Speaker 1: And that's what you really missed with Jenna.
Speaker 2: And Kevin an iHeartRadio podcast.
Speaker 1: Welcome to you, and that's what you really miss podcast.
Speaker 3: We have a very special guest today, Alex Pittsavas very
Speaker 3: Are you so excited? Kevin?
Speaker 2: Jenna Alex literally has shaped our world. No, truly, she
Speaker 2: has shaped it as a music supervisor. Well she tells,
Speaker 2: she breaks it down also like sort of the unknown
Speaker 2: world of what music supervision is and how all of
Speaker 2: us have been directly I impacted by it, our entire lives,
Speaker 2: and yeah, it's specifically impacted by her.
Speaker 3: And also like I will say, like I don't think
Speaker 3: I unbeknownst to me, like a lot of the way
Speaker 3: that I consume music is through film and TV mm
Speaker 3: hm and not you know, turning yeah, of course turning
Speaker 3: on the radio or not even in these days. But
Speaker 3: like the way I used to be influenced by music
Speaker 3: was what I was watching and what I was seeing.
Speaker 3: And so this is so she really did shape the
Speaker 3: way that we or had her hand in shaping the
Speaker 3: way that a lot of us were consuming new artists,
Speaker 3: new music.
Speaker 2: And even like how you said, you know, there's other
Speaker 2: ways to listen, like the radio. I it's so good
Speaker 2: at her job that she so many times has influenced
Speaker 2: what's played on the radio. Yeah, it's getting played on
Speaker 2: the radio because she has such a gift at matching
Speaker 2: up song with story. Yes, and then therefore we're all
Speaker 2: obsessed with it because we're no longer just hearing a
Speaker 2: song out of context. We're hearing a song in context
Speaker 2: and related to an emotional story moment, and whether it's
Speaker 2: in like gossip Girl or Bridgerton or Riverdale or OC
Speaker 2: or the Twilight films or Scandal or the Hunger Game soundtracks.
Speaker 2: Like she has done it all, literally everything. Wow, I
Speaker 2: just anyway, I enjoyed it. We can't tally really enjoyed
Speaker 2: this conversation.
Speaker 1: So yeah, I know it's really great.
Speaker 2: Strap in get ready to hear just a wonderful breadth
Speaker 2: of knowledge and a career from Alexford's office.
Speaker 4: Hi, Hello are you? I'm good? How are you good?
Speaker 2: We are? We feel very lucky that you agreed to
Speaker 2: talk to us.
Speaker 5: Come on, no, no, no, no no, because you know,
Speaker 5: I feel like we talk to people who are in
Speaker 5: our position a lot, right.
Speaker 1: We don't get your perspective.
Speaker 2: You're the taste maker, really like you are the.
Speaker 6: Well, that's very flattering. Thank you, thank you, thank you.
Speaker 6: So are you guys here in LA?
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm in New York.
Speaker 4: You're in New York.
Speaker 2: Yes, New York as amazing two and a half months ago.
Speaker 4: Oh gosh, you just moved.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but I've been in LA for I was in
Speaker 2: LA for twenty three years.
Speaker 4: So no, I'm not in from Chicago. There's also a
Speaker 4: little bit of snow.
Speaker 6: No, but I've been here for thirty five years. Wow,
Speaker 6: I'm an Angelina at this point.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think.
Speaker 1: So.
Speaker 2: How did you end up in LA?
Speaker 6: I came out to be in the mailroom at a
Speaker 6: talent agency right for college.
Speaker 1: Wow.
Speaker 2: How long were you in that position?
Speaker 4: Six months?
Speaker 6: I didn't really know how to drive very well, and
Speaker 6: but I had I had done some booking in Champagne, Illinois,
Speaker 6: where I attended college, and I uh sort of contracted
Speaker 6: a lot of acts from Triad, Mark Giger and Frank
Speaker 6: Riley in particular, and was lucky enough to be able
Speaker 6: to come out to LA and work work in the
Speaker 6: mail room. Soon after, I worked at BMI Broadcasting, Inc.
Speaker 4: And then.
Speaker 6: I was the second assistant to the vice president, and
Speaker 6: then a good fortune of working in the film and
Speaker 6: TV department.
Speaker 1: Wow.
Speaker 2: So in college, what did you go to college for
Speaker 2: political science?
Speaker 3: What did you think you were going to do when
Speaker 3: you went into the mailroom agency.
Speaker 4: I thought, I mean, I understood what a big opportunity
Speaker 4: it was.
Speaker 6: I was this is the Midwest in the eighties, and
Speaker 6: to me, the music business was really the live music business.
Speaker 6: That was what I understood, and I loved this organization,
Speaker 6: and I loved the opportunity to get to work in
Speaker 6: the in the big industry.
Speaker 4: So I didn't really know what I was going to do.
Speaker 6: Because I didn't have a lot of knowledge yet about
Speaker 6: how things act, how things worked on a big scale.
Speaker 2: So you go to college for polysei and then you're
Speaker 2: just a big you love music. Yeah, music there, and
Speaker 2: you're like, you know what, this degree's here, fine, whatever.
Speaker 2: I got to get to LA.
Speaker 6: My dad taught political science, my mother was a high
Speaker 6: school librarian. I'm an only child, so I think I
Speaker 6: was hoping to check some family boxes.
Speaker 4: And also, but I really was a music kid. I
Speaker 4: loved it. I loved to me it was more than
Speaker 4: a hobby.
Speaker 6: It was sort of in those days, especially, it was
Speaker 6: how we self sorted the kids that went for you know,
Speaker 6: went sort of vinyl Vinyl deep diving, and my social
Speaker 6: life was very very much revolved around live shows.
