Business

Career as a Music Supervisor : Syncing Music in Visual Media

By Srishti Das
December 27, 2017

Every time you watch a video, do you feel like you can think of a better song to fit in with the visual? Or do you often hear songs and think. OMG! This would sound so great for a romantic scene on the beach or a gruesome gore scene? Are you looking for a job? Maybe music supervision is where you should head. The only problem is, we don’t know who a music supervisor is. YET!

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Music Supervisor? What is that?

In simple words, a music supervisor is someone that is proactive in combining music with visual media. Say, for example, you have an indie film that needs music for a scene where a dog is walking across an industrial site in the rain and you need to place music for it. That’s roughly the job of a music supervisor. However, that’s the fun part. Every fun job has its flip side, music supervision also involves negotiations, logistics, budgeting and sometimes the supervisor is in charge of arranging this source of the selected artist's revenue.

What is the job?

A supervisor’s responsibilities is to discover and curate, secure and oversee music related talent. They liaise between the rights holders of the recorded music involved and the director of the project they have been hired to work on.

The overarching responsibility of a music supervisor is to meet the needs of a project’s director and producer. They recieve briefs on the vision for the project and how the director expects the music to enhance this vision. The visual media will then be spotted by the supervisor – a process of choosing where selected music will be inserted. Traditional spots include the main title, opening credits, and closing credits, while additional spots are incorporated to trigger emotional responses from viewers.

Scores, or background music, are also an important consideration for enhancing visual media. Scores can range from the background to a dramatic scene to television bumpers – the music signifying leading into or coming back from a commercial break. For this many times film scorers or hired or music is licensed from an existing catalogue. Either way, the supervisor is responsible for the coordination and execution. If creating new music, the supervisor may become responsible for additional roles, including securing artists or composers, facilitating the production and recording process, overseeing finances, and finalizing post-theatrical uses of the soundtrack. When using pre-existing music, the supervisor’s duties focus on the legal and financial aspects of licensing and negotiating. A large percentage of a music supervisor’s job revolves around music clearance alone, which involves a lot of in and out conversations with music publishing companies. Many times, the supervisors will chose to work with the same company for discounts as well as the easiness to coordinate finances.

What do you need, to be a Music Supervisor?

Music supervisors should be able to recognize when a composition is good or fitting with a particular form of media, they need to have some prior experience with music. They must have a wide knowledge of music and a passion for musical research There is no set educational or career path to become a music supervisor, most likely just passion, a huge mental collection of music, love for music discovery and an ability to ‘get the job done’ is more than sufficient. A huge chunk of the job involves music negotiations, clearances, publishing/performing deals, etc.. A legal background or a keen appreciation for entertainment laws would add a gold star to the resume. In addition, experience with visual communication like film and TV is a strong background to build upon. Having an understanding of music production is also an advantage for a music supervisor. Author of Music Business Handbook and Career Guide David Baskerville notes,

"This is one of the few production specialties that has almost unlimited growth potential, because there [is] no universally accepted job description. The field remains wide open to people with connections and the ability to get the job done."

Music Supervisors in India

With such a young music industry in India and one predominantly run by Bollywood, music supervision has not been the biggest job role in the country’s music industry.

Ritika Nayan Srivastava from MGMH told us, “I don’t know why but I think our business works differently. Ad firms get the music from studios and stock music. Music directors take over the film industry. We just have a different system.”. It goes without saying that there is always scope to start after seeing the need gap. Do you see one?

Let’s find you a job!

Tags Business Careers Music Business Music Supervisor Licensing Sync Sychronisation Job Career