The Business of Commercials!! 239Russo: Usually, you have to know the landscape of the job. If the
creative assignment is something you know is not your
strength—let’s say, you’re an orchestral writer and they want a
pop jingle, it really won’t make sense for you to write a pop jin-
gle, if your strength is elsewhere because you’re going to have a
really hard time winning. Also, the demo fees never really cover
the expenses involved in producing a demo. So, you’re going to
lose money, and you’re going to have a very remote chance of
winning.
MZ: When devising your budget, do you separate your demo fees
from your studio and technical fees?
Russo: Absolutely... usually the writer that wins will get a split
of 50-50 or 60-40 (40 for the writer) on the creative fee, plus that
writer will try to sing on the commercial and participate as a
musician on the commercial. So, they will get three avenues of
compensation.
MZ: If the assignment is to write an arrangement of an existing
composition, is there still a creative fee or only an arranging fee?
Russo: Usually, if there is [only] an arrangement involved, you are
allowed to charge what is called a producer’s fee. A producer’s
fee can be anywhere from a quarter to a third to a half of a cre-
ative fee, depending upon how much the producer has to work
with the arranger.
MZ: How often do agencies allow you to charge a producer’s fee?
Russo: Whenever there is an arranging job and there is no creative
fee.
MZ: What do you do if the creatives are pushing the composer to
almost plagiarize an existing composition?
Russo: I won’t do the job. I have a strict policy about that. Lots of
time agencies have a kind of idea about what they’d like and at
times give us directions that have elements of songs preexisting
in them. We don’t mind having that as a direction finder but we
do mind when an agency requests us to rip off, so to speak, that
person’s work, whoever it is. We have a policy where a musicolo-
gist is involved in assessing the work we’ve done to make sure
that it has legal clearances. If an agency asks us to change some-
thing that is too reminiscent of the original work, we refuse to
do it. You’ve got to stand your ground and say no because the
agency, at times, will not be guided by prudence when they
really have made up their mind about something they want and
can’t have. You have to give them as close to what you believe
is safe and with a musicologist’s blessing what is possible, but
anything after that you have to decline.
MZ: I’ve seen contracts where the music house is responsible for