Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE: Who makes Movie-tunes?

This is topic Who makes Movie-tunes? in forum Ground Level at Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE.

To visit this topic, use this URL:
https://ft-forum.com/ft/cgi-bin/ubb/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic;f=5;t=002131

Posted by Robert LaValley (Member # 4319) on 11-17-2008, 01:28 PM:

I was wondering who or what company makes those movie tunes discs? or if anyone has a good suggestion for something similar to that to use that's affordable. I know movie tunes isnt the greatest but I'm looking for something thats more plug and play and leave it alone. right now I got direct TV's XM business chanels and I'm being asked to change the chanels alot.

Posted by Mike Blakesley (Member # 26) on 11-17-2008, 05:58 PM:

MovieTunes is free; can't get more affordable than that. I'm not sure who you contact to get on the mailing list though; we got it thru NATO many moons ago.

Posted by Mark J. Marshall (Member # 1409) on 11-18-2008, 09:45 AM:

Asked by who? Customers?

Doesn't XM still have a movie soundtrack channel?

Posted by Joe Tommassello (Member # 4632) on 11-18-2008, 01:25 PM:

Actually I thought Movie Tunes paid the theaters that ran it.

Posted by Mike Blakesley (Member # 26) on 11-18-2008, 02:14 PM:

No, they don't. They should though!

(They might have some kind of a compensation deal with huge chains - that wouldn't surprise me.)

Posted by Joe Tommassello (Member # 4632) on 11-18-2008, 02:28 PM:

They did. I worked for GCC and one night Robert Kardashian (of O.J. is innocent fame) walked into one of our locations and complained because we didn't have it on in the lobby. IN THE LOBBY!!!!!! We were playing James Bond theme songs because the latest 007 film had opened that weekend. Apparently RK was an owner or representative of Movie Tunes. I guess he wanted to hear "I Don't Wanna Miss A Thing" one more time!

Posted by Mike Blakesley (Member # 26) on 11-18-2008, 03:32 PM:

He might've been complaining because, by playing the James Bond tunes, you were opening your place up to huge fines from BMI or ASCAP by playing material without having a license for it. That's the primary reason for MovieTunes' existence; those CDs are license-free.

Posted by Joe Redifer (Member # 3) on 11-18-2008, 03:34 PM:

I am amazed Movie Tunes still exists! Do they still have the same super-short 30 minute program?

Posted by Joe Tommassello (Member # 4632) on 11-18-2008, 03:47 PM:

quote: Mike Blakesley
He might've been complaining because, by playing the James Bond tunes, you were opening your place up to huge fines from BMI or ASCAP by playing material without having a license for it.

We were told he was "connected" in some way to Movie Tunes. UA had sent us the James Bond CD with a note saying we could use it at our discretion to play in the theater. Doesn't mean THEY cleared the rights for us to play it but I wasn't worried. By the time the cease and desist order showed up the movie would be played out and I had the letter from the movie's distributor.

Another time we varied from Movie Tunes was when we had the Blair Witch Project "Museum"...six display cases with "artifacts" from the alleged event. It was actually very well done. For that weekend in the lobby we played the last track on the BWP soundtrack which was just the noises heard in the end segment when they were in the witch's house. The creepy noises created a wonderful atmosphere for the "museum". We burned that one track to a CD and repeated it over and over again. It was quite effective.

Posted by Dominic Espinosa (Member # 2122) on 11-18-2008, 03:55 PM:

It's my understanding that ASCAP/BMI has no say over soundtracks connected to current films being used as promotion via your non-sync/lobby system.

So 007 themes while Quantum of Solace is in theaters would be permissible.

Posted by John Hawkinson (Member # 1135) on 11-18-2008, 04:53 PM:

Why would that be, Dominic? The law doesn't change.

In some cases the rightsholders can grant you clearance, but I don't think you can safely generalize. There's no reason to assume that the studio for some movie would be in a position to license a song that might have some loose association with the a related title. And predecessor titles change hands with some frequency, etc.

Sure, if SPE tells you they've cleared the rights, then you can probably safely assume they have. But without such a statement, I don't think you can assume anything.

--jhawk

Posted by Mike Blakesley (Member # 26) on 11-18-2008, 06:40 PM:

quote: Joe Redifer
Do they still have the same super-short 30 minute program?

60 minutes. Yeah, it's still virtually the exact same thing as always - only the crappy music is newer. Oh, and they "updated" the snappy theme song at the beginning to something that sounds more current than before. So now we're solidly in the '90s.

Posted by Joe Redifer (Member # 3) on 11-18-2008, 07:33 PM:

From what I recall the 30 minute program was repeated twice on the disc, making it 60 minutes. Is/was that correct or am I a blathering idiot?

Posted by Jesse Skeen (Member # 586) on 11-20-2008, 07:42 AM:

The latest one I heard was from 2001 and it was about an hour, give or take a few minutes. Don't know if it's changed since then- do they still have the same announcer? Seems like it's getting displaced by the video pre-show stuff which has its own audio.

Movietunes has its good and bad points, my biggest problem with it is that the announcer really shouldn't be there. In a theater very few people are paying attention to what he's saying anyways. It was also awkward when it was time to start the show and you'd cut him off mid-sentence.

Posted by Mike Blakesley (Member # 26) on 11-20-2008, 09:27 AM:

Yep, it's the same announcer. I do think it's a single program and runs close to 60 minutes. Since we only have 1 screen, and the disk is programmed as one track, we only hear the first 20 minutes or so while we're selling tickets. We hit the "play" button again when the first show gets out. It's so monotonous that we just tune it completely out so I couldn't even tell you what songs are playing this month.

Posted by Mark J. Marshall (Member # 1409) on 11-20-2008, 03:20 PM:

The last time I heard it, it was more announcing than music. The announcer would introduce a song called "something-or-other" by the artist "so-and-so", which is on "whatchamacallit-records" and can be picked up at any "big-box-super-store" and you should pick it up today "RIGHT AFTER THE MOVIE!!! YAY!" And then about 30 seconds of the song would play and we'd again hear the announcer say, "that was 'something-or-other' by the artist 'so-and-so', which is on 'whatchamacallit-records'." To me, that's not the song. That is an ad for the song. And then a commercial plays. And then the next song ad starts where the announcing starting all over again.

The highlights for me are when the announcer tries to sound cool.

But the selection of tunes is well thought out. The older customers absolutely LOVE when they listen to Usher and P. Diddy. And the kids can't wait to hear Elvis and the Temptations. The official review of Movie Tunes on this site sums it up best...

1. There is something for everyone to hate.
2. Dead silence is preferable in almost every situation.

To paraphrase My Cousin, Vinny... That review is dead-on-balls accurate.

Posted by John Joseph Fink (Member # 3619) on 11-22-2008, 01:18 PM:

http://www.kriserikstevens.com/audio/movietunes.mp3

Posted by Jillian Brock (Member # 4709) on 12-04-2008, 05:02 PM:

Private Label Radio by National Cinemedia.