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Hi there,
I just sent this trailer to a trailer house (probably one of the best tracks I have done in fact) and the reply was a bit rude tbh. Amongst other things they criticized the title as being too long (I called it – ‘Saving the Elephants for a Rainy Day, Preserving the Preservable and Making Extinction Extinct’ – because it tells a musical story and is also quite clever).
I hadn’t heard this before, track titles being too long! It seems a ridiculous remark. In this case, because of the nature of the track the title HAD to be long. It’s about wildlife preservation and I didn’t want to just call it ‘Elephants’.
Surely the title are important to the end user yes? Do you guys limit your titles? If so how can you describe the track?
Del
Hi Del,
Seems overly long to me. Also, I don’t know if it’s true now but there was a time that some operating systems couldn’t handle a file name that long. It also looks like you had spaces in that file name, another potential problem. But the real problem is the length.
Art
Del
The title IS ridiculously long. If the music doesn’t speak for itself, putting the “story” in the title won’t change a thing.
More important would be for the title to somehow reflect the style, mood, vibe, etc.
Learn from the experience.
Best 😀
A lot of my library clients prefer one word track names. Most of the trailer music tracks I’ve done are either the names of Greek / Roman Gods or a descriptor for fighting/strength/glory etc.
A long name makes it hard for extra info to be placed in the file name, like:
LIB23_Track Name_NO MELODY.aiff
Also, they might spell a complicated track name incorrectly on a cue sheet, potentially meaning you lose out on royalties.
Library A&R are busy people, deluged with submissions. To be honest, with a title that long and, seemingly far a field, I’m not sure that I would even listen to the cue, because I would assume that the music is likely to be equally off the mark, which may be a complete disservice to your composition. Don’t shoot yourself in the foot.
Hi Del,
It has been my experience that names that are one or two words should be enough to paint a picture of what the track is. Imagine you were shopping for a car and the model name was an entire 14 word sentence…..ineffective marketing most likely.
Once a short effective name lures them into listening, the music had better be up to task.
Chances are likely that your music was rejected because: 1. they didn’t have a need for it right now, 2. your style/genre isn’t something they normally market 3. it didn’t meet their quality standards.
perhaps: ‘Saving Ivory’ — doesn’t tell the entire story but the music should
And again, all just my opinion. Best of luck.
>>>>> Chances are likely that your music was rejected because: 1. they didn’t have a need for it right now, 2. your style/genre isn’t something they normally market 3. it didn’t meet their quality standards.
Yes, that is almost certainly why your tracks were rejected. Most trailer houses are pretty selective with very high standards.
The very long title did, however, make you look very much like a non-professional– something you’d rather not do in the future. It’s like sloppiness on a resume when applying for a job.
Best of luck!
Very epic indeed!
To be honest, one of the first things you need to do is be way more receptive to feedback from experienced folks:
“I did meet this guy on a forum who is a top composer and he had a listen and his comment was that the intro needs to be shorter. But then again, that’s not a very good comment as the idea is of a gradual build to get over the impression of marching ants! It wouldn’t work with an intro. And anyway, if it did that it would no longer last 60 seconds!! So perhaps not a sensible suggestion there.”
The above says it all.
Also, the fact that you continue to talk about titles so much, concerns me. It says to me you are not catching on that it’s about the MUSIC. A bad title can hurt you (such as one that is a Charles Dickens novel) but other than that, it’s not the most important thing.
Best of luck.
@Del “Sorry there’s some arrogant people on here that just like to diss others so I will go elsewhere.”
That’s an overstatement. I don’t know what “TheOne” meant but that was the only questionable statement I saw here. You might have asked “TheOne” what he meant. It sounds like you may have a very thin skin which will not serve you well in this (or any) business.