Speaker 2: Do you remember like what got you into music, Like
Speaker 2: was there an act or anything in particular?
Speaker 6: I think I was an MTV kid and so it
Speaker 6: had it debuted or like, I don't remember when it debuted,
Speaker 6: but I remembered being pretty fascinated by it.
Speaker 4: Soon after. So I love the arrhythmics, I love.
Speaker 6: The Police and all the yummy eighties.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I just because in your position you've been like
Speaker 2: music creative production, like you have to have I imagine
Speaker 2: you would know better than me some sort of crazy
Speaker 2: good taste too, work your way up and be so
Speaker 2: successful in your career and so like for me finding
Speaker 2: out how you know, how you got your taste and
Speaker 2: so then you get to be am I and you
Speaker 2: have all this wealth of music knowledge as you're a
Speaker 2: music nerd. Like what happens then, like.
Speaker 4: How did I I think?
Speaker 6: I think my taste was developed very much by my
Speaker 6: friends and sort of what my friends were listening to
Speaker 6: in high school. What we discovered together was very inspired
Speaker 6: by the John Hughes movies that were all shot in
Speaker 6: the suburbs of Chicago, and how masterfully John Hughes introduced
Speaker 6: what we now think about is alternative music, which of
Speaker 6: course became very mainstream music to fans all over the world.
Speaker 6: And then also in college, my friend we were just
Speaker 6: introducing each other to music and I loved and I
Speaker 6: think when people asked me later in my career, like
Speaker 6: what does it take to be a music supervisor, I think,
Speaker 6: more than anything, you really have to love music. It's
Speaker 6: a crazy job to have if you don't, and love
Speaker 6: discovery and sort of understand there's discovery and music from
Speaker 6: all eras and maybe we'll talk about it a little later.
Speaker 6: I was able to do some period shows and really
Speaker 6: do some deep dives, and that's as satisfying as new music.
Speaker 6: I think for my time at BMI, where I worked
Speaker 6: in the film and TV department, really at BMI, which
Speaker 6: is you know, Broadcast Music, Inc. Was the first time
Speaker 6: I really understood that the music and film, the TV
Speaker 6: and film music part of the industry was very organized.
Speaker 6: It wasn't something that had occurred to me before that.
Speaker 6: And to understand that music super like music supervision, was
Speaker 6: a gig. Of course, you know instinctively that there are composers.
Speaker 6: I wasn't yet following composers, really following bands before my
Speaker 6: time at BMI, and I was there probably as a
Speaker 6: twenty two or twenty three year old, and it was
Speaker 6: just really seductive to understand that there was a way to,
Speaker 6: you know, perhaps do what John Hughes did.
Speaker 3: And yeah, yeah, I think that's way so interesting because
Speaker 3: for a lot of people like you, you didn't.
Speaker 1: Know that that was a job.
Speaker 3: So for for our listeners, can you just like kind
Speaker 3: of high level explain what a music supervisor's job actually
Speaker 3: is because it's so fascinating and it's special, but I.
Speaker 1: Don't think a lot of people know.
Speaker 4: I think you're probably right well.
Speaker 6: At its core, music supervision is a team sport, and
Speaker 6: I think that is the headline. So a music supervisor
Speaker 6: is one of is one of a group of key creatives.
Speaker 6: On the film side, you are really looking to carry
Speaker 6: out the director's vision. On a series side, you're really
Speaker 6: doing the same thing for the showrunner. And I think
Speaker 6: those terms have become more and more commonplace and sort
Speaker 6: of folks understand what a showrunner does and what a
Speaker 6: director does. We sit alongside editorial, the costumer, the production designer,
Speaker 6: and I think we all work together to make sure
Speaker 6: that I'll just use showrunner as an example, that the
Speaker 6: showrunner's vision for their project is carried out.
Speaker 4: So when you when the.
Speaker 6: Viewer here's the dialogue, they see the production design. So
Speaker 6: everything is seamless and is telling the story as it
Speaker 6: is intended.
Speaker 4: To be told.
Speaker 6: So a music supervisor, as you know, oftentimes I got
Speaker 6: involved very early, and for example, Josh Schwartz and I
Speaker 6: would talk about outlines for the OC, like very early
Speaker 6: in the process. He uh scripted and you know, sort
Speaker 6: of built conceived of the Bait Shop, which was the
Speaker 6: which was the live music venue for the OC. So
Speaker 6: I had a lot of conversations with Josh, and my
Speaker 6: job was to not only make sure we brought live
Speaker 6: bands to perform on the OC, but also to to
Speaker 6: really keep music coming and so I would send new music.
Speaker 6: And I think it's really about identifying the sound and
Speaker 6: so having conversations with the showrunner and director to what
Speaker 6: is the sound, what what does what does that creative
Speaker 6: want the music to sound like in the show, And
Speaker 6: then of course how.
Speaker 4: Do we get it into the show on budget? All
Speaker 4: you know, and here's the here's the on sexy side,
Speaker 4: on budget.
Speaker 6: And fully cleared. And of course there's a complicated clearance
Speaker 6: process where the artists and writers we ask permission in
Speaker 6: a in a sort of uncomplicated but complicated legal way
Speaker 6: to make sure that the rights holders are giving a
Speaker 6: granting permission and that permission is given in very specific
Speaker 6: ways and so the scene is detailed, that timing is detailed.
