Manhattan Production Music's iPod giveaway: painstakingly encoding every cut in the library to iTunes meets with client approval

Post, Sept, 2005 by Ken McGorry

NEW YORK -- Either this is the next big thing in selecting production music or using Apple's iPod as a mini server will go down in history as a techno-creative curiosity. But either way, Manhattan Production Music (www.mpm-music.com) was the first to log their entire catalog onto iPods this spring, and now they are distributing the powerful little gadgets to their most-likely-to-purchase clients. The first clients to receive the free iPods, each with about 3,000 MPM titles loaded into 20GB, complete with metadata and room for one's own comments, are ad agencies on both coasts and movie trailer houses like Ignition Creative in Los Angeles.

Users can perform targeted searches anywhere, while commuting or at home, annotate their favored cuts with personal notes and download cuts to try out (or even use) with video or storyboards. At a bit rate of 192, the cuts can go direct from the iPod for on air use as background music or behind a VO.

For the MPM programmer, the not-so-good part is that you have to encode and prep every single cut you have, which is time-consuming (and then recall the iPod from the client temporarily when you have a new batch of releases you want to add).

"It took about six months to program [the iPod] and get all the metadata on it. That was the hardest part, and getting it all registered so it goes to iTunes," says Ron Goldberg, marketing director for MPM. "We had two people on it full time for six months." All the metadata for every cut, including liner notes, had to be filled in one cut at a time. "We figured iTunes is the most user-friendly search engine in the world. Now we just copy it from our server and give it out to people."

And the iPods arrive customized to specific users' needs. For Dane Short, music supervisor for two-and-a-half-year-old Ignition Creative (www.ignitionla.com), MPM sent him an iPod with 3,000 select cuts on it. Short is simpatico--he helped MPM create a special reel of trailer-appropriate tracks that's now available to MPM clients as a trailer playlist on the iPod.

SOUNDALIKES

What are "trailer appropriate" tracks? They're not all music; some are background textures meant to set a mood, like MPM's "Drones" collection that Short likes to use to convey dread or ominous portent. And then there are the soundalikes. Trailer music budgets are lower than those of the feature films they promote and a new film's score, like its VFX, is not likely to be ready until much closer to deadline. Since Short and the trailer crew at Ignition are often working seven months in advance, they need to tell a film's story in pictures and sound long before some of the most gripping visual and aural material is available.

Short has to find music quickly that helps tell a story; he also provides sound design. Ignition's work is primarily theatrical and TV movie trailers, and a little Internet work with the occasional radio spot thrown in. "I don't want to call it 'library music,'" Short says, "it's music geared toward motion picture advertising and it's usually already made. Occasionally you'll get a production library that will be able to modify or remix something, sometimes it's already 'there' in the hands of a talented music editor."

Trailers can be :60 to two and a half minutes in length. Horror films are often short and shocking (as are comedies) while dramas can run longer. Some of the many notable films on Ignition's client list are Cold Mountain, Alien vs. Predator, Kill Bill and Fantastic Four. "We did a large portion of the advertising for Madagascar," says Short, "all the teasers and trailers." The upcoming Get Rich or Die Trying features a track from MPM's "Drones" collection. "It's orchestral bass strings with contra-bass and you have a string movement to layer with," he says. "It's more than a sound effect, even more than sound design; it's a pretty substantial cue."

MPM, Short says, "prepared an iPod with everything they had up to that point, which was great because it was all labeled, including their classical music, in the high-resolution MP3 format. I kind of use it like an external drive, but it has all the categorizing by comments and genre, etc." Short's main metadata categories are genre (action or thriller), grouping (a mood, such as "dark") and comments (which can include lots of details such as "sounds just like ...") and, he says, "When I go type in keywords I'm golden. The other great thing about it is, I can make playlists within the actual iPod." Even lists like "bad" or "cheesy" come in handy when working on a comedy film.

Ignition trailers are offlined on Avid using Avid Unity (online takes place at a post house chosen by the studio). Ignition has from 40 to 50 staffers at work, including some freelancers, and may work on 15 or more active projects at one time, so any technology that helps sort through the tangle is welcome. It's exciting, Short allows, adding, "or stressful--whichever way!"

MPM's Goldberg says his company has invested "pretty heavily" in new iPods for customers. He likes iPod's graphics--MPM included its album cover art in the data. "It helps!" Goldberg says.