Official Handbook / Spring 2020
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File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb
OFFICIAL HANDBOOK / SPRING 2020 TABLE OF CONTENTS TABLE OF CONTENTS 1 INTRODUCTION 5 OVERVIEW OF CAT FAMILY 6 Mission Statement 6 Vision Statement 6 FOUNDATIONS 10 STRATEGY & STRUCTURE 10 Our Program Services 11 Departments & Organization 13 MANAGEMENT 15 Job Descriptions 15 Procedures 16 Manage Departments 16 Coordinate Volunteers 17 Community Outreach & Engagement 17 BUDGET, FINANCE, & FUNDRAISING 19 Job Descriptions 19 Procedures 21 Transaction Logs 21 Monthly Budget Summaries 22 Event Assistance and Record-Keeping 22 Quarterly Analysis 23 Structure 24 Future Goals 25 EVENTS & BOOKING 26 Job Descriptions 26 Procedures 29 In-Bound Booking / Local Event Management 29 1 Outbound Booking / National Act Event Management 33 ARTISTS & REPERTOIRE 38 Job Descriptions 39 Procedures 41 Scouting / Selecting Artists 41 Managing Artists 42 Playlisting 46 Submithub 46 Other Spotify Playlists 48 College Radio Stations 50 Licensing 50 Additional Notes 51 Artist/Label Relationships and Resources 52 List of Products and Services Offered 52 Products and Services NOT Offered 54 Expectations for All Signed Artists 55 MUSIC PRODUCTION 56 Getting Involved 56 Spring 2020 Meeting Schedule 57 Job Descriptions 57 Anatomy of a Project 60 Pre-Production 60 Creative Development 61 Guidelines for Maximizing Commercial Success 62 Production 63 Recording Sessions 63 Comping & Editing Sessions 63 Post-Production 64 Operating Procedures: Signed-Artist Projects 65 Documents 66 2 Project Checklist 66 Session Checklist 70 Operation Procedures: Live Sound 71 About Microphones 72 How do Microphones Work? 72 Dynamic Microphones 73 Condenser Microphones 73 How to Prevent Audio Distortion 74 How to Prevent Feedback 75 Microphone Positioning 78 Sweetwater Music EQ Frequency Cheatsheet 80 Acoustic Guitar Recording Techniques 81 MARKETING 84 Job Descriptions 85 Procedures 87 Getting Started 87 Artist Promotion 94 Event Promotion 98 Before an Event 98 During an Event 103 After an Event 104 Tabling 107 Administrative Structure 108 Future Goals 110 ART DEPARTMENT 111 Job Descriptions 112 Procedures 115 WRITING DEPARTMENT 122 Job Descriptions 124 Assigned Tasks & Roles 127 3 Meeting Procedures 129 Online Procedures 133 Other Procedures 135 MERCHANDISING 138 Job Descriptions 138 PROFESSIONAL AND CAREER DEVELOPMENT 139 APPENDIX A: Department Workflow Charts by Program Service 140 APPENDIX B: Cat Family Process Template 142 APPENDIX C: ISO-9001 Process Template 144 4 INTRODUCTION This handbook outlines the philosophy, structure, and day-to-day activity of Cat Family Records. It is a living document, expanding and contracting as we evolve and grow. In the opening pages, we introduce who we are, what we do, and why. We then outline each of our program services and the nine departments, working together, to carry out our mission. 5 OVERVIEW OF CAT FAMILY Born on the back porch of the Warehouse in late fall of 2015, Cat Family Records is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit arts organization headquartered in Tallahassee, Florida.1 What began as a small group of friends trying to host their own shows and record their own music has since grown to include most facets of the Tallahassee music and art industries. Cat Family is now made up of nine departments, outlined below, working independently and collectively to create original music and art, curate original shows and festivals, manage and promote artists, publish a quarterly zine, and foster community growth and cohesion. Overall, we exist exclusively to promote art and the people behind it. Mission Statement Cat Family Records empowers artists and enriches creative communities by providing open access to industry services and curating local events, festivals, and publications. Vision Statement Written after our second year of operation, “The Catifesto” is an unpublished look at our own abstract thoughts and how they connect to the broader ideals with which we wish to connect and cultivate.2 First, we offer a general statement of purpose and more nuanced perspective on why we do what we do. Then, we detail the five foundations for which we work: art, artists, industry, community, and culture. Although our mission is wide-reaching and ambitious, it can be summed to the first action item listed above—empowerment. All of the work we do is in service to that idea, rooted in the justifications outlined in the following pages. 1 We were officially formed February 16, 2016. 