In the early days of filmmaking, live music often accompanied a silent film as a means of adding dimension to the black and white scenes on screen - as well as distracting audiences from noisy theater projectors! It was, at first, an unorganized affair wholly dependent upon the talent available to each individual movie house. It wasn’t until the “Talkies” of the 1930s that film directors were finally able to control a film’s score, and thus, uniformly cast an auditory spell over audiences around the world.
Cut to present day and music in film (and across all video formats) is an essential tool in shaping how an audience receives the visual information unfolding before them. The choice of music, like the choice of color, can infuse emotion into a scene, tell us something about the personality of the characters, or create tension. If you want to dive deeper into when and how to use music in a video, check out this blog post by one of our premium music partners, Epidemic Sound (more on them in a moment!).
On a more practical front, all productions of a commercial nature (film/TV/advertisements) are responsible for keeping records of the musical tracks featured in their work to ensure that composers and publishers are properly compensated. This is where the Music Cue Sheet comes in! The Music Cue Sheet is your place to keep everything organized and your production on the right side of the law.
We currently offer the Tongal Music Cue Sheet Template in DOC formats for the following uses: Tongal Projects and General Use (click the link to download or print them at home). Simply fill out the information as it pertains to your video or film, and have it ready to go at the end of your Project.
The General Use Music Cue Sheet is great for your everyday video needs, but the Tongal Projects version was created with our specific music partners in mind (need help filling out this sheet? here you go). Tongal is proud to provide three premiere music and sound library resources to all our creators who participate in Tongal Video Projects. These resources are absolutely free for you to use in a Tongal Project and there are thousands of tracks available to fit the mood of any piece. Depending on the Project (always refer to the Project page for more information!), you may have access to one or more of the following services: Jingle Punks, Universal Production Music and Epidemic Sound.
Of course, you are allowed to use any other musical tracks that you have the right to use - but you will need proof of those rights in writing (a licensing agreement and any purchase receipts or a Tongal Music Release from the artist). As always, we recommend working with your Project’s Tongal Producer who can tap our in-house music-licensing specialist to answer any music-related questions you may have.
If you’d like to see this resource in any other format, let us know down in the comments and we’ll do our best to accommodate!
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See all our Tongal Templates on Tongal 101.
