How much are sync fees for movie trailers?

Fees vary with the overall movie budget, how much they want the song, and how much music they plan to use. Recognizable commercial music pays the most -- sometimes 40-5K per side (publishing and master). Orchestral cues also pay very well. For unknown bands fees can range from 500 (very low end) to as high 20K.

Make that 40K to 100K for a well known song

rfinca wrote:

Fees vary with the overall movie budget, how much they want the song, and how much music they plan to use. Recognizable commercial music pays the most -- sometimes 40-5K per side (publishing and master). Orchestral cues also pay very well. For unknown bands fees can range from 500 (very low end) to as high 20K.

Thanks, Richard; that's very helpful. But what exactly is an orchestral cue?

The trailer is often produced and used before the final score is completed. Trailer companies will hire composers to write to their edits, or sometimes edit to existing cues..or sometimes fit the cues (Pro tools etc.) to the picture.

Check out the AIMP panel on July 16th in LA (or listen to the podcast on aimp.org) which will focus on this subject. The panel is called Movie Trailers:A vast frontier for music licensing.

I agree with Richard's ranges of fees - trailers are still a decent source of income as they're a separate budget from the production budget - they're essentially the advertising budget so it's more a marketing thing than production. We had a well known song get paid $125K a side so for the right song with a well known artist, it's shocking the fee you can get (in a good way!). Trailers are also becoming a great way to break new bands if the budget can't support a known artist. Most times, an unknown band's song will have to work lyrically - the asset to using a known song and known artist is the trailer gets to tap into that immediate familiarity to tie their movie to. An area definitely worth exploring more.....

- Michael Eames
PEN Music Group, Inc.
michael@penmusic.com

penmusic wrote:

I agree with Richard's ranges of fees - trailers are still a decent source of income as they're a separate budget from the production budget - they're essentially the advertising budget so it's more a marketing thing than production. We had a well known song get paid $125K a side so for the right song with a well known artist, it's shocking the fee you can get (in a good way!). Trailers are also becoming a great way to break new bands if the budget can't support a known artist. Most times, an unknown band's song will have to work lyrically - the asset to using a known song and known artist is the trailer gets to tap into that immediate familiarity to tie their movie to. An area definitely worth exploring more.....

- Michael Eames
PEN Music Group, Inc.
michael@penmusic.com

This all supports my hunch that the July AIMP panel should be a really good one as it's on trailers !! Stay tuned for more info on it ...