Speaker 6: None of it is like haphazard or vague. And so
Speaker 6: a music supervisor has to have creative chops and and
Speaker 6: a real connection with the with the create the key
Speaker 6: creative the showrunner or director, but also be organized enough
Speaker 6: to make sure that the right song is mixed in,
Speaker 6: that the rights are cleared, that it's on budget. So
Speaker 6: it's a it's a left brain right brain thing.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Organize seems to be the keyword there.
Speaker 4: Organized, organized good And.
Speaker 2: I feel like a lot in this business you have
Speaker 2: people who are super creative, but they don't have any
Speaker 2: of the organizational capacity right or they just do the
Speaker 2: organizational stuff and don't really do creative your music. Sure
Speaker 2: provision is one of those spots that really straddles both
Speaker 2: sides and has to be able to seamlessly execute that
Speaker 2: because music is the underpinning of everything we consume, Like
Speaker 2: all media, it evokes all these feelings, and it's like,
Speaker 2: if that is not right and locked in and not
Speaker 2: being cleared, then what do we have Because the music
Speaker 2: often is informing are the audience's emotional response to whatever
Speaker 2: we're consuming.
Speaker 4: I think that's right.
Speaker 6: I think I would add though that that sort of
Speaker 6: the production design in the same way.
Speaker 7: Oh yes, an editorial also have to be both incredibly
Speaker 7: creative and also like the organization and the detail work
Speaker 7: in those.
Speaker 4: And those capacities are important too. But right, it's like
Speaker 4: it's a it's a special it's a special skill.
Speaker 2: So often in your work you're talking about budget and
Speaker 2: you're talking about what is the sound for something you
Speaker 2: may be working on. You've worked on a lot of
Speaker 2: projects where I feel like you've almost broken a lot
Speaker 2: of new artists, and I wonder if that does that
Speaker 2: come from a taste thing you find this music, you're like, oh,
Speaker 2: I think this is exactly what this either showrunner or
Speaker 2: director may be looking for and also their news, so
Speaker 2: maybe it's cheaper, like or is it.
Speaker 1: Okay? Fair enough?
Speaker 3: That was kind of along the lines with the same question.
Speaker 3: Kevin it's more specifically like Gray's Anatomy, for example, right
Speaker 3: like the Flea, the Fray and Snow Patrol, which shaped
Speaker 3: a lot of our the way we listened to music,
Speaker 3: what we were listening to. You changed the artists lives,
Speaker 3: You changed the consumers' lives. The show was so clear
Speaker 3: because of that music also in addition to you know,
Speaker 3: the writing and the performances. But yeah, what is that?
Speaker 3: What was that process specifically? Like realizing that these artists
Speaker 3: were then you know, you changed their lives in a
Speaker 3: lot of ways, and it was like such a big
Speaker 3: cultural shift as well.
Speaker 6: I mean, I really I really care about new artists
Speaker 6: and new music, and it was incredibly satisfying to see,
Speaker 6: really satisfying to see careers launched. To your point earlier,
Speaker 6: it wasn't a budget. It wasn't a budget decision. I
Speaker 6: worked on the pilot for Gray's Anatomy and of course
Speaker 6: through through many subsequent seasons, and I remember sitting with
Speaker 6: Shonda Rhymes and Betsy Bears and you know, during the pilot,
Speaker 6: and really back to that conversation that I said that
Speaker 6: that like you really have to.
Speaker 4: Have, which is.
Speaker 6: Shanda wanted the music to reflect and she talks about
Speaker 6: it a lot like the youth and the like the
Speaker 6: beginnings of the Interns journeys and the residents journeys, and
Speaker 6: so the music had a hand knit quality that had
Speaker 6: a very youthful quality. Especially in the early seasons, we
Speaker 6: leaned into female vocals, We leaned into both like you know,
Speaker 6: up and coming American artists and European artists. And that
Speaker 6: time was was a big shift in how a music
Speaker 6: supervisor could do their job. So when I started, I
Speaker 6: did my first project in nineteen ninety five or six,
Speaker 6: So that was my first, my first movie, which I did.
Speaker 4: For Roger Corman.
Speaker 6: And you should look if you don't know, if you're
Speaker 6: not a Roger Corman fan, you should, the listeners should
Speaker 6: spend some time a legendary movie producer.
Speaker 4: An amazing way to learn this craft.
Speaker 6: And when I started, everything was through the fact X
Speaker 6: machine clearances took forever I was male, sometimes like male,
Speaker 6: you know, the actual male. I I would male a
Speaker 6: request to somebody and hope to get it back. By
Speaker 6: the time Grey's Anatomy was on the air, we were
Speaker 6: now you know, we were faxing, you know, International music
Speaker 6: was becoming more accessible, less like, less steps yes, So
Speaker 6: all of a sudden, every band was a local band,
Speaker 6: and I really embraced that.
Speaker 4: I had an amazing staff.
Speaker 6: And in those days, it wasn't we weren't really getting
Speaker 6: music digitally yet. So mounds of CDs would show up.
Speaker 6: We would you know, in the mail, and I had
Speaker 6: a tiny office and the walls were stacked with submissions,
Speaker 6: domestic and international, and we would listen through those submissions
Speaker 6: and create, you know, quite painstakingly compilations that took forever
Speaker 6: to make, forever to copy, and those would go you know,
Speaker 6: to Shonda to Betsy to editorial and so slowly, Uh,
Speaker 6: you know, I was able to understand what was working
Speaker 6: for Shonda, what was like, what songs were sticking, what weren't,
Speaker 6: and like, you know, the beginning of any first season
Speaker 6: of any show, and certainly any movie is a long
Speaker 6: conversation what works and why.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it feels like you're putting the pieces of a
Speaker 2: puzzle together and just trying to like throwing it out
Speaker 2: the wall and seeing what, let's say, Shonda in this
Speaker 2: case responds to what she sees for the characters and
Speaker 2: the story. It also felt like for Gray's Natomy specifically,
Speaker 2: and I'm wondering if this changes project to project about
Speaker 2: like what about the music? May you think, Oh, because
Speaker 2: I feel like in Grays in that first season, there's
Speaker 2: a lot of like vocal similarity quality whether female or
Speaker 2: male singers, but there's like a sort of like vulnerability
Speaker 2: and softness and like maybe really honesty and a vocal
Speaker 2: that is happening in that season. Is that something when
Speaker 2: you hear that, you're like, Oh, maybe this is the
Speaker 2: emotion Shonda needs in this or what she's looking for.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I think I think that.
