A person who sets music to moving picture is called a ______.

April 16, 2007 3:41 PM

What's the person called whose job it is to select appropriate music for movies/television shows/etc? How does one go about landing a job doing this?

Apologies if this is been asked before; for some reason it seems like I've seen it on AskMetafilter in the past, but several searches yielded no evidence of such.

I feel like I have a really good ear for matching music with moving picture, and I've got an incredibly in-depth knowledge of various styles of music from all eras. I've made my own short films and put music to it, and I've even re-soundtracked some of my favorite scenes in movies/television shows. How does one go about utilizing this skill in a professional environment?

It's a niche skill it seems, but not even knowing what the people who do this for a living are called makes it tough to figure out where to begin a career like this. I realize that in many movies the director/someone else takes it upon themselves to select the music (I'm thinking Zack Braff in Garden State here), but whose job is this when that isn't the case? Think Sopranos. Think Real World.

Suggestions?

posted by c:\awesome to media & arts (17 comments total)

On the Sopranos, the music is picked by the series creator, the producer, and the music editor. The Real World has a music supervisor, which sounds like the title you want.
posted by grouse at 3:51 PM on April 16, 2007

I think this person is called a music supervisor. Alexandra Patsavas, who is the music supervisor for The O.C. and Grey's Anatomy, has been profiled pretty extensively in the press. (That's how I've heard of her.) She has a note to aspiring music supervisors on her myspace page.
posted by craichead at 3:51 PM on April 16, 2007

On the Sopranos it is David Chase, the producer and I believe Steve Van Zandt (who as you probably know, is part of Springsteen's E-Street band). That should give you an idea that it is not a job in itself, but rather an adhoc function of whomever high up on the editing/directing/producing line feels they know enough about music to give it a shot.

You're not going to find the same route for everyone who gets to pick out a film's soundtrack, it probably was an outgrowth of a related job. I would suggest getting involved in sound editing, finding work doing so on smaller indie/student films. Move up and many television and films have what is known as music editors, most of which undoubtedly are consulted or actually pick the music. I would wager to bet they are the default go-to person for such things if someone higher up doesn't already have creative vision for what the soundtrack should be.
posted by geoff. at 3:57 PM on April 16, 2007

Oh yes, music supervisor. I would wager to bet there are a billion kids with iTune collections who want to be music supervisors. Serendipity and networking will get you that specialized title. Sound editing, in general, is something more pragmatic and if you skillfully play your cards right you can transition rather easily.
posted by geoff. at 3:59 PM on April 16, 2007

Previously, and previously.
posted by jjg at 4:03 PM on April 16, 2007

I think this person is called a music supervisor. Alexandra Patsavas, who is the music supervisor for The O.C. and Grey's Anatomy, has been profiled pretty extensively in the press.

And because she's a friend of mine, I can tell you that the road she took to music supervision was pretty long. She started out booking bands in college, moved to LA with a somewhat menial job at an agency and then worked really really really hard. She was at BMI for a little while and then worked for Roger Corman and eventually opened her own shop. In her case, she just spent a lot of time at shows, getting to know the music scene, networking and working her way up.
posted by otherwordlyglow at 4:12 PM on April 16, 2007

My boyfriend does this; he got into it through contacts, but he discovered at least three well-known and highly regarded artists (all of whom any musically hip person here would know), worked for several labels, even ran a label, booked shows for years, housed many artists on tour, went on tours with bands, had a gig with a publishing company, produced 30-40 records and on and on. It's probably amongst the hardest jobs to get in the entertainment industry, he says, and having done a lot of other tough ones, he would know. Without pretty heavy music industry experience, there'd be almost no chance of getting such a job. Geoff's advice to get into a field like sound editing would be the safest bet, but even then it wouldn't be much of a bet! The easiest way may actually be to become a movie/tv producer and do it for your own shows. ;)
posted by Dee Xtrovert at 4:21 PM on April 16, 2007

A friend of mine just got into it after more than a decade of working at labels in music marketing. So what got my friend hired was contacts at record labels and personal music sensibility. But my friend is not yet working on movies or tv shows but movie trailers, which is a start.

Music editors, as mentioned above, do get to select some music for the shows they're working on, and then that music is cleared or replaced by the music supervisor. The music editors I know worked their ways up from sound editing positions, then to assistant music editing positions to where they are now. Music editors do need to know about actual music, because they cut together fragments that need to sound correct together, plus give notes to the composer about timings and compositional changes.
posted by xo at 4:35 PM on April 16, 2007

email this guy

he used to post to mefi. And check out his music blog, The Ten Thousand Things
posted by vronsky at 4:43 PM on April 16, 2007

Some of the schwag I got from an NAB convention a few years ago included some sample music CD collections for TV shows or news stations to license, one of which was entitled 'I am so sorry that you are dying'.

