What is the role of a music supervisor?
The role of a music supervisor is to help fulfil all musical criteria for an audiovisual production (film, TV show, advert etc.)
Creatively this includes sourcing and recommending existing commercial songs for the production team, full original score supervision (including sourcing the composer and overseeing their delivery), creating original songs, re-records and more.
Crucially the music supervisor also handles budget management (for original scores this includes the composer fee, recording studios / engineers / arrangers / fixers, session musician fees etc.), negotiating music licenses (clearing master recordings, publishing shares and union fees) and administrative tasks such as final cue sheet delivery.
Our role can also extend to securing artist talent deals for brands, procuring soundtrack investment and overseeing soundtrack clearances / releases for films, among other things.
How did you get into this area of the industry?
Pretty much all supervisors I know have taken unique roads into this sector. Some have worked for record labels, others within production companies, or as radio DJs…
As a music student I started forming my understanding of music to picture both from a compositional and source music standpoint, while studying film scores from Leonard Bernstein’s On the Waterfront (dir. Elia Kazan) and Bernard Herrmann’s Taxi Driver (dir. Martin Scorsese) to more source track heavy films like Romeo + Juliet (dir. Baz Luhrmann). After a stint of work experience on the second series of Spaced (dir. Edgar Wright) I knew I wanted to get into filmmaking in some capacity.
After college I worked for a small production music company before making my way into independent music publishers, first representing the catalogue of Blue Mountain Music (Bob Marley, U2, Toots and the Maytals, John Martyn, Baaba Maal, Kano, Justice etc.) then Bug Music (Frank Ocean, Kings of Leon, The National, Bruno Mars, Muddy Waters etc.) for sync. Essentially the sync department’s role at a label or publisher is pitching music in to music supervisors and direct to content creators.
Publishing gave me a deep understanding of some of the more complex music rights scenarios, as well as giving me the experience of negotiating and licensing music from the rights holders side of the fence - so I wasn’t green going into negotiations & clearances when I made the move into music supervision.
What advice would you give students who are interested in becoming a music supervisor? What experience (or qualifications) would you recommend acquiring for such a role?
From a practical skills perspective, when a music supervisor is on a production they need to pull relevant creative ideas together fast. Fostering a deep curiosity for discovering and cataloguing music of all eras and genres is essential on that front. That enthusiasm to keep listening out for new gems and to playlist them for future reference needs to be unrelenting - you never know when tracks from your ever-growing genre, theme, mood etc. playlists will come in use, so keeping building that record collection.
It’s important to know your sources too; keep track of a wide range of labels, publishers, blogs, radio shows, live events, record stores etc. Watch films and consider their original scores and soundtracks. Seek out creative inspiration. Build relationships… you need to be a collaborator.
For my music degree I specialised in the business side of the music industry, which helped develop my understanding of publishing, record labels, research methods, marketing, income streams etc. There are now a few music supervision courses out there, but there’s a lot to learn on the job too. Try and get some work experience with a supervisor, or label / publisher / production music sync department.
What makes a successful music supervisor?
Creativity, expertise, collaboration, communication, persistence… When you’re in the thick of it on a number of productions you need some serious time management skills too.
What’s it like working at Leland Music? Have you worked on any shows or campaigns that we’d know?
I love the vibe we’ve built at Leland Music; the team has a brilliant energy and I’m genuinely excited to get to work on a Monday morning. We work on a broad range of film, TV and advertising productions. Lately we’ve supervised Top Boy (Netflix), Formula 1: Drive To Survive (Netflix) and brand campaigns for Nike, John Lewis (we’ve worked on their Christmas ads for about a decade) and Mercedes-Benz.
We’re currently working on TV productions including The One (Netflix) and Small Axe (BBC/Amazon) for Steve McQueen, and have a few more exciting film, TV and brand projects on the go that I can’t talk about just yet!
When working on a larger campaign (e.g. John Lewis) what added pressures are there as a music supervisor?
Legacy is one thing. When something has such stature as John Lewis (that annual press and social media anticipation over who the cover artist is and what the song will be) there’s this benchmark, albeit of our own making, to live up to. Ultimately, you always need to focus on the task at hand - to make the right musical choices for this particular production.
With a campaign like John Lewis there are a lot of moving parts for the music supervisor. We find a song, find our artist to lend their voice to it, re-arrange / re-orchestrate it to fit the tone and energy of the film, manage the whole recording process, coordinate the single release / other ancillary activity such as social media and in-store performances, and of course handle the negotiation and contracting for the song and artist. We manage the music budget, schedule, bookings and creative throughout - so it’s a very detailed process.
How do you see music in TV, film and commercials progressing?
We’re in an exciting era for music supervision in the UK, as the streaming platforms (Netflix, Amazon, Disney+, Apple TV+ etc.) commission boundary pushing new productions with a view for instant worldwide distribution. We’re seeing brilliant opportunities to work with wonderful original score composers, and to license a wide range of music for programming across multiple cinematic genres. Hopefully this holds momentum as the streaming services continue to grow and challenge traditional broadcasters, who are equally putting a reinvigorated focus into interesting new programming.
Commercials are an increasingly interesting space too, as we often get the opportunity to explore new forms of artist and brand partnership, and the budgets are regularly there to work with music of stature or create something truly new with big name talent or large ensemble recordings. As new mediums evolve (such as the TikToks of the world) we get to try out new levels of musical engagement in advertising, so it’s never a dull day in music supervision.
Ed Bailie – Director / Music Supervisor at Leland Music
