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Music Supervisor, Mary Ramos

Editor’s note: The first question and answer are repeated from the end of Part 3 of this interview to give some context to the final part.

Some of my favorite uses in Tarantino’s films are Jim Croce’s “I’ve Got a Name,” used when Django saddles up his horse and sets off to go find his wife, the “James Brown 2Pac Mashup” during the shootout at Candyland, Vanilla Fudge’s “You Keep Me Hanging On,” played while tripping Cliff, which is one of my favorite moments of any of the Quentin Tarantino films—tripping Cliff goes at it with the Manson family. By the way, my wife was the only person laughing in the movie theater when Cliff smashed that poor girl—she wasn’t a poor girl, she was evil—but he smashed her head into the fireplace mantel. My wife burst out laughing, and the other hundred heads in the theater all turned around. I just slumped down in my seat. It was a moment. And of course, the iconic scene with Uma Thurman dancing to Chuck Berry’s “You Never Can Tell.” Oh my God, that’s right up there in the top five most iconic music scenes in history. Do you have a favorite song in any of the films or any of the scenes? And if so, why do you like it so much?

Man, there are so many, and it’s like asking me which is my favorite Quentin film. They are all my favorites for different reasons. They are just all so… And because I’ve been working with him for 27 years, so there’s so much of my life… I was super-pregnant with my daughter when I was working on Kill Bill 1, and Jackie Brown with my son, so there are all these memories that have intertwined with working on these things. Kill Bill I will say was a real incredible lesson, because it was international, and unfortunately, I don’t speak French, and I don’t speak Japanese. There were a lot of things I needed to reach across the globe to get. As a matter of fact, one morning—and I had very little time to do something—my neighbor was from Montreal, and I saw her out in the front yard in a bathrobe. It was seven in the morning, and I only had so many hours before Paris was going to close down. You know, France takes off for unbelievable amounts of time [for vacations]. They were gonna close down, so I ran out and grabbed her and begged her to do me a favor. I brought her into my office, I wrote down what I wanted her to say, I made the phone call and she, of course, negotiated something for me in French.

That’s cool. I hope she got a credit, or at least a thank you in the credits.

She’s credited in the Special Thanks on the Kill Bill Vol 1 soundtrack.

Actually, Django Unchained was a real pleasure, because it was the first time Quentin would be open to using new songs written for the film. And that was a big high point moment in all the music. And I just love Jamie Foxx. He loved that movie, because it’s a revenge story, but it’s a love story and it’s a friendship story. It’s super-great.

“I had to describe the scene in detail and let them know that the reason it’s so violently over the top is because it’s all the more devastating when he gives himself up to save his love.”

And it might be the best blood-and-guts scenes of all Quentin’s movies as well. The shootout at Candyland was gross and amazing at the same time.

And, honestly, using a body for a… Well, a lot of times, legacy songwriters, you know, I’ve had to… People always say, “Oh, it’s so easy to get stuff for Quentin’s movies.” That’s not true! People have an issue with violence, and they have an issue with certain things.

So, I had to write a letter to the James Brown estate; I had to beg the Tupac estate. There were a lot of things that went into being able to use that song over that scene. I had to describe the scene in detail and let them know that the reason it’s so violently over the top is because it’s all the more devastating when he gives himself up to save his love.

So many of the uses are a juxtaposition or irony. It’s not on-its-face about the violence. It’s making a statement, you know; it could be something completely opposite, and the music can take it that way.

What do you personally listen to like if you are stuck on the 405? Do you have a genre that you tend to favor, or a station that you tend to favor? [Mary laughs]

It depends on if I’m late or not. I have been listening to a lot of Wu-Tang Clan in the car when I’ve been late, because it’s kind of like I’m in a video game. But I love classical music, believe it or not, because it’s calming. It just depends.

What was it like to work with the legendary, iconic composer Ennio Morricone on Hateful Eight? Every one of our members who is a composer, they all worship him. Every composer worships him. And you got to work with him on, sadly, what was the last film that he worked on. Can you tell us a little bit about that?

Well, it was an incredible experience—what can I say? That’s going to take a whole other hour, because it was really something.

“And it was a wonderful experience to get to be in the recording studio in Prague and see Quentin sitting next to his icon.”

You’ve got five minutes, so tell me in four.

Actually, I can do 10 more minutes, because I don’t have to log on until… So first and foremost, this was during a time where… I don’t know if you remember, but there was this whole thing about 15 weeks, and all this stuff, so there were a lot of like lockdowns. This was the first beginning of Quentin locking down and not letting people see the scripts unless they came to his house to read it. You know, he’s very controlling… He didn’t like the idea of giving over his films to an unknown, and not knowing what he was gonna get back and feeling like he might have to use something he didn’t want to use if he gave it over to a composer. You know, it’s those kinds of fears of someone who has never worked with composers before. So, it was a hard shift to get him to think about.

Well, he has always been a Morricone fan, so this one seemed like the perfect opportunity to get him to work with a composer. Telling him it will be completely controlled. Worst-case scenario, we can have him do a scene, and then you can use all of the older tracks that you want to use. It will be controlled; you will not have to use something you do not want to use. And by the way, if it’s Ennio Morricone, you know you are going to love it.

Yeah. I mean he uses so much of his stuff anyway. It’s not like it’s an untested entity.

But he uses specific types of stuff. And one thing about Morricone was that he was famously not interested in doing another Western. He had said that before, so it was not an obvious, “Oh yeah,” and he was gonna say yes. So, I got a copy of the script; I had a very close friend—the wife of my ex-boyfriend—translate the script into Italian. I knew she wouldn’t show it to anybody. And I had that script then given to a woman who I was friends with, who is best friends with Morricone’s wife Maria. She hand-delivered it at dinner at their house to Maria and said, “You read this.” And Maria read it first, and then she told Ennio it was a masterpiece. So Ennio agreed to do it.