That's on the very low end of the spectrum that you are asking about, cheesy canned music clips that the editor or producer throws in as needed.
posted by voidcontext at 5:11 PM on April 16, 2007

This job has absolutely zero to do with Sound Editing. I know lots of sound editors, including some award-winning ones, and this has nothing to do with this job and there's really no way for them to transition to it.
posted by dobbs at 5:44 PM on April 16, 2007

from the link dobbs - he isn't just a sound editor.

"2001 saw the beginning of a new pursuit when Leyh became the music supervisor on HBO's dramatic series The Wire. Music supervising requires a deep knowledge of many styles of music, in addition to a thorough understanding of music licensing and copyright, and Leyh found he was uniqely suited for the task. He has since music supervised several independent features, as well as all four seasons of The Wire. He also composed the theme music for The Wire."
posted by vronsky at 6:00 PM on April 16, 2007

Or ignore if you weren't referring to my comment.
posted by vronsky at 6:02 PM on April 16, 2007

I was a production assistant at a music TV station and did something similar - choosing background songs for show segments. Being a PA is entry-level, so that may be a good place to start. It wouldn't be your main job, you'd be doing all sorts of random stuff, but it would give you experience and attention.
posted by divabat at 6:15 PM on April 16, 2007

I used to work for a busy music supervisor. I have no idea how universal this following is but for what it's worth here's how it worked in our office:

At any given time we had contracts for a couple of tv series, a soundtrack album or two, and at least one feature or MOW. The music supervisor's background was as a writer, publisher, and producer on his own small but profitable label. He knew music freakishly well but his best asset was an instinctual talent for networking, and business management (especially contracts and delegation). Delegation is important because the work was really a team effort, and the music supervisor was unquestionably the head of a production's "music department". For us that typically meant one to two assistant supes, whose jobs were to coordinate our office with the production and who worked frequently from the set. An office manager whose sole responsibility was to keep a handle on the copious contract paperwork for the licenses, a music editor, several composers, and a partridge in a pear tree.

The music supervisor's main role was to be in constant contact with the producers, keeping up with their every whim script change and putting together music selections that satisfied their cheesy taste accurately predicted what'd be charting shortly after our release date. We'd start working as soon as the treatment arrived, but with every new draft he and the producers would have to sit down and select cues and decide what the background music needed to sound like. Then he'd break it all down, hand out assignments to the composers and start picking clips that we could afford to license with whatever was left in the budget.

A lot of selection work is assisted by collaboration with the labels. They desperately want their new artists featured on a hit show/film. The office was floor-to-ceiling CDs, virtually all of it comped. He'd call a few labels, let his contacts know what type of stuff he needed, they'd courier/FedEx over a stack of CDs. Because those relationships were so well established, they usually did a pretty good job of grokking what worked, both as a sound and within the budget constraints.

Anyway, he'd pour over those, plus the CD library and music catalogs. And somehow come up with a mix that was far less appalling than the producers intended. He'd negotiate sync and master licenses, we'd wade through the reams of paper generated by that, the producers would ok, the composers would turn in their recordings, that and the licensed songs would get handed over to the music editor with a cue sheet, and uh then that part gets a little fuzzy, and then we were on to the next episode. He also produced the soundtrack albums.

Hollywood is not exactly known for its nurturing mentors, but in our office there was a viable career track open from office manager to assistant, and I know of at least one former assistant who went from there straight into a busy music supervisory business of his own (this is not a studio/employee profession -- you need to be comfortable working an independent contractor with all the extra responsibilities and instability that implies).

At some point I saw a Music Supervisor major or certificate program in a UCLA catalog. You might want to check there and USC. You still should plan to pay your dues for a long time in low-level industry jobs, but something like that probably would be a good introduction to the skillset at least.

Music knowledge is obviously one of the essential skills. But I would argue that excellent business acumen is even more important.
posted by nakedcodemonkey at 6:41 PM on April 16, 2007 [1 favorite]

I wanted to email, but don't know your address, so I'll have to post here:

job listing i happened upon
posted by loiseau at 10:18 PM on April 17, 2007

Also:

Another one.
posted by loiseau at 1:14 AM on April 28, 2007