Hiring A Music Supervisor: FAQs

What Are A Music Supervisor’s Responsibilities?

Music Supervision is quite broad but in short, Music Supervisors prepare budgets, negotiate contracts and attend scheduling meetings and spotting sessions. They also check licenses and forward them to the production company. They also act as the liaison between the publishers, record companies and the production company.

Why Should You Use A Music Supervisor?

Music supervisors can be the difference between a good soundtrack and a great soundtrack. They are able to find the perfect match for your project in sonic form and oversee the entire process. They provide an essential service that will make producers or filmmakers’ lives that much easier. They will also choose the correctly licensed music for your project, to avoid copyright infringement.

What Projects Need A Music Supervisor?

Any audio-visual medium, such as film, television show, video game or advertisement will require a musicsupervisor if you wish to use copyrighted music. A music supervisor contact list can be a valuable tool in choosing the right sounds for production, and so a music supervisor is an important part of the production team.

How Much Does A Music Supervisor Cost?

Music supervisors typically charge flat fees for their work. The amount of money they earn is usually based on the size of project budgets. For small TV projects, it could be in the $0 – $10,000 range whereas for big projects it could be up to $500,000. 

What Is Music Supervision?

Our friends at the Guild of Music Supervisors describe the craft of Music Supervision as the following; A professional music supervisor is employed to oversee various aspects of music-related elements of a project or production, such as film, television, gaming, advertising, trailers, interactive media or theatre.

What Does A Music Supervisor Do? 

Music supervision is the art of selecting and licensing preexisting songs or recordings to use in visual media. It’s key to have a vast knowledge of music, music history and long-standing connections in the music industry. The music department works across film, TV shows, video games and advertising. 

Skilled music supervisors have a knack for choosing the perfect song to enhance a dramatic television moment. Or perhaps they are the ones to call to help an advertising producer make the right music choices.

Their role can also extend to finding a cost-effective workaround when a film’s plot requires a particularly expensive or hard-to-license recording. 

Connection

One of the main roles a music supervisor does is connect the specific vision of a director or producer to the right music that’s licensed legally by the music business rights holders. They lead as head of the music department within the confines of film production.

A music supervisor seeks and suggests different styles and genres of music for a specific project. If the tracks suggested are not sitting well with the visionaries, they go back to the drawing board.

In some cases, the music supervisor is also responsible to find a capable composer if needed. 

Spotting

It is the music supervisor’s job to find spots in a film, or rough cut, for music that will support the emotion of the storytelling. TV music and Film music will often differ greatly in this respect.

Then, they will decide where background music, source music, main title or end title songs will come in. This is also whether the need for an original film score is determined. 

For that, the musicsuperviser works closely with the composer for this particular project. A score will then be composed, or pre-existing music will be licensed and used. 

Negotiating & Licensing

In order to use a piece of pre-existing music, music supervisors must negotiate the rights and costs with licensing representatives.

These are the people employed by record labels, music publishers, and the original artists or songwriters themselves. The negotiations usually concern cost but could also require persuading the artist to let you use their music. 

Royalty Distribution 

The music supervisor is additionally responsible for tracking all music that is used in the production via a “cue sheet”.

This is to make sure royalties in production get distributed fairly and in a timely manner. A cue sheet is the list of songs and music used in a specific production. 

How Much Do Music Supervisors Charge?

Music supervision companies the UK tend to charge flat fees for their work. The amount of money they earn is usually based on the size of project budgets. Fees for a TV episode can range from $2,000 (£1420) to $5,000 (£3,540)

For a low-budget, independent film, fees can range from $0 to $15,000 (£10,630). For a studio feature the range can be anywhere from $10,000 or £7090 (low-budget) to $500,000 or £354,000 (blockbuster level).

Music supervisors can sometimes negotiate royalties on soundtracks. If negotiated, they can receive bonuses if the productions they had worked on surpass the predetermined earnings thresholds.

How Do Music Supervisors Find Music?

Music supervisors looking for music will be told or shown a scene in which they need music. After gathering a feel for what they need, and the budget they have, they then get to work. 

Music Supervision London starts with searching the songs they have tagged and filed on their computers. They follow a music supervisor guide and will typically have a plethora of songs sent to them by artist managers, indie labels etc. They will search for keywords that suit the project and the scene at hand. They should find several songs that fit the project. 

After this, they will send the brief /budget/deadline out to the relevant people, who then start to send back their track ideas. The music supervisor will then compile a playlist and send it back to the producer or music editor. They choose a song and it gets licensed

Music Supervision With Music Gateway

Here at Music Gateway, we have an award-winning music supervision team who operates on a flexible project-by-project and budget-by-budget basis and the main goal is to build relationships with independent artists. Our list of Music Supervisors work across the globe and are not only the most passionate people in the craft but some of the most talented.

We work with a grand array of companies, such as Netflix, Disney, Virgin Media and countless more, to perfectly match music with audio-visual products. Our extensive catalogue of independent music and connections with Labels & Publishers worldwide helps put together the best options for you.

Additionally, with years of experience and connections, we’re able to help take the pain of investigation and negotiation away and make sure you’re ready for launch with full license agreements and start on your music career path.

Not only can we help manage & advise during this process of your project but we also have a roster of experienced and talented composers ready to bring your project to life. We can work with an existing composer or help source someone for you.

If you are wondering how to submit music to music supervisors or want to know more about the music supervisors accepting submissions in your genre, then learn more about how to contact music supervisors and the best practice for pitching to music supervisors.

If you are considering a music supervision course, want to know more about ad agency music supervisors, overseas roles like music supervisor France or how to get prolific roles like Netflix music supervisor, then read how to become a music supervisor.