I used to write a bunch for tv and film with some pals of mine.
The sync company would send out a brief explaining what the show or movie was looking for…some abstract, weird, unhelpful description. But then they would also give a BPM range and some links to other songs for reference, which was very helpful.
And oh yeah, at the end of the email they would state how soon they needed the master recording turned in by.
The norm? 36 hours. Sometimes a full 48 hours. Sometimes 24 hours.
And we never missed a deadline.
Musicians, who take weeks, months, years to finish songs, agree on anything, decide something is finished…hitting deadlines. Imagine that.
Why?
Because we took the sync company’s deadlines seriously. It’s impossible to write a brand new (very awesome) song, track it, mix and master it in 36 hours…until you have to.
If the deadline would have been two weeks, we would have taken two weeks. But the end product would be exactly the same as the 36 hour end product.
The problem isn’t that we have too little time, it’s that we have too much time.
We tend to use every bit of time we believe we have.
The trick is to learn how to create and take your self-imposed impossibly short deadlines seriously enough to actually carry them out.
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I’m always interested in your perspective, whether affirming or dissenting. Continue the conversation anytime: gabethebassplayer@gmail.com