tour.

Connections are built over time and must be maintained. You need to carefully examine any potential manager in order to determine just how broad, good, and most importantly, applicable their connections are to the music you are making. Much in the way that you research appropriate labels for your music, you must do the appropriate diligence when you
are considering your manager. Understand also that connections can and do come in organic fashions. It is perfectly acceptable for you and your manager to have a symbiotic relationship in which your manager benefits
from his association with you, and vice versa.

The trick is being able to make connections that have real meaning to your career. If you have a manager who is very well connected but not in any way that is appropriate to helping advance your career, they might as well not have any connections.
If this is the case, make sure they at least have … money.

The Importance of Money: How Management Gets Paid
This brings me to my last essential management criteria: capital. First, you need to understand a bit about how managers make their money. Typically a manager will receive a commission—usually 15 to 20 percent—of all of the income that you generate (the gross). This includes money from gigs, money paid to you from a record label as a personal advance against royalties (typically, not from money advanced by a label for you to record your record), money from merchandise, income from your music being used in movies or commercials, and any other source of income you generate as an artist. It is therefore in the best interest of the manager to leverage all of those connections I mentioned above to help you generate as much money as you can, which of course, generates more money for
them. This is capitalism at its finest, and when it works, it works great for everybody.
The problem is that young or unestablished artists typically take quite a while to generate any revenue. Also, these artists typically don’t have any money of their own, so the management is left to spend their own money in order to develop the band before any money comes in. Because of this, you will occasionally see management securing other pieces of the artists’ potential income as a kind of collateral against the money and time they are putting up. Sometimes, for example, management will acquire some part of the artist’s publishing—in other words, a piece of the equity in the
copyrights of the songs.

Managers and Publishing
This means that when these songs begin generating royalties, the manager will be paid a percentage of the money. Managers do this because they often defer their commission while spending their own money. They have no guarantee that they will ever recover their investment. This practice has largely been frowned upon (by both artists and managers), and was seen only occasionally in the past. However, I’m seeing it happen more and more, and I believe it will become even more of a common practice in the future.
As an artist, you must seriously debate whether parting with your publishing, in order to provide a sort of insurance to a manager, is the right thing to do. My opinion is that it is usually the wrong thing to do. As we will see in the publishing chapter, I do not believe that you should hold on to your publishing at all costs. Rather, I feel that giving up some part of
your publishing is frequently essential to building a successful career. With one caveat: Whoever you assign any part of your publishing to must be able to do something with it. By this, I mean they must be able to “work” your publishing to generate awareness about you and money for you. If they cannot do this, do not assign any part of your publishing to them.
Therefore, if a manager is requiring you to assign some portion of your publishing to them, you should only do this if you feel the manager is going to actively engage in working your songs.

Of course, it may not be this simple for you, especially if you don’t have a lot of options. You may feel that the prospective manager can help your career in many ways, and that it would be foolish to miss the opportunity
to have him or her represent you by clinging too tightly to your publishing.
You may be right.
Your publishing is valuable. Part with it with caution, and only if you’re getting something of real tangible value in return.

It’s Money that Matters
Money is a significant factor in creating effective artist/manager relationships.
The manager is spending money, hoping for a return on investment.
Publishing is one way to hedge that bet. Of course, managers who have no money will not be able to offer you much for your publishing.
Managers who have no money have a hard time being effective. There are always expenses involved in getting a band signed: recording costs, gas for the van, fan mailings, travel, guitar strings, and so on. It all adds up. Of course, management doesn’t have to pay for any or all of these things. But remember, they can’t make any money unless the band is making money, so they usually opt to pay for these things and others so that the band has a
better chance of getting signed.
Even after you get signed, management is often the fountain of money.
For instance, an artist and manager may determine that they need an independent publicist because they feel the label’s publicist (if it has one) can’t do an effective job due to workload, the label’s priority scheme, or whatever. The label is not obligated to pay for this (though often they do), and so the band and management are left to decide whether or not the potential added exposure they would get from a publicist is worth the outof-pocket expense.

Many times, in a situation such as this one, the band itself is not generating enough income to pay for something like this, so the management foots the bill. Theoretically, management will be reimbursed for these costs once the band does start generating some money. If neither the band nor the management can afford to pay, it really is the band that suffers.
Good managers understand that new and developing artists are much like startup businesses. The first couple of years (or records) typically are money losers. The hope is that after the painful initial period has ended, there will be a financial reward that will recoup all the early losses and then some. This is why managers will fund an artist’s career at the early stages—and, in fact, sometimes well into an artist’s career.

by Berklee Music