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Hey when you write a script amnd you want to have a certain song in there, do you write it in the script? eg. INT. HOUSE Man walks over. "Halleluja" plays.
I dunno, this is tricky... On the one hand you don't ever wanna put music in a script, cause it makes the agent, producer/whoever reading it automatically think about getting the rights to the song you've just labled in your script, instead of focasing on the script its self. By this he'd have to think about the rights and money it'd take to obtain that particular song.
On the other hand, the audience or readers might not know the song you are refering to. In this case everyone does, I believe so anyways.
I dunno, I've never done it. I don't think I ever will but this is a shot I guess you make and take on your own. If it is that needed and that important to your script, throw it in... just don't expect it to be in the final print when your movie goes to press and you won't be disappointed, right?
It's one thing to say that a guy walks into a club and a jazz band is playing, or a man walks into his son's room and hip-hop is blasting on the stereo. Specific songs are generally a no-no.
Are you using the Halleluja Chorus (I think that's the name of the piece) in a humorous way and only for a second or two? Or will the whole piece be played out? If it's the former, you might get away with a line or two of the song.
I will add my agreement with Balt & Phil. Simply put, you don't do it. Specific songs are a decision that is made much higher up in the development process. Including them gives your script the "amateur" stamp.
There are tons of scripts around here loaded up with songs, and the writers defend them saying, "I need to set the mood", but they are dead wrong. Most of the time you will just annoy readers who have never even heard of the song you are talking about in the first place, so including it doesn't help much anyway.
One exception is really, really generic songs well within the public domain, such as "Happy Birthday". "Halleluja" might be included within that group, IF you mean the song that I think you do. And Phil wasn't sure either. See the problem there?
The other (very rare) exception is if the song is absolutely vital to the plot, as with "Sea of Love", or something like that.
Ack...see how confusing? Can you use it or not? Who knows.
You're allowed to get away with one or two lines of a song without permission. Think about this the next time you see an actor or actress sing a current song in a movie.
Then there's songs in public domain. 'The Big Chill' used a lot of them. In fact, all the songs from the movie's soundtrack album was public domain.
Probably not anymore. Not after all the trouble he's been into. He was forced into selling much of his music catalogs, such as selling the Beatles bank back to Paul among other music rights.
He's not as well off as he once was. I never liked M.J. owning the rights to John's music... it just didn't seem right. Paul's, yeah, whatever, he sucked anyways... but John had real powerful, emotional stuff. Stuff that actually stood for something and M.J. whored it out on several occasions for a buck.
I have heard Micheal Jackson holds the copyright to the Happy Birthday song.
You heard wrong. He never held the rights. The copyright holder is AOL Time Warner - specifically Summy-Birchard Music (whichis part of the AOL Time Warner conglomerate)
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