Society of Composers & Lyricists
Encyclopedia
The Society Of Composers & Lyricists is an organization consisting of Hollywood's professional motion picture, Television, and multimedia music composers, songwriters and lyricists, with histories in the art of scoring
for motion pictures and television. Many of its members have won or been nominated for Oscars, Emmys
and Grammy Awards. Its current President is composer Dan Foliart.
(Gone with the Wind
), Bernard Herrmann
(Psycho
), Erich Wolfgang Korngold
(The Adventures of Robin Hood
), Dimitri Tiomkin
(High Noon
) and David Raksin
(Laura
).
This was the first organization to attempt bargaining on behalf of the composers, and convince the performing rights organization [ASCAP] that film composers should share in broadcast and performance royalties for their creations.
Composer David Raksin headed a campaign to have the SCA become a guild, such as the writers, directors, and producers enjoyed. In 1953, its composer members voted unanimously to create a Composers Guild of America and finally negotiated a minimum basic agreement similar to the Writers Guild of America
and the Directors Guild of America
, which spelled out working conditions, rates of compensation, performance royalties, etc.
Over the next twenty years, the composers and studios fought over royalties and who had the right to exploit compositions beyond their original usage. On February 7, 1972, 71 composers and lyricists filed a $300-million class-action lawsuit against Universal, 20th Century Fox, Paramount, MGM, Warner Bros., Columbia, Walt Disney, United Artists, CBS, ABC, NBC, the AMPTP and other film-related conglomerates. On April 9, 1979, the federal district court approved a settlement conferring some limited rights to certain composers who had worked for the studios prior to October 1973.
The composers remained in disagreement over what they wanted or needed more: royalties or health and welfare, because some reading of the term "independent contractor" meant they were not entitled to benefits, while the standard industry contract term "employee for hire" meant the composers might lose their royalties. In spite of efforts to revive the group, by June 1982, the CLGA was dead.
, a new group was formed: The Society of Composers & Lyricists. The first group of composers and lyricists - including such composers and songwriters as Henry Mancini
, John Williams
, Marilyn
and Alan Bergman
, Jerry Goldsmith
, David Raksin
and Quincy Jones
and television composers of the day such as Jay Chattaway
, Charles Fox
, Billy Goldenberg
, Fred Karlin
, John Beal
, Jerrold Immel
, and Bruce Broughton
- met at the Writers Guild theater. Composer James DiPasquale was the "organizing chairman." But the studios and the National Labor Relations Board
would not let this group form an official guild to address working conditions, or get the benefits of similar groups in the industry.
Twelve years later, in 1995, a vote amongst the SCL membership called by then president Richard Bellis
showed that the debate over joining other unions still stalled at concerns over union affiliations and how that would impact the decades old concerns about being labeled as independent contractors or employees and a composer's ability to collect performance royalties for the broadcast or other distribution of their creative work product.
In November 2009, a committee formed to once again explore unionization for working composers, this time in conversation with the Teamsters, and presented its proposals to the general community of composers for television and film. The SCL did not take an official position. In April 2010, the Writers Guild of America
endorsed the composers' attempt to unionize. That same month, the Screen Actors Guild
offered their support to the composers as well. At an April 19, 2010 follow-up meeting, SCL members expressed interest but also concerns about forming a union with the Teamsters. SCL president Dan Foliart issued a statement to Variety, saying that "the SCL applauds the organizing efforts of our peers (and) continues to monitor this effort, the impact that it will have on our profession, and assess the role that the SCL should play moving forward." While some composers expressed concern that working conditions or separate medical plans might be more important to negotiate, former SCL President Bruce Broughton, said that the majority of working composers in Hollywood were ready to sign up with the Teamsters.
The SCL now indicates it has grown from 50 to 60 members to more than 1,000.
.
Bruce Broughton
Jay Chattaway
Ray Colcord
James Di Pasquale
Arthur Hamilton
Mark Watters
Film score
A film score is original music written specifically to accompany a film, forming part of the film's soundtrack, which also usually includes dialogue and sound effects...
for motion pictures and television. Many of its members have won or been nominated for Oscars, Emmys
Emmy Award
An Emmy Award, often referred to simply as the Emmy, is a television production award, similar in nature to the Peabody Awards but more focused on entertainment, and is considered the television equivalent to the Academy Awards and the Grammy Awards .A majority of Emmys are presented in various...
and Grammy Awards. Its current President is composer Dan Foliart.
