Pre-production: The Songs
Update: Great films have great soundtracks!
We always begin with the following disclaimer: It is impossible for you to know less about filmmaking than what we knew when we began the Salted Christmas journey. This series of articles is not designed to teach anyone in the industry anything. The series is simply intended to share with our friends some of what we’ve learned about the art, the skill, and the business of filmmaking.
As we said last week, in general, films contain two types of music: songs and score. If you are interested in the scoring problem, please check out this post about that subject. This week we hope to furnish some insight into the problem of securing the necessary soundtrack.
Look, as far as we know, there are only two ways films obtain the music for a great soundtrack: 1) by spending a lot of money and 2) by being blessed by God in a miraculous way. This is one of those moments where something inside us wishes we could regale you with tales of pitching an incredible movie idea while relying on our established history of successful filmmaking to convince popular artists to join the project. We have no prior projects in filmmaking (not one, not even a short film) and we have no money to spend. So the whole idea of securing great music for this project was pipe dream from the beginning. But then we are reminded of that famous two-word string found so often in the Bible – “…but God…” Because that is what happened to us. The Lord knew we had no ability to convince anyone of anything, so He had to do it all himself.
There are five wonderful songs in Salted Christmas, three by Point of Grace, one by Ocean’s Edge Music, and one by Christian rapper J-Dub. All of these artists turned out to be a friend of a friend. And we believe that the Lord just gave us favor as we approached them out of the blue, with nothing to offer, and asked for permission to include their music in this project. There are two unbelievable parts to this: 1) that the artists who happen to be a friend of a friend had music that fit the project like a glove and 2) that these artists were willing to sign on with a first time filmmaker for no guarantee of anthing in return. It doesn’t make any sense. But that is the Christian life. We step out in faith, trusting that the Lord has gone before us.
The songs in order of appearance:
- Holly Jolly Christmas, Home for the Holidays, Point of Grace
- Home for the Holidays/Silver Bells, Home for the Holidays, Point of Grace
- Yours, O Lord (Is the Greatness), I Will Ever Sing, Ocean’s Edge Music
- Let There be Light, Winter Wonderland, Point of Grace
- That Junk is Crazy, J-dub
