How much for an old MC Ham-mer rap?

At some point in the filmmaking process, every director must ask him or herself what soundtrack will best capture and/or set the tone of this magnum opus. In my case, the question was how to audibly evoke the feeling of a hankerin' for ham. Though nothing came immediately to mind, I felt certain the perfect ham song was out there somewhere.

It wasn't until I Googled "songs about ham" that I realized what a heretofore musically untapped subject I had selected. (I also discovered a group called The Ham Band, which recorded an entire CD of songs about ham radio. For a truly mystifying experience, visit hamband.com and watch the music video. Seriously.)

As it turns out, it was probably a good thing I didn't locate any ham songs, since the process for acquiring music rights for films can be arduous and expensive — even for amateur moviemakers.

When I asked Sandy Cioffi, film/video professor at Seattle Central Community College, what the rules are regarding using music in homegrown films, she explained, "If you're making a video of your son's birthday party and you add a James Taylor song in the background, and you show it to a small group of friends, you should be fine. But if you take it into any sort of public territory, it's a whole different ballgame."

Limited permission

As for what constitutes "public territory," Cioffi smiled. "That's when we get into a really gray area," she said. "But one big dividing line is whether you'll have any financial gain from the movie. If the answer is yes, the hammer comes down hard."

So what if, say, despite the fact that your film is an astute and gripping exploration of ham yearning, you don't expect to make a dime? That's where festival and student permissions come in. These are rights you can purchase for a set amount of time (often a year or two) that allow you to use copyrighted music legally, provided you show the film only in limited, noncommercial circumstances.

Acquiring festival or student rights usually means filling out an extensive application and forking over a small but not insignificant amount of cash.

Lyle Hysen is president of Bank Robber Music, a music licensing company that handles copyright issues for several labels, including local Barsuk Records. He advises, "Generally, student films or festival rights go for $250 for the master (the label) and $250 for the publishing (the writer), so $500 total for a year." As for the application turnaround time, Hysen says, "At least a couple of weeks. But if they are under a deadline, we will try to help speed up the process as much as possible."

Forget Nirvana

Sub Pop Records' approach is a bit more hard-line, at least according to its Web site FAQ, which curtly explains: "To acquire a license for a Sub Pop artist, excluding The Postal Service, The Shins, or Nirvana, which you aren't going to get, you will need $500 and at least 6-8 weeks. We do not have the time or patience to bargain with you, so if this doesn't suit your needs you might want to consider your back-up plan."

When you're able to secure festival or student rights, you're at least partway there. But if your movie is so moving that it gets picked up for commercial distribution, you must renegotiate music rights — meaning a giant leap in costs, the amount of which varies hugely, depending on the song, artist and label.

"Mad Hot Ballroom" producer/writer Amy Sewell said in an online interview with Stay Free Magazine (June 2005) that after renegotiating her festival rights for commercial use, she had to pay between $15,000 and $20,000 each for use of the songs appearing in her low-budget (and excellent) documentary. She even had to pay for six seconds of the "Rocky" theme song that happened to be the ring-tone on one of her subjects' cellphones.

Cioffi notes, "If your film gets distributed, the distributor will usually pay for the rights, but who's to say the distributor will want to pay that much for the music you chose?" In other words, choose wisely. A reliable assumption is, the bigger the label, the thicker the red tape. (So much for my getting the Beatles' song "Piggies" for my ham-pic.)

"Most musicians would be fine with people using their work as long as they were credited in the film," Cioffi adds. "It's the record labels who want the money."

Get it for cheap

A great way to avoid the hassle is to use music that's already fair game. The most obvious option is using songs of your (or your friends') devising. For a brief period in my own filmmaking I was convinced I would compose a genius ham song, an idea I abandoned as soon as I realized I hadn't written a song since second grade ("Slide Down a Rainbow" — a bit insipid, but with a certain charm).

If your neighbor's daughter's garage band isn't quite the sound you were seeking, you can explore rights-cleared music on sites like Magnatune (magnatune.com), which offers speedy commercial licensing for music in a variety of genres. You may not be able to afford the Beck tune you were hoping for, but you might find a serviceable "ironic electro-pop" substitute in a one-man band called "Brad Sucks" for a significantly reduced cost (depending on the type and scope of the project, this could be as low as 50 bucks).

In a similar vein, check out Creative Commons (creativecommons.org), a nonprofit organization offering "flexible copyright licenses for creative works."

Do it yourself

For the soundtrack to my own Three-Minute Masterpiece, I decided to use Apple's Garageband software, which offers a slew of free music loops in a wide range of styles that are easily incorporated into Apple's iMovie. As professor Cioffi exclaimed, while introducing me to the joys of Garageband, "This is democracy in action! With this program, anyone can make a quality film."

Clicking on a loop that featured urgent, rhythmic strings, she added, "Look at the freakin' fun here! Does this scream 'ham,' or what?" Indeed, it did. And as we started singing along with the clip ("Ham-ham, ham-ham-ham, ham-ham"), I could see — and hear — the glorious possibility of my final product, shimmering pinkly, in the not-so-distant future.

Tune in next Sunday to read the final installment, and to view the Three Minute Ham Masterpiece!

Brangien Davis: brangiendavis@yahoo.com