Speaker 6: I think you really that's really accurate, you know, sort
Speaker 6: of sense of it. And there was a lot of vulnerability.
Speaker 6: There's you didn't hear a lot of vibrato in the vocals.
Speaker 6: It wasn't right, it wasn't very polished. Yeah, And I
Speaker 6: think that those sounds very specifically reflected.
Speaker 4: How Shonda was telling the story.
Speaker 6: And I think I think that's if there's anything to
Speaker 6: say about supervision is like we're in support of the script,
Speaker 6: like the music muse supervision, although like I really obviously
Speaker 6: thought about soundtracks and playlists as well, and a great
Speaker 6: soundtrack is a companion piece.
Speaker 4: To the project that really.
Speaker 6: Sums up, summarizes however you want to say it the
Speaker 6: best of whatever is in a season or a show.
Speaker 6: Is it a key moment, is it a really special song?
Speaker 6: Might be an on camera, it might be a special artist.
Speaker 6: But I think you're right. I think there's a certain
Speaker 6: I think I keep on saying hand knit, and that's
Speaker 6: what comes to mind for me. There there's something about
Speaker 6: the music, and of course Seanda's characters evolved, the story evolves.
Speaker 4: And so does the music.
Speaker 6: The music has to you know, has to live and
Speaker 6: breathe with the story. You know, there's moments, you know.
Speaker 6: I think another thing that that Shanda did quite particularly
Speaker 6: was really think about using songs as score.
Speaker 4: And to play songs for five minutes, for six minutes.
Speaker 6: I mean I think that, you know, obviously the snow
Speaker 6: patrol chasing car scene.
Speaker 4: Gets referenced quite a bit. It's really scores.
Speaker 6: Yeah, multiple scenes coming together in a very huge moment.
Speaker 6: And this was before splits were so easily if that
Speaker 6: makes sense to you to your audience, when you could
Speaker 6: strip out a vocal and just hear the instrumental.
Speaker 4: I mean, we really had to work.
Speaker 6: With the music in a way that has become easier
Speaker 6: over the last decades.
Speaker 2: Well, because I imagine that on a technical level, to
Speaker 2: get permission to do that, is that a whole separate ask,
Speaker 2: as opposed to we want to use your song for
Speaker 2: thirty seconds in the scenes, like, oh no, we also
Speaker 2: want to maybe just use an capella for a bit,
Speaker 2: or just an instrumental for a little bit, and stretch
Speaker 2: out this three and a half minute song to maybe
Speaker 2: five minutes, Like is that a whole you have to
Speaker 2: paint that picture for the artists.
Speaker 6: That's clearly that's an excellent question, and it's exactly right.
Speaker 4: It's really about.
Speaker 6: Might not be like second by second, yeah, but it's
Speaker 6: you know, it is definitely letting the artists know how
Speaker 6: the song might be changed and why, and it's you know,
Speaker 6: I think.
Speaker 4: It's used for good.
Speaker 6: It's really about it's really about the most impactful use
Speaker 6: of that piece of music. I don't Obviously, another key
Speaker 6: component in the music team is the music editor, whose
Speaker 6: job it is to do all those things, to support
Speaker 6: both the composer and the editorial team and the music
Speaker 6: supervisor and really making sure that these songs are expertly,
Speaker 6: exquisitely perfectly placed against picture.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 3: So when you when say a showrunner a creator Shonda says, Okay,
Speaker 3: we're going to use this song in this scene. How
Speaker 3: involved are you or are you able to see that
Speaker 3: in the process of putting that those pieces together and
Speaker 3: seeing if it works or not, versus like you know,
Speaker 3: in the editing room versus just seeing the final cut later.
Speaker 4: For sure, a really good question.
Speaker 6: I often got asked, like how does how does the
Speaker 6: music actually get in there? And and it really happens
Speaker 6: all sorts of ways, honestly, So something that I always
Speaker 6: did was do these compilations as I see, you know,
Speaker 6: in the old days took a long time.
Speaker 4: In the modern era, you know.
Speaker 6: Picking the music is just as is intentional and and
Speaker 6: time consuming, but the you know, the physical process of
Speaker 6: getting it to a it needs to go is now
Speaker 6: a snap. But you know, picture editors are often so musical,
Speaker 6: like editing is a very rhythmic, you know, musical process.
Speaker 6: So these compilations would sit an editorial. Sometimes the picture
Speaker 6: editor would would end up picking the song from these compilations.
Speaker 6: Sometimes the showrunner would script songs at the very beginning,
Speaker 6: so like.
Speaker 4: The very for the first draft of the.
Speaker 6: First outline, we might include a song that inspired the
Speaker 6: creator and then there were many times that the mute
Speaker 6: that I or any music supervisor pitches music for specific scenes,
Speaker 6: and that scene might come over dry without any music.
