Intrada Soundtrack Forum

7/3/08

Having our CDs sell rapidly is healthy for business. Having them sell out generates revenues necessary to realize more projects, of course. It's why so many labels are doing limited releases lately. But we're certainly aware people can miss out on stuff, too.

I think a lot about the challenges of pleasing everyone. Dates of release, quantities, timing of announcements, "pre-announcements", retail pricing, wholesale pricing to other dealers, those wacky "clue" games, limits of one per customer, subscriptions, you name it.

Licensor restrictions usually dictate how long stuff can be made available and how many copies can be produced. If the licenses allow it, we'll offer you expanded editions of ALIEN and WIND AND THE LION and TOMBSTONE and SILVERADO and RAMBO III up the wazoo. But limited editions are a beast unto themselves. They don't play by ordinary rules. You've probably noticed Monday-night quarterbacks are everywhere lately. But not one of them has shown me a perfect crystal ball yet. We had more requests over the years for CROSS CREEK than SCORPIO but customers didn't do what we expected them to do. We sold all of the BABY discs in a single day yet still have copies of each equally impressive AMAZING STORIES CD on hand, and those have Goldsmith AND Williams AND Horner AND Silvestri and so on - all under one roof, no less! If I were a betting person (which I'm not) I'd have bet that COMES A HORSEMAN would've dwarfed THE PICK-UP ARTIST and EMPEROR OF THE NORTH. But I would've been wrong. Actually, I guess I'm a betting person afterall. Just not a perfect one.

Some people wish we would offer subscriptions, other people want limits of one to a customer, still others want us to police the internet activity after we sell the discs. (The latter is a non-starter around here.) But one message I'm in sympathy with has to do with "speculators".

We can't just limit things to one-per-customer because in a free enterprise system, other dealers may choose to do something else. And we don't want to exclude other dealers we enjoy working with. That wouldn't benefit customers in long-established relationships elsewhere. Multiple vendors is healthy for the environment. In short, I like having a greater soundtrack "community".

To be sure, royalties and mechanicals are often paid up front, as well as mixing, editing, mastering, packaging and manufacturing costs. So we've certainly got plenty of incentive to move things as quickly as possible. But if we're offering discs to fans and they're getting too few chances to enjoy them or even if we're just leaving money on the table we're not helping anyone.

Anyway, speculators are having an impact on what used to be a source of joy for soundtrack fans. I remember this happening with rare movie posters, too. After awhile, it just became a toy for really rich people to play with and everyone else threw in the towel.

In our niche soundtrack marketplace, limited editions are obviously the engines that drive the trains. But trying to play God and decide who gets what is too slippery a slope for me. To whom do you sell? Which exceptions do you tolerate? What ends do you pursue to ensure only valid collectors or dealers get your goods? And who-the-heck defines valid? Not me. I prefer to stick with producing the albums and remain out of the God business thank you very much.

By the way. We're toying with packaging respective items as "limited editions" but leaving actual quantities in obscurity, like we originally did. Fans will presumably still enjoy the luster of limited editions but maybe speculators will ponder things a bit longer. But that's just a random thought at the moment.

Anyway - yes -I want the CDs to sell but I want them to sell to fans who will enjoy them the most. It's never going to work out perfectly, of course. But I assure you Roger, Jeff, George, Steve, Wendy and myself are talking about ways to please as many soundtrack collectors as possible. As corporate president, I'd be insane to thumb my nose at the bottom line. The hamsters here would be pretty unhappy about it, too. But making good music available for people to enjoy is our reason for being. To that end, we've got more goodies in the works that you probably thought would never see the light of day. And - no - that's not my kickoff to a clue game. (I'll leave that to Roger when the time comes.) It's just part of making good music happen.

7/11/08

Against the advice of family, friends and business associates, I'm gonna go ahead and wrestle with the pigs. What the heck. Getting muddy never hurt anyone.

