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by Donald Passman
Music supervisors are a relatively new breed of individual
that didn't exist until about 1980. Now, they're in widespread
use, and are always hired for a film that has music as a major
element.
Role
The music supervisor's job, as the title implies, is to coordinate
all the music for a picture. He or she first sits down with
the producer and director to work out the types of music needed,
ideally before production. If the film is either a musical
or relies heavily on music (such as a dance film), the music
supervisor must be involved in advance. This is because songs
performed on camera must be pre-recorded, meaning they're
made in a recording studio before commencement of photography
of the film (and merely lip-synched or danced to on film).
As you can imagine, it's difficult to dance to a song not
yet recorded.
After
meeting with the director and producer, the music supervisor
comes up with suggestions for artists, composers, songwriters,
etc., for the film. The director and producer make the final
decisions, and the supervisor then oversees the whole process
of making it happen. He or she contacts the creative people,
arranges for meetings with the film personnel, negotiates
and structures the deals (or oversees the negotiation and
structuring, depending on the supervisor and the film company),
and supervises the recording sessions.
Done
properly, being a music supervisor is one of the most difficult
jobs on the Planet Earth. You start out with a number of strikes
against you. First of all, other than pre-recorded music,
most of the music can't be finalized until the film is complete.
The studio has millions of dollars riding on the fact that
a film must be released on a specific date, and music is at
best considered a minor element in the overall production,
even if it's a central element in the film.
The
cost of a major music budget is maybe $1,500,000, while most
major studio films are $30-$35 million, not to mention multi-millions
for advertising and marketing. And a more typical music budget
is about $500,000-$800,000. Moreover, most studio executives
do not understand music nearly as well as they understand
film--which is why they're film executives instead of music
executives. This can make it very difficult to conclude a
deal--the executives think the prices and rights demanded
by the music people are outrageous (which they often are),
and they have no patience for the complexity of a bunch of
little deals. Remember that each piece of music in a film
can represent five deals, and because music comes in last,
complicated deals have to be made under enormous time pressure,
which increases the likelihood of mistakes geometrically.
It is the music supervisor's job to keep all these diverse,
competing interests satisfied, and to ensure a happy ending.
Now
that I've painted this bleak picture, let me say that good
music supervisors are worth their weight in gold. They call
on their relationships to get favors and smooth out difficult
situations, thereby putting music into pictures that couldn't
be there any other way. Music supervisors are in a sense,
"marriage brokers." They creatively marry music and films,
which is no easy process, as well as marry the two industries
on a business level (which is even more difficult). For this
reason, the top ones are paid handsomely.
Fees & Royalties
By handsomely, I mean that the upper-level music supervisors
get fees of $100,000 to $200,000 per picture (sometimes even
more), and the majority fall in the range of $75,000 to $125,000.
The top supervisors also have royalties on the soundtrack
album, usually in the range of 1% to 2% of retail. A recent
major supervisor deal I did was a $150,000 fee, with a royalty
of 1% retail, escalating to 2% of retail for U.S. sales over
500,000 albums.
Donald Passman is a Los Angeles-based
music attorney with the firm of Gang, Tyre, Ramer & Brown.
Specializing in music business law for over 20 years, his
clients include major publishers, record companies, film companies,
managers, producers, songwriters, and artists such as REM,
Janet Jackson, Quincy Jones, Tina Turner and Green Day. On
a regular basis, we will be excerpting from Mr. Passman's
best-selling book, "All You Need To Know About The Music
Business."
©1991, 1994, 1997 by Donald
S. Passman
From "All You Need To Know About The Music Business"
by Donald S. Passman. Reprinted by permission of Simon &
Schuster, Inc.
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