Speaker 6: It might come over, uh to to my office with
Speaker 6: like this is almost right but not exactly right, or
Speaker 6: and so then you know, I might have gotten the
Speaker 6: song right on the first try, and I might have
Speaker 6: gotten it right on the three thousandth try right, And
Speaker 6: sometimes silence wins, and sometimes the best storyteller.
Speaker 3: Of all, Yeah, what's the most exciting to you? If
Speaker 3: it comes dry? It comes with a suggested song? Like
Speaker 3: is there one that you prefer?
Speaker 4: When the right song makes it in?
Speaker 1: Good answer?
Speaker 3: No matter however you get to wear, it comes best answer.
Speaker 6: Yeah, Yeah, really like that is that is like, especially
Speaker 6: when you're thinking about multiple songs over multiple seasons.
Speaker 4: Yeah, back to Team Sport.
Speaker 2: Like Team Sport, I feel like you have been a
Speaker 2: part of like the OC sort of changed. I feel
Speaker 2: like how we as an audience interact with music and
Speaker 2: a TV show or movie, and I feel like we
Speaker 2: see that in most of your career, where you are
Speaker 2: so good at tapping into what is culturally relevant regardless
Speaker 2: of what we're watching, Like there's always a way and
Speaker 2: it fits, you know, not like trying to shoehorn in
Speaker 2: some song. You know it always is the right song.
Speaker 2: And is there a point when when you started doing
Speaker 2: this and you start using these songs and making these
Speaker 2: artists big or seeing you know, how well it's being
Speaker 2: received as from the viewers, that then you're now being
Speaker 2: pitched from labels and songwriters as opposed to you know,
Speaker 2: I guess my question is how much of it is
Speaker 2: you hearing music already and knowing, oh, I think this
Speaker 2: might be good, and how much of it is we
Speaker 2: got back then, you know, sent a stack of from
Speaker 2: labels trying to push Yeah, I mean because I've been
Speaker 2: into record labels, you know when they have their store
Speaker 2: rooms of all you know, the promotional CDs or whatever
Speaker 2: they're sending out to people for things like this. So like,
Speaker 2: what is or is it both? Is all of that
Speaker 2: happening at the same time?
Speaker 4: Big question, A lot of a lot of way back machine.
Speaker 4: But let's see, I want to answer this thoughtfully.
Speaker 6: I knew when I when I was lucky enough to
Speaker 6: be on the OC like and to talk to Josh
Speaker 6: Schwartz and Stephanie Savage that and that.
Speaker 4: There was a it was.
Speaker 6: There was a real opportunity, especially because of Seth Cohen
Speaker 6: and like the characters, Seth Cohen was such a music fan.
Speaker 4: It wasn't going to make it.
Speaker 6: It wasn't going to be difficult to tap into Josh's
Speaker 6: love of me music, Stephanie's love of music, and Seth
Speaker 6: Cohen's love of anima of you want to see shows.
Speaker 6: So you know, we saw posters on the wall and
Speaker 6: it was such a fun, intoxicating ride. And I sort
Speaker 6: of can't overstate that, like how how fun it was
Speaker 6: to really dig into music that I loved. But also
Speaker 6: to your point, like when when was when was I
Speaker 6: stopping to pick up the phone and ask? And when
Speaker 6: was the phone ringing? And it was It was a
Speaker 6: real It was a strange moment, honestly for me because
Speaker 6: I had started in the in the music business as
Speaker 6: like a college kid booking. I moved over into b
Speaker 6: M I and then I worked for Roger Corman and
Speaker 6: did many many movies on a shoe string, which really
Speaker 6: taught me and I had the experience to like sort
Speaker 6: of be ready for this opportunity, but I also understood
Speaker 6: like how special it was and music music marketing, like
Speaker 6: marketing departments that labels and publishers were really starting two
Speaker 6: to realize that sync was a thing. And synchronization is,
Speaker 6: you know, the sink. I don't know how much how
Speaker 6: much detail you want me to get into what sinc is, but.
Speaker 2: No, if you could do a little at the people,
Speaker 2: awesome people.
Speaker 6: So sink is derives from synchronization, which is the which
Speaker 6: is the act of pairing music to picture. And there's
Speaker 6: always been really powerful, organized, amazing SINC Teams for labels
Speaker 6: and publishers whose whose job is to make sure that
Speaker 6: music supervisors and for ads for film, for TV, for
Speaker 6: games like really have the latest music that their companies
Speaker 6: might be putting forth.
Speaker 4: There's also.
Speaker 6: Sink agents, and sink agents have companies that represent that
Speaker 6: that's really their main focus is maybe representing indie artists
Speaker 6: or many artists to music supervisors. They are often really talented,
Speaker 6: have great ears, and if a music music supervisor sends
Speaker 6: out a brief like I need a song about dying.
Speaker 6: It needs to have this lyric, it has to feel
Speaker 6: like this, It needs a female vocal, I only want
Speaker 6: one obo and you know, sort of these incredibly specific briefs,
Speaker 6: those talented people on the other end are the ones
Speaker 6: listening through their catalogs and hopefully sending the two that
Speaker 6: fit rather than the fifty that don't. But but those
Speaker 6: become really trusted partners to music supervisors.
Speaker 4: Around the time of the OC.
Speaker 6: I remember when the first soundtracks came out and we
Speaker 6: were in partnership with Warner Brothers Records, very specifically a
Speaker 6: very talented woman named Laurie Feldman who was sort of
Speaker 6: running the efforts from the Warner Brothers record side.
Speaker 4: We would put.