Background
The parent organization, the Screen Composers Association, dates back to 1945 with such composers as Max SteinerMax Steiner
Max Steiner was an Austrian composer of music for theatre productions and films. He later became a naturalized citizen of the United States. Trained by the great classical music composers Brahms and Mahler, he was one of the first composers who primarily wrote music for motion pictures, and as...
(Gone with the Wind
Gone with the Wind (film)
Gone with the Wind is a 1939 American historical epic film adapted from Margaret Mitchell's Pulitzer-winning 1936 novel of the same name. It was produced by David O. Selznick and directed by Victor Fleming from a screenplay by Sidney Howard...
), Bernard Herrmann
Bernard Herrmann
Bernard Herrmann was an American composer noted for his work in motion pictures.An Academy Award-winner , Herrmann is particularly known for his collaborations with director Alfred Hitchcock, most famously Psycho, North by Northwest, The Man Who Knew Too Much, and Vertigo...
(Psycho
Psycho (1960 film)
Psycho is a 1960 American suspense/psychological horror film directed by Alfred Hitchcock and starring Janet Leigh and Anthony Perkins. The film is based on the screenplay by Joseph Stefano, who adapted it from the 1959 novel of the same name by Robert Bloch...
), Erich Wolfgang Korngold
Erich Wolfgang Korngold
Erich Wolfgang Korngold was an Austro-Hungarian film and romantic music composer. While his compositional style was considered well out of vogue at the time he died, his music has more recently undergone a reevaluation and a gradual reawakening of interest...
(The Adventures of Robin Hood
The Adventures of Robin Hood (film)
The Adventures of Robin Hood is a 1938 American swashbuckler film directed by Michael Curtiz and William Keighley. Filmed in Technicolor, the picture stars Errol Flynn, Olivia de Havilland, Basil Rathbone, and Claude Rains.-Plot:...
), Dimitri Tiomkin
Dimitri Tiomkin
Dimitri Zinovievich Tiomkin was a Russian-born Hollywood film score composer and conductor. He is considered "one of the giants of Hollywood movie music." Musically trained in Russia, he is best known for his westerns, "where his expansive, muscular style had its greatest impact." Tiomkin...
(High Noon
High Noon
High Noon is a 1952 American Western film directed by Fred Zinnemann and starring Gary Cooper and Grace Kelly. The film tells in real time the story of a town marshal forced to face a gang of killers by himself...
) and David Raksin
David Raksin
David Raksin was an American composer born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. With over 100 film scores and 300 television scores to his credit, he became known as the "Grandfather of Film Music." One of his earliest film assignments was as assistant to Charlie Chaplin in the composition of the score...
(Laura
Laura (1944 film)
Laura is a 1944 American film noir directed by Otto Preminger. It stars Gene Tierney, Dana Andrews and Clifton Webb. The screenplay by Jay Dratler, Samuel Hoffenstein, and Elizabeth Reinhardt is based on the 1943 novel of the same title by Vera Caspary....
).
This was the first organization to attempt bargaining on behalf of the composers, and convince the performing rights organization [ASCAP] that film composers should share in broadcast and performance royalties for their creations.
Composer David Raksin headed a campaign to have the SCA become a guild, such as the writers, directors, and producers enjoyed. In 1953, its composer members voted unanimously to create a Composers Guild of America and finally negotiated a minimum basic agreement similar to the Writers Guild of America
Writers Guild of America
The Writers Guild of America is a generic term referring to the joint efforts of two different US labor unions:* The Writers Guild of America, East , representing TV and film writers East of the Mississippi....
and the Directors Guild of America
Directors Guild of America
Directors Guild of America is an entertainment labor union which represents the interests of film and television directors in the United States motion picture industry...
, which spelled out working conditions, rates of compensation, performance royalties, etc.
