Held over two days in April 2022, The Screen Composers Guild of Canada (SCGC) and SOCAN hosted a 2 day hackathon to solve the age old problem of Cue Sheet inefficiencies – aiming to make payments to performing artists more streamlined.
In this post we speak with Hackathon Producer Luann Williams to hear about her experience hosting this event in our Offsite Venue.
*Photographs Courtesy of by Ken @kenin3dBackground
Cue sheets are lengthy documents that identify all of the music and its stakeholders in a particular screen production, in order to accurately distribute royalties; the process of using them has proven tedious and outdated.
What was the purpose of the event?
The Cue-Sheet-Palooza Hackathon, hosted by The Screen Composers Guild of Canada (SCGC) and SOCAN, offered an opportunity for teams of developers to explore ways music creators and stakeholders can get paid their screen-based performance rights royalties faster and more precisely.
How many people attended to hack?
21 hackers. 6 sponsor reps. 8 mentors. 5 judges. 7 staff. Several SOCAN and Screen Composers Guild executives attended as well.
How did our Offsite Venue on King Street work for the event?
Great AV system. Lots of folks commented on how cool the space was!
We used the main space for introductions, presentations, meals, sponsor area set up. Some teams worked in that area, and a couple of teams used the downstairs breakout rooms. We used the downstairs lounge area in the front for Team-Mentor sessions, for Judges’ deliberations and as a lounge space for the Mentors.
What was the outcome of the event? Did the winners achieve the goal of the hackathon?
Hackers were given a baptism by fire into the complicated world of screen based royalties and the winners came up with innovative solutions to reducing the cue sheet administrative burden.
There is a winners list here on Devpost.
More Info About The Event
Winners – First Place
- CueConnect – Dolby.io API and SOCAN API – Natalja Chestopalova – Rudolf Olah
Winners – Second Place
- SOCAN API – Cue Sheet Generator AKA Cue Underflow – Gideon Moyo
Winners – Third Place
- Awesome Team – Dolby.io and SOCAN APIs – Dillan Hoyos – Mark Sherriff – Ashley Tajarrod – Leandro de Paula – Steven Chan
The top three winners received checks for $3K (presented by SOCAN VP Vanessa Thomas and Mike Tanner of City of Toronto), $2K (presented by SOCAN Exec. Dir. Charlie Wall-Andrews and Adrian Ellis, Screen Composers Guild Chair) and $1K (presented by Jayson Delancey and Braden Riggs from Dolby.io).
The presentations were great fun and well attended with about 60 people, including hackers, sponsors, SOCAN reps, mentors, and judges. Five teams (four in person, one via video) presented to the Judges
Resources for Hackers
Dolby.io provided great swag (socks, stickers) and presented a $250 prize for best use of their API to CueConnect. Dev. Advocates Jayson Delancey and Braden Riggs were onsite the entire time and provided helpful guidance to the hackers.
BMAT (Dani Balcells, Enric Calabuig) and SOCAN (Tobi Akinwumi, Dan Burger) developer advocates were onsite the entire time as well.
All other API partners sent API documentation and were available for questions on the Discord channel.
- Dolby.io (Paid sponsor)
- SOCAN
- BMAT
- CueDB
- Jaxsta
- Musiio
- Luminate/ Variety Bus Intelligence
- Consensys
- Shazam
Mentors
- Matthew Sherman, Bell Media, Strategic Planning and Engineering Technologist
- Toby Sherriff, Composer/ Developer
- Catherine Moore, University of Toronto Adjunct Professor, Music Technology & Digital Media
- Ryan Maule, MDIIO VP of Strategy and Operations
- Tobi Akinwumi, SOCAN Manager – Product Management, Member Digital Products
- Dan Burger, SOCAN IT Team Lead, Business Applications Support & Development
- Brian Pickett, Voodoo Highway Co-owner Voodoo Highway Music and Post
- Galen Hogg, Musician, UX and Game Designer
Judges
- Catherine Jones, CONNECT Music Licensing VP
- Charlie Wall-Andrews, SOCAN Foundation Executive Director
- Saba Seyedi, SOCAN Associate Product Manager, Member Digital Products
- Mike Tanner, City of Toronto Program Manager, Music Film & Entertainment Industries
- John Rowley, SCGC Secretary, Composer