And it was a wonderful experience to get to be in the recording studio in Prague and see Quentin sitting next to his icon. Even though he was jet-lagged and kinda sleepy, he would just wake up to hear the pizzicato and to just hear the recording session taking place. It was really kind of incredible.

“[Music supervision] is a lot more than just picking songs and that kind of thing. We are kind of essential when we are used properly.”

To be a witness to that, to be in the room for that, you’re so lucky. Even if you didn’t get paid to do your job, that would be payment enough, I would think.

It was really something else. And we had a great music editor who was the Morricone whisperer, Bill Abbott… He had worked with Morricone before, and he knew all of the ways to communicate with him, you know; Ennio doesn’t speak English. And so, we were just supported by so many great people that wanted this to happen. And the final thing was… And I say this because I want to make sure that people know what a music supervisor does. And it’s not saying, “Look at me,” but it’s to say music supervisors get involved in the final [stages] of the films. It’s a lot more than just picking songs and that kind of thing. We are kind of essential when we are used properly.

Ennio had given us just 28 minutes of score, and you needed 30 for Academy consideration. And I brought this up to Quentin, and he was busy and not real keen on it, and I said there was this final scene in the film where he had a piece of other music that he wanted to use; it was underneath the reading of the Lincoln Letter. And I said to him, “Please, we need two more minutes of music. Can we please let Ennio try?” And he was very resistant to having to give that up. And I said, “You won’t have to use it, but let’s at least let him try.” So, we sent the video to Ennio hoping that he would do something similar in vibe; he sent something back that was nothing like the temp—it was so fantastic. It was, you know, trumpet. It was that trumpet piece that was so perfect, so much more perfect than the temp cue could ever have been. And rather than send just the audio file to Quentin, I had the music editor put it in just right, tape it up and send that video clip to him to listen to, and it made it. And we qualified [for the Academy]. And Ennio won his first Oscar!

How sweet is that, you know, before he passed away to finally win an Oscar? I mean, he gets a lot of love in the composer community, but the average citizen watching these films doesn’t really understand how iconic the man is. and the number of huge films he has worked on over decades and decades. Hats off to you for pulling all that together. You know, I wanted our viewers to understand that there is much more to music supervision than just hangin’ out and picking cool music. And that’s a great example.

I did get a chance to see… we did a recording of a piece of music at Abbey Road with an orchestra, with Ennio. And one of the players pulled out a PVC pipe and whipped it over his head… And to watch that thing happen, and have the full choir going, “What?!”

Great! Do you think that Quentin was comfortable with the experience and in the future he may be amenable to trying new score?

I’m sorry. Hold on a second. Go ahead. Did I lose you?

No, I’m here. The question was that it sounds like the experience went really well for Quentin; do you think it will warm him up to the idea of maybe using composers on future films, or will he go back to his normal routine, and this was a one-off because it was Ennio? And don’t say if it’s gonna get you in trouble.

Actually, I don’t know. Who knows what he thinks? He’s only done 10 films, and he said he may not do another film. All those possibilities… so I don’t know.

I don’t want to believe him. And I don’t know the man, but I think he’s incapable of not doing movies—he was put on this earth to make movies. Maybe he’ll take a five-year hiatus like John Lennon did, but he’ll come back someday.

So, one last thing I want to talk about and that is; I want to give a tip of the hat to the film and TV industries in general, because they’re using so many talented women. Music supervision is one of the areas in production and post-production that I think that it’s an equal number of women doing it, maybe. Sometimes I feel like it’s maybe even more women than men. So, it’s cool that nobody had to like fight for that; it just happened organically.

We can juggle. [Laughs]

Right, exactly. My wife would be the very first person to agree. Men are not multitaskers. But people like Maureen Crowe, who we’ve had onstage at the Road Rally, Bonnie Greenberg, Karyn Rachtman, who you worked with, are among the real pioneers of women doing music supervision, and it’s pretty cool. You’re carrying that torch. But there haven’t been a lot of females that score big films and TV shows, but I know that you hired Issa Summers from Florence + the Machine to score Little Fires Everywhere. So I’d like to give you a high five for doing that, because I can’t see any reason why there shouldn’t be an equal number of women scoring big films as men. And you did that, so yay you!

Oh, thank you. One-hundred percent. I so needed female fire, and she is nothing but female… That was a cool collaboration, with her and Mark Isham.

Yeah, there are tons of opportunities coming up. With all the content that’s happening, there are tons of opportunities like with these composers.

“It could be six years later that I find your track and want to use it, but if I don’t know where to find you, it’s gonna be hard.”

Well, I know you’ve got to run to the spotting session, and I just want to say thank you. I’ve wanted to get you on here for a long, long time, and it was our members that really told me that they wanted you to do this interview. You’re a great interview, and I want to do this again in the future on an episode of TAXI TV or something. I feel like there is so much under the hood with you, and so far we’ve just been able to scratch the surface. Do you have one last encouraging thought for all musicians who want to get their music in media. Any profound advice you want to give out?

I think we said it: Keep making good music. And make sure you have some metadata and all the stuff that everybody says. Because it could be six years later that I find your track and want to use it, but if I don’t know where to find you, it’s gonna be hard. So that, and instrumentals. Make sure you have instrumentals available as well.

Mary, thank you so much for saying yes to doing this. I want you guys to know that I sent her an email with a short description of what we were doing, and her answer was simply, “Sure, let’s do it!” I appreciate that so much. And with that, Mary Ramos, thank you! Bye-bye. [Applause]