Over the next twenty years, the composers and studios fought over royalties and who had the right to exploit compositions beyond their original usage. On February 7, 1972, 71 composers and lyricists filed a $300-million class-action lawsuit against Universal, 20th Century Fox, Paramount, MGM, Warner Bros., Columbia, Walt Disney, United Artists, CBS, ABC, NBC, the AMPTP and other film-related conglomerates. On April 9, 1979, the federal district court approved a settlement conferring some limited rights to certain composers who had worked for the studios prior to October 1973.
The composers remained in disagreement over what they wanted or needed more: royalties or health and welfare, because some reading of the term "independent contractor" meant they were not entitled to benefits, while the standard industry contract term "employee for hire" meant the composers might lose their royalties. In spite of efforts to revive the group, by June 1982, the CLGA was dead.
Organization and Growth
In 1983, and with the assistance of the WGAWriters Guild of America
The Writers Guild of America is a generic term referring to the joint efforts of two different US labor unions:* The Writers Guild of America, East , representing TV and film writers East of the Mississippi....
, a new group was formed: The Society of Composers & Lyricists. The first group of composers and lyricists - including such composers and songwriters as Henry Mancini
Henry Mancini
Henry Mancini was an American composer, conductor and arranger, best remembered for his film and television scores. He won a record number of Grammy Awards , plus a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award posthumously in 1995...
, John Williams
John Williams
John Towner Williams is an American composer, conductor, and pianist. In a career spanning almost six decades, he has composed some of the most recognizable film scores in the history of motion pictures, including the Star Wars saga, Jaws, Superman, the Indiana Jones films, E.T...
, Marilyn
Marilyn Bergman
Marilyn Bergman is a composer, songwriter and author.She was born Marilyn Keith in Brooklyn, New York and studied psychology and English at New York University...
and Alan Bergman
Alan Bergman
Alan Bergman is an American lyricist and songwriter.-Life & career:Born in Brooklyn, New York, he studied at University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and UCLA. His involvement in the entertainment industry began in the early 1950s as a director of children's television shows...
, Jerry Goldsmith
Jerry Goldsmith
Jerrald King Goldsmith was an American composer and conductor most known for his work in film and television scoring....
, David Raksin
David Raksin
David Raksin was an American composer born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. With over 100 film scores and 300 television scores to his credit, he became known as the "Grandfather of Film Music." One of his earliest film assignments was as assistant to Charlie Chaplin in the composition of the score...
and Quincy Jones
Quincy Jones
Quincy Delightt Jones, Jr. is an American record producer and musician. A conductor, musical arranger, film composer, television producer, and trumpeter. His career spans five decades in the entertainment industry and a record 79 Grammy Award nominations, 27 Grammys, including a Grammy Legend...
and television composers of the day such as Jay Chattaway
Jay Chattaway
Jay Chattaway is an American composer of film and television scores. He is mainly known for his work as score composer for several Star Trek television series: Star Trek: The Next Generation, Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, Star Trek: Voyager, and Star Trek: Enterprise...
, Charles Fox
Charles Fox (composer)
Charles Ira Fox is an American composer for film and television. His most heard compositions are probably the "love themes" , and the dramatic theme music to ABC's Wide World of Sports and the original Monday Night Football.....
, Billy Goldenberg
Billy Goldenberg
William Leon "Billy" Goldenberg is an American composer most known for his work on television and film....
, Fred Karlin
Fred Karlin
Fred Karlin was an American composer of more than one hundred scores for feature films and television movies. He also was an accomplished trumpeter adept at playing jazz, blues, classical, rock, and medieval music....
, John Beal
John Beal (composer)
John Beal is an American film composer working in Hollywood, California, and is notable for composing the music for numerous hit television series, such as Vega$ and Eight is Enough, as an orchestral conductor, composer of movie trailer music, and for his work with the Hollywood Symphony...
, Jerrold Immel
Jerrold Immel
Jerrold Immel is a United States television music composer, whose most famous works are the theme tune to the soap opera Dallas and to a lesser extent, Voyagers!....
, and Bruce Broughton
Bruce Broughton
Bruce Broughton is a film, video game, and television soundtrack composer who has composed several highly acclaimed soundtracks over his extensive career, including American music classics such as "Homeward Bound," "Silverado", "Tombstone," and wonderfully lyric music for "Miracle on 34th...