Speaker 6: Up the list of songs for when the episodes aired,
Speaker 6: and imagine that that's a concept instead of what happens,
Speaker 6: because it is, you know, twenty years ago, and so
Speaker 6: we're trying to figure out how to how to get
Speaker 6: the songs up, to get links to the songs, or
Speaker 6: at least a place for.
Speaker 4: Fans to understand what they just heard. Because Shazam is right,
Speaker 4: none of this is the same. How are we finding
Speaker 4: how we find out?
Speaker 6: So sync agencies are becoming more and more important part
Speaker 6: of the business, and labels are certainly understanding the power
Speaker 6: of SINK as far as reaching an audience. In addition
Speaker 6: to radio and MTV and record sales and touring, here's
Speaker 6: a new way. Yeah, and so my phone really started
Speaker 6: to ring. Always my first the most important thing to
Speaker 6: me is that we are putting the right music into
Speaker 6: the show. But there were plenty of times that we
Speaker 6: got to debut new music, and I was so grateful
Speaker 6: for my label partners, my publishing partners, to be able
Speaker 6: to debut a Beastie Boys song which came through you know, management,
Speaker 6: to be able to debut be able to do a beckisode,
Speaker 6: to be able to debut Coldplay mm hm.
Speaker 4: You know, Stevie Wonder.
Speaker 6: Wrote an original song for the last episode of Scandal Crazy.
Speaker 6: All of those opportunities are.
Speaker 2: Well because also, like you're putting this out there and
Speaker 2: people are hearing the different genres or style of music
Speaker 2: that is going with each thing, and so at some
Speaker 2: point it's sort of like a homing beacon of like, oh,
Speaker 2: here's another place for us, or you know, or this
Speaker 2: artist didn't know how to get discovered, and the labels
Speaker 2: like we don't know how to break them, and all
Speaker 2: of a sudden like oh this whoever's running the music
Speaker 2: on the show, gets the style of music we can
Speaker 2: get to them to do that. So it did become
Speaker 2: another place too for sure.
Speaker 4: My phone went, you know, ring a ding ding, for sure.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 4: But I think.
Speaker 6: The other thing, the other thing that is different about
Speaker 6: SYNC is that the music supervisor is does not need
Speaker 6: a whole album or or an amazing tour. What you
Speaker 6: really really need is the one perfect song for a scene,
Speaker 6: which is a very different set of parameters or you know,
Speaker 6: then why you might why an album does well or
Speaker 6: why it's you know, it's definitely a moment, making sure
Speaker 6: that moment is right right.
Speaker 1: And then there was Twilightlight What.
Speaker 3: And again, like Kevin said, all of these moments that
Speaker 3: you were a part of, from Grace to the OC
Speaker 3: which came, you know, around the same time, and then
Speaker 3: Twilight and shaping the way that people were consuming and
Speaker 3: the way that films were consuming music and putting out
Speaker 3: these albums. What was the conversation like, they're using this
Speaker 3: insane body of music from new artists to artists that
Speaker 3: are you know, we're already established. I'm curious about that process.
Speaker 4: What a ride like? What a what a amazing movies?
Speaker 6: Set of movies right to be a part of. I
Speaker 6: sat with Summit executives Eric and Jillian, who introduced me
Speaker 6: to Katherine Hardwick back to the first movie. Catherine had
Speaker 6: very very specific, like sort of wonderful ideas about what
Speaker 6: the music should be. Super talented editor back to that,
Speaker 6: like the director editor, and.
Speaker 4: You know, it was really special to be able to
Speaker 4: work on I was.
Speaker 6: I was older than than the typical Twilight band, but
Speaker 6: I remember gobbling up all the books, reading the script
Speaker 6: first and then reading all the books that were available.
Speaker 6: And of course Stephanie herself dedicated Twilight to Muse, so
Speaker 6: we had we had a music property already and that
Speaker 6: was really very specific, right, very specifical, And of course
Speaker 6: Muse became a you know, the Muse scene in the
Speaker 6: baseball scene certainly became uh a, uh a very talked
Speaker 6: about moment. And I was we were so pleased to
Speaker 6: be able to have music agree yeah, to be in
Speaker 6: the scene. The other thing I want to say about
Speaker 6: Twilight is that because there were such crazy fandom, and
Speaker 6: I think I realized it when I didn't go to
Speaker 6: the Comic Con event, But there was a big comic
Speaker 6: Con event, and there was a palpable and enthusiasm by
Speaker 6: the fans for this, for this book, for the film,
Speaker 6: like real fandom, and I think we use the word
Speaker 6: fandom a lot in twenty twenty five, and maybe it
Speaker 6: was used when Twilight came out, but it didn't hit
Speaker 6: me in the same way, and it was like it
Speaker 6: was just palpable, And I remember hearing about that. I
Speaker 6: remember going to subsequent like there was we did concerts,
Speaker 6: we did all sorts of stuff. Incredibly talenting, talented marketing
Speaker 6: exec at Summit, Nancy Kirkpatrick really leaned into the music,
Speaker 6: and our partners at Atlantic Records did too, really understood it.
Speaker 6: And so the other interesting thing about working on a
Speaker 6: movie that has sequels is that I approached it in
Speaker 6: this you know, obviously I had a series of different
Speaker 6: really talented directors who had different sensibilities and we were
Speaker 6: telling different stories.
Speaker 4: But I understood after the first.
Speaker 6: Movie, which I was just looking at some notes earlier,
Speaker 6: which like debuted at number one the soundtrack on the
Speaker 6: Billboard chart, which was like so exciting. So the first
Speaker 6: soundtrack had a combination of already released music like of
Speaker 6: course muse, brand new songs. We had some beautiful tracks
Speaker 6: by our star Rob Pattinson, and there was a combination
Speaker 6: of paramore.
