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The total film or television experience, more often then not, is as much about sound as it is about sight. In the right hands, music that accompanies moving image can evoke a full spectrum of emotions from the audience, and manipulate that audiences read of a story line. Artists who orchestrate the music you hear in the theater, and guide and administer every aspect of a film's musical content, are called music supervisors or executive music producers. We are responsible for helping a director realize his or her musical vision within their constraints time and dollar constraints.
As a music supervisor, you must have the knowledge and drive to fully immerse yourself in the musical landscape of each project, no matter what genre it occupies. For example, for the Denzel Washington directed The Great Debaters, we mined the rich tapestry of African American music from the 1930's and produced new tracks with Alvin Youngblood Hart, Sharon Jones and The Carolina Chocolate Drops. We worked with Queens of the Stone Age and Rahzel on Let's Go to Prison. In For The Love of The Game, we turned to country artists like Lyle Lovett, Trisha Yearwood, Rodney Crowell and Vince Gill. In order to establish the industrial tone needed for the Arnold Schwartzenegger film, End of Days, we assembled hard rockers Guns & Roses, Korn, and Limp Bizkit. Finally on The Hurricane, we sought out contemporary rhythm and blues artists Ruth Brown, Ray Charles, The Roots, Bob Dylan, Mos Def and Me'Shell Ndegeocello, and worked with a host of Middle Eastern musicians for Spy Game.
At 35Sound, we prefer that the supervisor’s role begin very early in the process, and preferably at the script stage, but that said, we're happy to come on board as needed. Depending on the complexity of the music used, our process could sequentially involve research, casting, producing on-camera performances, clearances, songwriting, editing, orchestration, score production and soundtrack production. For ‘The Great Debaters' which takes place in 1935, Roswell met with director Denzel Washington in preproduction, produced the music for on camera playback, and cut music video extra's for the DVD release. For The Commitments , the story of an Irish soul band, Roswell spent months in pre-production listening to and categorizing literally hundreds of R&B songs. He then traveled to Ireland to help director Alan Parker recruit the cast and finalize which songs would be used in the film. Once those decisions were made, Roswell organized and oversaw the recording sessions. "By and large," he says, "I've found that I get to be as creative as my collaboration with the director allows. Luckily, I've been fortunate enough to work with directors who have an incredible understanding of music." Another such labor-intensive project was director Norman Jemison's The Hurricane, for which Roswell researched nearly 40 years of rhythm and blues. "There's so much fantastic music that came out of the period between the late 1940s up to around 1985," Roswell says. "Some of the songs we used were moving and very powerful," he says, citing Gil-Scott Heron's stirring "The Revolution Will Not Be Televised" as a prime example of a song that quite literally made one of the film's scenes. This is the magical pairing of music and image, the kind of moment that makes the job of music supervision gratifying.
A significant amount of a music supervisor's time is spent negotiating with a variety of industry professionals. In these tight situations, diplomacy is key. Roswell explains, "Like any aspect of the film and music business, sometimes negotiating chores aren't a lot of fun. Often I'll be simultaneously negotiating and structuring a composer's deal on a picture, clearing and licensing songs for a film, and monitoring a budget that always seems to be more than the producers would like to spend, and less than what a director's musical vision cost!"
Most importantly, at 35Sound we are committed to helping a director bring his or her musical vision to life, and we focus all of our efforts towards fulfilling this vision. Whatever musical needs you have for your film, television series, documentary or ad campaign, 35Sound will deliver.