Several people have made comments regarding the limited editions that I'm in a mood to address. Rest assured, I take little offense at them. It doesn't feel all that personal. But when bad information circulates with the good, I want to help sort out the good from the bad. And the ugly. (Okay, lame joke.) Anyway, I'm also not interested in isolating myself, ignoring collectors' pain, so I'll try to look into their eyes - your eyes - and mingle. You've leveled some criticisms. Good ones, too. I'm reading about them, thinking about them, sometimes even losing sleep over them.

So, with that said, I'll venture forth and address the admittedly few comments that just seem off base.

When someone suggests our motive behind limited editions is mostly to assist in a "speculators market" or even just designed to drive sales forward with profits solely in mind, I have to shake my head. I honestly feel no label on the planet has donated more money to making soundtrack music available, even when it wasn't profitable. But that's me being defensive - which probably wasn't necessary - so enough said.

Perhaps this is more appropriate. People should hesitate before making comparisons of all the various labels with respect to policies and whatnot. Just because one label makes 3000 copies of something, it doesn't mean all the labels have the same set of rules to go by. Some labels are only working with one or two licensors and have established templates to work from. In our case, we've made opening new doors and exploring new horizons a priority. You can see the evidence. But in order to make all this stuff a reality, we have to accommodate a wide array of licensing terms, both in costs and quantities. If we can make endless copies of the ALIENs and SILVERADOs happen, we will. But if we can't make endless copies of the CAPRICORN ONEs and BABYs, we'll just make what we can.

Though some people have chosen to ignore it, virtually every soundtrack label has issued stuff in quantities of less than 3000. Sometimes it's simply the best decision that can be made. I respectfully ask that when you criticize our decision to make that call, (typically Varese Sarabande gets the same complaint), you at least not be hypocritical. Expand your targets to include all of the respective labels. At least find out if they're all playing by the same rules. You could be in for some surprises. A couple of days ago, someone wrote me and said they were going to boycott whatever else we did just because they missed out on SCORPIO. Just that one solitary album. It didn't anger me and it sure didn't frighten me. But it saddened me. (The old "throw out the baby with the bathwater" thing probably applies.) Anyway, it just seemed sad. I remember when none of this music was readily available. In 1985, I put up my own money to help change that. Since then, I've seen collectors find each other and gather. Since then, I've seen several studios open up their doors. Since then, I've seen the musician's union create an entirely new rate structure literally focusing on our same goals. And since then, I've seen a plethora of labels come and go, usually working towards those same ends. Like it's one big community, finally forming at last to ensure the music survives.

Maybe that's one of the things I really have to re-think now. At the very least, it's interesting to see how silent the various labels get when one of the "community" takes a hit. Maybe I'm the only one who thinks of it as a community. Maybe I don't even know what a community is.

Someone else wrote, happily in the opposite direction with nice compliments, but unhappily suggesting we just sell our discs by ourselves to the handful of people we care about, like a private club or something. But circling the wagons just doesn't sound appealing to me. And, at risk of sounding corny, I really care about the greater soundtrack community at large. On the other hand, if I'm just being naive, I'll sort it out sooner or later. Finally, someone else simply wrote and said there were too many albums coming out. I think there's something thoughtful in that one, but I'll still go with too many to choose from over not enough.

Whatever. My world always ends up full of optimism, even though some people keep trying to throw rain all over it. So I figure the studios and unions and labels and collectors will all figure out some way to satisfy as many members as is possible. (Okay, I'll remind myself that collectors won't even agree on a timeline for announcements, much less which albums to make, how long they should be, how often to release them, how many to make of them and so forth.)

Golly. Wrestling with the pigs ain't so bad. Especially if you consider yourself one of them anyway.

7/12/08

Our two latest releases hit the stands this Tuesday, July 15. As normal, we'll post titles and sound samples on Monday evening at about 5:15 and begin processing orders on Tuesday. We dabbled a couple of weeks ago with posting announcements early Tuesday morning but decided it was best to keep things the way people had become accustomed to.

There's one Signature Edition with 1000 copies available and one Special Collection title with 1200 copies available. Neither CD should create any panic attacks but given the collecting environment lately, check in pretty quickly if you're keeping up with our releases.