- met at the Writers Guild theater. Composer James DiPasquale was the "organizing chairman." But the studios and the National Labor Relations Board
National Labor Relations Board
The National Labor Relations Board is an independent agency of the United States government charged with conducting elections for labor union representation and with investigating and remedying unfair labor practices. Unfair labor practices may involve union-related situations or instances of...
would not let this group form an official guild to address working conditions, or get the benefits of similar groups in the industry.
Twelve years later, in 1995, a vote amongst the SCL membership called by then president Richard Bellis
Richard Bellis
Richard Bellis is notable as an Emmy Award winning composer for the mini-series "Stephen King's It." Bellis is a former President of the Society of Composers & Lyricists, former governor of the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences a USC lecturer and the composer of music for numerous TV...
showed that the debate over joining other unions still stalled at concerns over union affiliations and how that would impact the decades old concerns about being labeled as independent contractors or employees and a composer's ability to collect performance royalties for the broadcast or other distribution of their creative work product.
In November 2009, a committee formed to once again explore unionization for working composers, this time in conversation with the Teamsters, and presented its proposals to the general community of composers for television and film. The SCL did not take an official position. In April 2010, the Writers Guild of America
Writers Guild of America
The Writers Guild of America is a generic term referring to the joint efforts of two different US labor unions:* The Writers Guild of America, East , representing TV and film writers East of the Mississippi....
endorsed the composers' attempt to unionize. That same month, the Screen Actors Guild
Screen Actors Guild
The Screen Actors Guild is an American labor union representing over 200,000 film and television principal performers and background performers worldwide...
offered their support to the composers as well. At an April 19, 2010 follow-up meeting, SCL members expressed interest but also concerns about forming a union with the Teamsters. SCL president Dan Foliart issued a statement to Variety, saying that "the SCL applauds the organizing efforts of our peers (and) continues to monitor this effort, the impact that it will have on our profession, and assess the role that the SCL should play moving forward." While some composers expressed concern that working conditions or separate medical plans might be more important to negotiate, former SCL President Bruce Broughton, said that the majority of working composers in Hollywood were ready to sign up with the Teamsters.
The SCL now indicates it has grown from 50 to 60 members to more than 1,000.
Events
The SCL and the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences hold a reception each year for the Oscar nominees for best score, and best song for motion picture. The SCL holds a similar reception for the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences nominations EmmysEmmy Award
An Emmy Award, often referred to simply as the Emmy, is a television production award, similar in nature to the Peabody Awards but more focused on entertainment, and is considered the television equivalent to the Academy Awards and the Grammy Awards .A majority of Emmys are presented in various...
.
Past presidents
Richard BellisRichard Bellis
Richard Bellis is notable as an Emmy Award winning composer for the mini-series "Stephen King's It." Bellis is a former President of the Society of Composers & Lyricists, former governor of the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences a USC lecturer and the composer of music for numerous TV...
Bruce Broughton
Bruce Broughton
Bruce Broughton is a film, video game, and television soundtrack composer who has composed several highly acclaimed soundtracks over his extensive career, including American music classics such as "Homeward Bound," "Silverado", "Tombstone," and wonderfully lyric music for "Miracle on 34th...
Jay Chattaway
Jay Chattaway
Jay Chattaway is an American composer of film and television scores. He is mainly known for his work as score composer for several Star Trek television series: Star Trek: The Next Generation, Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, Star Trek: Voyager, and Star Trek: Enterprise...
Ray Colcord
Ray Colcord
Ray Colcord is an American film and TV composer living in Los Angeles, most famous for TV series such as 227, The Facts of Life, Silver Spoons, My Two Dads, Dinosaurs, Big Brother, and Boy Meets World...
James Di Pasquale
James Di Pasquale
James Di Pasquale is an American musician and composer of contemporary music and music for television and films.-Biography:...
Arthur Hamilton
Arthur Hamilton
Arthur Hamilton is an American songwriter, who is best known for writing the song "Cry Me a River", first published in 1953 and most famously recorded by Julie London in 1955....
Mark Watters