Movies: The roles of music placement and supervisors

Pro Songwriting Masterclass | Andy Ross (Music Supervisor: Grey's Anatomy, Whiplash. George Carlin's American Dream, El Chapo .... | One Stop Jazz Collective )

Basically, the people you’re gonna be working with, the people I’m likely to be working with  are the producers first and foremost.

They’re gonna hire me,  the director. I’ve worked on films before, not had contact with the director, which seems crazy, but it happens. And you can do a good job  regardless. the other one is music editor. If there’s a music editor on a lot of indie films, there aren’t music editors. Music editors are a godsend for me and for you as musicians and artists, because they give,  they can cut a song into a film that I just sit there and think, how did you do that?

How did you make it sound so good?  And that they’re amazing. So music editors are great. They’re also really useful for the editor, the music editors. So that’s the next one. The picture editor. The film editor, crucial person probably apart from the director, the most important person musically, and the film, because the editor is getting dailies from the shoot.

So as they’re shooting, they’re sending them the, the raw footage  every day and they’re trying to edit it together. Now, I don’t know one editor in the world that doesn’t cut find it easier to cut to music.  So what they’ll do, you start getting into this horrible situation from the very beginning, is what they do is they start, thinking, oh, the, rolling Stones will work great here, let’s pop that in there. And, okay, B Gees would be great in this club scene and let’s have Donna Summer in the club scene as well.

And, oh, why don’t we have Oasis? They’re cool at the moment. and let’s put something else in here. Okay, this is looking good,  but really it’s sounding good.  And that helps them. And it kills me because  everybody loves this music in this film,  and suddenly  they’re looking at me, come on, you’ve gotta get this music. We need this, we need this, we need this. Well, that’s usually impossible.

 So  the editor’s really important. And for you, as  people trying to get music to music supervisors all the time,  I’ve just told you that there’s already,  before I even start, there’s music written into the script.  They don’t always want that music, but often you’ll have a song named in the script in this film, there were three songs named in the script.  And for good reason, as you’ll see later. so as  soon as I start, I’m already being bombarded with music that I haven’t picked or I haven’t said we can afford.

So, which is how it should be because we’re dealing with the creative process and hopefully  the music speaks for itself. But of course it costs money and life doesn’t always work like that. So  the, if you are interested, everybody’s tries to send music to music supervisors.  And I’ve just told you that really apart from the director,  the next most important person is the picture editor.

The film editor. So  what’s to stop you going on IMDB  and looking up, if you’ve got IMDB Pro  look up, some picture editors of films you love  and see if their email address is there. It’s more likely their email address is gonna be there than a music supervisors, because a music supervisor knows if their email address is on IMDB Pro,  they’re gonna get about 50 emails a day from people with music  that they’re never, ever, ever going to be able to listen to because  they’re being bombarded with music being thrown at them by editors and directors.

So why not  get in touch with some film editors and say, Hey,  you’re a film editor. I loved your film, loved what you did.  I’m a musician. I’d love to send you my music. And probably  those editors are gonna be film, music fans and they’re probably going to  look forward to receiving music from you until they’re getting millions from everyone else,  but they won’t.

So there’s a way to get your music right at the beginning of a film, because if it’s tempting, there’s a thing called Tempt Love. It’s like demo love to songwriters. It’s, you can’t replace it because everybody loves it and it’s so good. And even I very often I will get into the film, and I’ll see, you know, I’ll think to myself, this song has to stay.  So the other people I deal with, is the composer.

Sometimes I’ve worked on films and not dealt with the composer. Other times I’ve worked on a film and I’ve been hugely involved with the composer,  often helping the director with cues and  seeing whether we  or the three of us agree on whether the cues are working. But  my vision, my hope for a film  is that the director  has a total vision for the film  involving everything the way it looks.

Costume casting,  cameraman, woman, composer, everything. I, it’s always a bit of a shock to me if the com director doesn’t know how they want their film to sound.  And I’ve worked on quite a few films like that. And now that I’ve worked on a lot of films, I’ve realized that why should everybody know that it’s quite reasonable that somebody’s not that mad about music? that they know exactly how their film should sound.

But the greatest achievement for me is pulling off the,  whatever it is, the director has their vision as in whiplash, my job was to  just make sure I could get every single piece of music that he wanted. And in this film, as soon as I read the script and saw the first cut of the film, I said to the director and the producers, we have to get the three big songs in this film.

So whatever we have as a budget,  we are failing the film if we don’t get these three big songs that you’ve chosen. ’cause they’re beautiful songs and they work so well within the film. So I  sort of  made a rod for my back saying that, but I had to be honest and I really would be prepared to fight so hard to make sure that I get  those songs in the film, if at all possible.  So the other people I deal with are major record labels and publishers, indie record labels and publishers and sync agents, the other great friend of  the unsigned artist.

and we’ll go into these as we go along, but I just wanted you to know initially that, the first person I really deal with, these are all the people I deal with, and it’ll often be directors. I’m working on a film now, and the director, sorry, the editor  while they’re shooting is asking me for music, which is a dream come true because I can send music that’s already pre-cleared and if I was able to send music from you guys, for example,  there’s a good chance if it works, it’s gonna stick and it’s the best time to be getting music into a film.

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