The anxiety-driving clicking of heels down a hallway. A heart-wrenching spoken word poem. An epic orchestral swell that leaves listeners breathless. There’s a certain power in sound, in that it can so effectively guide the emotions of any listener or watcher. Here at MOCEAN, we’re always trying to elicit a feeling from our audiences. And these feelings, while accompanied by visuals or text, are often brought forth through the music our creatives select.
Behind the Music: What Is Music Supervision?
As SVP of Music Supervision, it’s my department’s job to find the best music to fit the creative. I started out at MOCEAN 11 years ago as a coordinator, and have now run the department for 8 years. For ads and trailers, we’re telling the entire story of a film, TV show, or product in a succinct time frame, while also setting the tone for an entire campaign. One track might extend to all different lengths and executions, or be responsible for tying together disparate pieces of content.
I’ve always regarded music supervision as a symbiotic relationship between audio and visual media, helping guide the tone of the creative. Typically, we’ll start by asking ourselves who our audience is, and what we want that audience to take away from any given piece. From there, we’ll brainstorm and align with our editors, creatives, and clients to land in a cohesive direction we’re all agreed upon. We’ll then use a mixture of the tools at our disposal, our previous music knowledge, and our contacts to start searching for a track or the right folks to create/remix that track.
How Music Supervisors Find The Perfect Fit
With such an expansive library of tracks out in the world, finding the perfect piece to help guide a story is never easy. Often, my team and I will combine our intuition and personal music knowledge with what we hear from the client. We’ll listen to kick-off calls, and then our brains will just start turning. I have a 2-terabyte drive of music, and am constantly listening to every type of music to expand my palate.
I say this to my team all the time, but as music supervisors, it’s so important to listen to music as much as we can. We’ve constantly got new tracks in our headphones, and we’re always making a point to get out and go to shows. Even if a particular sound isn’t our own personal taste, it’s our top priority to really know who is new and on the scene. Having this all-encompassing knowledge can help us find those up-and-comers, and dial in our selections for any new ask that might come our way.
In addition to our own awareness, we also maintain contacts with publishers, labels, and third-party licensers to understand what’s new out there. This is an excellent way to discover tracks, because we know what our contacts are pitching to us will be clearable. Through these contacts, we have the ability to find whatever we need: stems, higher res/earlier versions of a track, etc… We also work repeatedly with a lot of composers who are really well-versed in the trailer world. They’ll know immediately what we’re looking for: it’s a wonderful synergy that comes from collaborating with the same folks for so long.
Collaboration In MOCEAN
Music supervision is amazing because it’s really a relationship-based business. Beyond external contacts, our team needs to understand our creatives, editors, and clients to know what they’ll want to hear. At any given time, we’re working on a minimum of 40 projects, so we’re continuously multi-tasking with different teams and different interests. My job is to fine-tune those needs for everyone: deciphering the sound a particular client will gravitate towards, or what the personal tastes of an editor may be.
It’s such a collaborative, communicative process, especially at MOCEAN. Everyone we work with has their own musical language. Our music services are in-house, which means we really know the teams we’re working with and can understand what they’re trying to convey. For instance, the term “vibey” described in a brief could mean something totally different from one person to the next. I actually came out of UCLA with a history major, so my own musical language never gets too esoteric. For that reason, I’m able to serve as an effective liaison, describing music in the way it makes someone feel, versus all of the technical terminology.
I came up through the ranks with most of our editors and creative directors, and there are so many “lifers” at MOCEAN: folks who have been working together for 10, 15, 20+ years. Through working in such close quarters for years, our team develops a shorthand with our creatives and partners which helps us get to those successful outcomes much more quickly.
Successes In Sound
My favorite kind of brief is when a client or a team asks us to really go out of our way to think out of the box. I get incredibly excited about those requests that are left of center, conceptual, and elevated. That is, undertaking tasks that feel like we’re setting a new trend, or changing the game in some way. At MOCEAN, I really feel the trust and autonomy that they place in me and my team, and that gives us the confidence to really push the envelope musically. That’s the reason I’ve been here for 11 years: our only goal is to put out really good work.
We’ve had many interesting and exciting requests over the years. Sometimes, we’re asked to pair an emotional film with a beautiful, sweeping composition. Other times, we’re tasked with finding that “cool” factor for brands. There was a job earlier this year in which we utilized a totally-unexpected remix of a famous track. Uplifting and full of whimsy, the final product turned out to be all the more magical, thanks to the music direction we aligned with our clients on.
In-House Outcomes
None of this would happen without our MOCEAN teams’ dedication to their craft. In running my department, I’m always looking to champion our teams in any way that I can, to make them feel valued. We have an amazing group on our side: humble, hard-working folks with great taste who are hungry to get the job done. And it’s not just that they do good work: everyone truly values the creative process.
We’ve really developed something great here, a collaborative process between all of the departments. It’s fair to say that all creative firms should have music supervision capabilities on-site, because we’re the folks who are able to actualize the vision of our editors and creatives. Our team maintains a vast knowledge of the ins and outs of the licensing process: we’re very aware of being able to call out samples in a track, what to watch out for, and what’s actually usable in a trailer or an ad. We help manage all of these legal liabilities, from being sure not to use sound effects from an actual film to never ripping an MP3 off of YouTube.
Additionally, having a music department helps us cater our searches to our specific clients. We have the context and insight into what our clients are looking for, because we understand their business from all angles. Music is one of the most important things in life, and in marketing. It sets the tone, draws you in, and allows you to take notice of a brand, piece of content, or product. A great track is a powerful tool in selling anything, and maintaining a strong supervision department helps us effectively harness that power.
You can hear more from our music supervision department on MOCEANLA.com