Do not send your tear-jerker ballad to Rienks who needs upbeat, fun, exciting music for her E! spots. Like “Sounds like Coldplay.” Keep the body short and to the point and only send the songs that make sense for the project that supe is working on. Hung said to put who you sound like in the subject line. It clutters up their inbox and will go directly to the trash (and your email will probably get blocked). All supes on the panel said do not attach mp3s to an email.
There’s no correct way to get music placed, but there are a few incorrect ways. Be it musicians, licensing companies, publishing companies, managers or just fans of the supe (that’s short for music supervisor – and yes they have fans), supes can get overwhelmed and are very picky about HOW they will take submissions. Getting Music To The Music SupervisorsĪs you can imagine, music supervisors get inundated with emails from people wanting their music placed. She used the song and the band got $80,000 for the placement. She scoured iTunes and found a band who had just gotten dropped by their label and the singer was currently working at Starbucks. She said they had a Coldplay song as temp music and she spent 3 weeks looking for a replacement for it. Hung told a story about working on a trailer for Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close. “As long as it fits and tonally hits everything that it needs to hit, it doesn’t matter if it’s an indie band, somebody not signed, somebody just dropped, if it works it works.” – Holly Hung, Music Supervisor They rapped for just over an hour about what types of music they look for, day to day challenges (mainly dealing with producers who say stuff like “can you make this more purple?”) and showed us some of the spots they’ve placed music in. Kramer is also a host on Los Angeles’ KCRW. On the ASCAP panel sat Rebecca Rienks, who currently places music for E! (you know those promo montage spots that always seem to have Ryan Seacrest looking… Seacresty) Holly Hung, who primarily places music in film trailers Jeff Gray just finished a feature film Lindsay Wolfington (who placed me in One Tree Hill), mostly works on TV shows and the moderator, Jason Kramer, is a music supervisor at Elias Arts, a music production company that specializes in original music composition and sound design for TV, films and commercials. Sometimes (most of the time) music supervisors use the instrumental version and most of the time it’s just a small snippet of the song (however, now I have to brag a bit, One Tree Hill used all 3:43 of my song – words and music. The composer underscores the picture with original, scored compositions written specifically for that scene. Music supervisors are the actual people who take the cues from the producers and director when the “picture is locked” and underscore the picture with songs.
#Imagine tv serials songs professional#
In addition to how I’ve gone about it, I’ve spoken with many of my musician friends who make livings on song placements about this.Īccording to the Guild of Music Supervisors, the definition/role of a music supervisor is defined as: “A qualified professional who oversees all music related aspects of film, television, advertising, video games and any other existing or emerging visual media platforms as required.” There is no one way to get music placed on TV (or in film). The only problem was, the contestant who was going to dance to my song got bumped. And everything in between.Īnd I’ve also been 1 week away from having a song on So You Think You Can Dance. I’ve gotten songs placed on high profile shows that are known for their music, like One Tree Hill and shows you’ve never heard of, where music is very much “background,” like Friendzone.
Over the course of my career, I’ve had about 30 TV placements (20 in the last year from my new record). Last weekend at the ASCAP Music Expo at the Loews Hollywood Hotel I attended the Music Supervisor panel containing 5 music supervisors who actively place music in film and television. If you want your music in film, TV shows, and video games, check out the Ari’s Take Academy course Advanced Sync Strategies for Film, TV and Video Games.