7/18/08

I hope everyone interested in fifties western movie music managed to secure a copy of the recent FSM box set entitled THE NAKED SPUR. I believe they're sold out now. Anyway, as I'm playing it now I'm reminded of how much skill even the lesser-known writers of the day (Amfitheatrof, Alexander) possessed. They compose circles around most of our current film composers.

There's one thing that really stands out in this set. Okay, there's more than one thing - but one thing sticks out right now while I'm playing it. The Copland-ish Americana one might expect from this era of western movie scores (before Morricone turned everything upside down!) is just plain absent. There's also no Tiomkin busy-ness, nor any rollicking Bernstein rhythms to be found. It's all dark and edgy and brittle stuff. Trumpets often play angular themes in fortissimo, then disappear into muted jabs of color. Trombone chords are thick, dissonant. Strings seldom soar but instead offer cold melodies, bitter accompaniments to all the intensity.

My favorite stuff comes from THE WILD NORTH (Bronislau Kaper), which ironically skirts most often with expansive western-ish themes in sunny major keys but is actually set in the North. The theme also tends to move at a breakneck pace, too - so I guess it's not really expansive. It's more fanfare-ish, actually.

Whatever. It's cool music. Maybe it dates by half a century but it's fresher than most of the stuff we get today!

7/24/08

We just added a bunch of new titles to the "Anything Goes" category of the store. A word to the wise. Stuff here sometimes literally "goes" within moments of being listed. Pop over quickly and you might find a bargain before it's gone.

Two more new Intrada releases come out this Tuesday. I imagine one of them will move pretty fast. It's a cool 2-CD set. The other release isn't too bad, either. Anyway, watch for the official announcements Monday afternoon around 5:15.

7/31/08

Another sell-out and lots of good suggestions follow. What a system! We want to maximize the enjoyment factor for people as much as possible so we're continually evaluating business models, strategies and whatnot.

Here's some stuff we're sifting through. Like you, we're beginning to see a blur between our two limited series - the Special Collection and the Signature Editions. We're re-thinking this now. We took into consideration the strength of the title and composer, of course, but didn't afford enough weight to things like stars or genre. If titles came from the Cannon vaults they didn't feel like stuff requiring lengthy 35mm assemblies out of the 20th Century Fox vaults and whatever. So a Chuck Norris title from Cannon Pictures went to the Signature Editions and a Fox title automatically went to the Special Collection and so forth. It gets confusing for us all. We end up with Alan Silvestri's all-electronic score for DELTA FORCE in the lower profile series (and having it sell out) while we find his fully orchestral JUDGMENT NIGHT score sitting in the Special Collection gathering dust. The quantity issue isn't really a factor with titles licensed from UMG since they're already set at 3000 units regardless of the film.

I'm grateful to all of you for helping illuminate this situation. So you can figure we'll now be taking into consideration who stars in the movie, the genre and all that stuff. (With both INVASION USA and DELTA FORCE moving so quickly, we'll certainly think about this on any future project starring Chuck Norris!)

One suggestion that doesn't really work out is in posting announcements several weeks ahead of the release itself. While it would allow time for people to discuss releases and ponder purchases, it most likely wouldn't alter fast sell-outs. If we'd put INVADERS FOR MARS up for sale four weeks before it actually shipped, the number of orders wouldn't likely have changed - but we'd be sitting on your money with nothing to ship to you for several weeks. We've seen this happen with other companies and it usually leaves an aftertaste. So - at best - we'd prefer to announce stuff and actually be shipping it out to you within hours after you place orders.

Predicting quantities that balance sales with demands will always be an issue. In cases like BABY, we simply negotiated the maximum of 3000 to begin with and they still didn't last more than a day! By the way, while on that note. I've noticed people ask why Goldsmith's BABY (a modest Disney picture) sells out in one day while the same number of copies to his expanded LOGAN'S RUN (a major MGM sci-fi project) stay around for years. We don't know why either, but it shows us all that nothing is for certain except death and taxes - or something like that.