2 Send your complaints to Will Crowley: [email protected] 6 The Catifesto In classrooms across America, preteens watch 90s PBS classics, tracing pastel lines with plastic watercolor sets. They learn contrast. They read haikus and listen to BB King and Beethoven. Their many works adorn family refrigerators, and parents are proud to show off their discount masterpieces. Soon, though, those pieces are usurped by report cards. Kids become students. Students become graduates. Graduates become working professionals. Aspiring artists become inundated with ideas of financial ruin. At holiday dinners, family reminds them that art can’t pay the bills. Most artists starve to death. They just don’t see the point. Art has become so pervasive and commonplace that people often forget its power. We listen to music on our morning commutes. We enjoy film on our days off. We’re surrounded with sound and visual cues designed to elicit emotional responses or make our lives more meaningful or enriching. We even seek out specific types of expression to fit our mood, help us recover from trauma, or give us that extra boost of confidence needed to finish a task or persevere a little longer. Whether or not one accepts it as truth, art is deeply ingrained in all of us. It is inherently emotive, representing the encoded memories of what it means to be human. We are hardwired to prioritize art and music. A simplified model of our brains includes two parts—an emotional center, and a rational center. From birth, each of our experiences and tactile sensations have been channeled through the emotional centers in our brains first before being sent to our rational, prefrontal cortices for active reflection and processing. We are primarily driven by organic machinery beyond our own “control.” While most of us are confident that we hold dominion over our own gut reactions, in reality, we are just slaves to how we feel. From an evolutionary perspective, this system works. It allows us to quickly respond to outside threats without the added burden of deliberation. It does, however, come with a price. Emotions can lead us to act against our own best self interest. We tend to focus more on our current selves than our future selves, and we all make heated mistakes, snap judgements, and biased assumptions. Even as we think we’re changing people’s minds with passionate arguments or our own self-fulfilling realities, we’re usually just creating more insulated and polarized friends, families, and news feeds. Given that, how do we cut through to anyone? How do we cut through to ourselves? Art is a weapon. It cuts. Impactful ideas are often those that appeal more to emotion than to reason. As those ideas spread and collect, emotional resonance acts as a strong catalyst for social progress and the primary mover of opinion formation and change. We remember the emotionally heavy parts of our pasts, but we forget the details. We may forget specific conversations, but we remember how people make us feel. This process points to one of the most important societal functions of art and music. Individual perspective and expression are potent vehicles for emotional communication—condensed, 7 impactful jolts capable of sowing fields for social stability or priming them for political upheaval or injustice. Movements have soundtracks. Saturated electric riffs and anti-war lyrics shifted Americans’ view of Vietnam; coded hymns kindled hope and guided runaway slaves north to freedom; early hip-hop opened a still-brewing dialogue about institutional racism, and every small-town parade patron knows the power of a drum line. Yet, we neglect art and music. We buy into ideas that science or engineering or programming or math are the only careers of the future, the only pursuits worthy of mass support or a place at society’s adult table. But, art is quantifiably important. Very real, lasting, tangible power rests with those who present their own experiences, through visceral media, to an ever-changing audience. Art is the power to persuade. Impacted people change lives. They open up, expand, and propagate important ideas. They shape societal evolution and progress. Rather than addressing art and music as frivolous, adolescent products and pursuits, we should acknowledge that creatives wield considerable power and influence over each generation. Social progress draws no dividing lines between “art” and “science.” Each of our disparate futures are linked. We should instead foster creative power, not suppress it. We should embrace socio-political growth and devote resources to the artists and musicians that help shape our futures, not stifle their productivity. For most practicing artists, though, the struggle continues. The status quo creates a sliding scale of success punctuated at each end. Some artists “make it” and become financially independent. Others are caricatures of the “starving artist” motif, and they still haven’t “made it.” Artists and musicians typically work full-time jobs alongside their creative ambitions, and the likelihood of success can be further complicated by financial barriers unique to the music or art industries. Recording artists, for example, lean on the coordination of complex processes, executed precisely and professionally, in order to present their work to the masses. Most rely on studio engineers, mix engineers, mastering engineers, record executives, producers, agents, marketing giants, entertainment lawyers, and general managers to help curate, capture, polish, and promote their content worldwide. For many, this burden rests with the financial and social depths of their own pockets; it’s an expensive side job.