Speaker 4: There was new things that.
Speaker 6: We could introduce the audience to there were some things
Speaker 6: I think that we all understood after Movie one, that
Speaker 6: we could debut every single song and that we could
Speaker 6: make sure that the fan when they experienced moving forward
Speaker 6: was going to be the first time they heard the
Speaker 6: song was going to be something connected to Twilight. And
Speaker 6: so obviously there was like a very wistful, dark, bloody like.
Speaker 4: You know, all the all the fun, all the fun stuff.
Speaker 4: But when I was looking for music.
Speaker 6: For the next five summers, essentially because that's when that's
Speaker 6: when we posted, the movies were posting in time to
Speaker 6: come out around Thanksgiving, and so the meat of the
Speaker 6: editorial work was sort of that time of year for me.
Speaker 6: And some songs were versions, some songs were you know,
Speaker 6: we had some unbelievable like duets that came together, and
Speaker 6: that was such a like a special thing to be
Speaker 6: able to debut all that music.
Speaker 4: For all for all the movies.
Speaker 2: You talked about building soundtracks, you know, or building an
Speaker 2: album is so different from choosing a specific song an
Speaker 2: episode of television or even in a movie. The way
Speaker 2: you are such a fan of music and grew up
Speaker 2: being such a fan of music, and then you're now
Speaker 2: being able to help facilitate some amazing collaborations in soundtrack
Speaker 2: form and make an own companion piece to a movie
Speaker 2: that's successful in its own right, and then an album
Speaker 2: that's successful in its own right, and you did it
Speaker 2: for a Hunger Game series, and you like it felt
Speaker 2: like like I was even more excited for some of
Speaker 2: those albums than I would get for the movies because
Speaker 2: the depth in some of those songs, the artists that
Speaker 2: I would necessarily see on a soundtrack for a movie
Speaker 2: that was so like a blockbuster that was so commercially successful, right,
Speaker 2: and you had some great indie bands on those soundtracks
Speaker 2: with huge stars, and sometimes they would collaborate. Like what
Speaker 2: was the satisfaction of sort of getting to introduce and
Speaker 2: continually do it from that series to the next series
Speaker 2: you were doing, and really make an album, you know,
Speaker 2: because normally you were doing you m'd be doing one
Speaker 2: song at a time, but this was a full companion
Speaker 2: piece that like, when I listened to this album, I
Speaker 2: know exactly what's happening in the movie, yet I can
Speaker 2: also just enjoy this album separately.
Speaker 4: Thank you.
Speaker 2: I mean seriously, though, Like I grew up in the
Speaker 2: music business, and I, you know, as a teen who
Speaker 2: thought I knew everything and was you know, it could
Speaker 2: be snobby about music. I just remember as soon as
Speaker 2: that first Twilight soundtrack came out, I was like, what
Speaker 2: this is different, Like this feels very different. I had
Speaker 2: never experienced anything like that.
Speaker 6: Back to team Sport Sport, so I think, thank you again,
Speaker 6: thank you. I can't be understated, like how heady it
Speaker 6: was and and how like when do you have an
Speaker 6: opportunity to work on on a series of blockbusters that right, that.
Speaker 4: There's such focus on the music, and the directors were
Speaker 4: so excited to debut and introduce.
Speaker 6: Bell Brigade or Saint Vincent and Bonnie Vere who needed
Speaker 6: no introduction, but that they did something together. We're standing
Speaker 6: like in an airport and hearing that radio head, I
Speaker 6: mean the Tom York was going to say yes and
Speaker 6: like being quite loud and you know at the Southwest terminal.
Speaker 2: That's the thing though, like, at what point do you
Speaker 2: think you can ever get Tom York to agree to
Speaker 2: do a movie soundtrack.
Speaker 6: I'm gonna I'm going to tell you my story that
Speaker 6: I've told before but really was key to my approach
Speaker 6: to music supervision. Before I did the OC and Grays,
Speaker 6: I worked on a show called Roswell with.
Speaker 4: The great Jason Cams and Ron Moore.
Speaker 2: And nothing but Hits, Nothing but Hits.
Speaker 6: And I and I am co supervised with a with
Speaker 6: a really talented, generous fellow named Kevin Edelman who had
Speaker 6: done a lot of television and I had come from
Speaker 6: the indie world, and he really helped me understand the
Speaker 6: cadence and the click of a series versus an indie movie,
Speaker 6: and I have so much gratitude to him. Roswell we
Speaker 6: also like lean into into some into some alternative in
Speaker 6: indie music. And an editor had temped in how to
Speaker 6: disappear completely because I would not have been brave enough
Speaker 6: to send down how to I would not have been
Speaker 6: brave enough to send to the editor editing Bays or
Speaker 6: to the showrunners Radiohead. At that point it seemed impossible.
Speaker 6: And with a lot of effort and a great deal
Speaker 6: of help back to sync teams, a lovely gal named
Speaker 6: Alexandra robertson uh WE Radiohead said yes, like, ah, all
Speaker 6: the all the you know, the firecrackers go the you know,
Speaker 6: there's a party in my tiny office. Yeah, but it
Speaker 6: changed how I felt about asking and I was no
Speaker 6: longer after that moment, Like, you know, I felt like, well,
Speaker 6: no matter what, if it's if it works and the
Speaker 6: showrunners love it and it's the best thing for the scene,
Speaker 6: I am going.
Speaker 2: To ask because you conquered the mountain at that point.
Speaker 6: Yeah, it's brilliant. And that was like years before at
Speaker 6: this point, right early two thousands, Yeah, maybe two thousand
Speaker 6: and one or two.
Speaker 3: What a great lesson to have though, in that risk
Speaker 3: taking of you know, so early in the career that
Speaker 3: you've had to be able to do that. It's probably
Speaker 3: why you've conquered so much and accomplished so much is
Speaker 3: because you are willing to push the envelope and ask
Speaker 3: and do the things that seem impossible.
Speaker 4: Impossible is fun, don't always work.
Speaker 1: I gotta try, but what it does, you gotta try.
Speaker 6: So But no, I think the Twilight experience was was incredible.
Speaker 1: Was that your favorite one to work on?
Speaker 4: I mean, how do you pick a favorite one out
Speaker 4: of it?
Speaker 1: I know, it's really incredible, incredible.
Speaker 2: It's it is really amazing. And I also think you know,
Speaker 2: when an artist or label hears that you're a part
Speaker 2: of a project, there has to be this association with
Speaker 2: you know what you're talking about you. There's a body
Speaker 2: of work.
Speaker 6: I think they know that I care exactly, and I
Speaker 6: think what else can I say?
Speaker 4: I think.
Speaker 6: It's really about more than anything, you know, it's how does.
Speaker 4: A director see the music?
Speaker 6: How like it's it's like, it's really important to understand
Speaker 6: that about music supervision. How does a showrunner is it
Speaker 6: if it's Shonda Rhimes, like, if she's her incredibly huge
Speaker 6: body of work, how are we telling the story in
Speaker 6: Grey's Anatomy or Scandal or Bridgerton.
Speaker 4: It's really about what makes sense?
Speaker 6: And for I worked on the first season of Bridgerton,
Speaker 6: and vocals did not make sense to Shonda right, It
Speaker 6: was like, how how is Bridgerton's brilliant.
Speaker 8: Beautiful, brilliant strings right, beautiful story told in only the
Speaker 8: way that Shondaland can tell a story.
Speaker 6: Engaging dialogue, but like the costumes, the production design, when
Speaker 6: we thought about how music was going to how songs
Speaker 6: were going to work, Obviously, the unbelievably talented Chris Bauers
Speaker 6: does the score listeners. If you don't know who Chris
Speaker 6: Bauers is, uh, definitely introduced to it.
Speaker 4: You unbelievable composing talent.
Speaker 6: Uh, how is the score and the song is going
Speaker 6: to fit seamlessly with those beautiful costumes. The dialogue, and
Speaker 6: it was really about a modern quartet, you know, modern
Speaker 6: quartet cover of a of a song that the audience
Speaker 6: was familiar with. Come closer, Yes, like come closer, not
Speaker 6: through lyrics, not through voices that that we already know,
Speaker 6: but that that slow recognition, Oh my god, wildly effect,
Speaker 6: like I know.
Speaker 2: This come closer exactly right, And it also really sets
Speaker 2: the tone not only emotionally right of getting us into
Speaker 2: the scene, but also continuously was telling us what type
Speaker 2: of show, what Shonda and co. Were doing with that show,
Speaker 2: and it's it's amazing how just the first time you
Speaker 2: realize what's going on musically, like, ah, that's what we're
Speaker 2: doing here.
Speaker 6: I also remember after the OC, Josh and Stephanie's very
Speaker 6: next project was Gossip Girl, also incredibly music. Oh yeah,
Speaker 6: but like I remember sitting with with the two of them,
Speaker 6: and how is it going to be different? Like the
Speaker 6: story obviously the Gossip Girl I P. You know, was
Speaker 6: so popular, very New York like the music is more
Speaker 6: polished if.
Speaker 4: You think about the music, very New York based, very.
Speaker 6: Like yeah, things and like and you know, back to
Speaker 6: those conversations that you have, like how is it going
Speaker 6: to be different? And and as I said, they're both
Speaker 6: such music fans. They brought so much to the table
Speaker 6: as far as like I want I want it to
Speaker 6: be like this, and we have.
Speaker 4: We went on a grand.
Speaker 6: Adventure like and of course Lady Gaga was on camera,
Speaker 6: which was so fun. I still have the that she
Speaker 6: was on in my in my collection.
Speaker 4: Wow.
Speaker 2: See, you've always been breaking artists like this is just
Speaker 2: and the rain hasn't stopped. It's like you, I love
Speaker 2: hearing about how much you just love music. You really
Speaker 2: do care, you really do respect it. You've been like
Speaker 2: such a champion of independent artists and big artists, like
Speaker 2: you don't discriminate, and it's it's really wonderful to see
Speaker 2: because it is being a team player and whatever makes
Speaker 2: the story work the best. And like you've also been
Speaker 2: a part of like a wonderful organization like Music Cares
Speaker 2: for a really long time. So it's it's just nice
Speaker 2: to see that you care and work and out of work,
Speaker 2: can you tell what people tell people a little bit
Speaker 2: about Music Cares before we let you go, just because it's.
Speaker 4: A wonderful way to end. First of all, thank you
Speaker 4: for the.
Speaker 6: Good conversation today, like so fun too, ye remember, and
Speaker 6: to talk through some of these really important moments to me,
Speaker 6: it's great that it's that it's.
Speaker 1: Yeah to you too.
Speaker 6: And and I think, like to your point about big
Speaker 6: artists or very popular artists or or up and comers,
Speaker 6: like great is great, yes, great is great, and like
Speaker 6: there's there's we should highlight the best, you know, always
Speaker 6: the best music. And I don't, you know, I try
Speaker 6: try to not get caught up. And if somebody besides
Speaker 6: me knows about it, it must not be good.
Speaker 4: To pretend, you know.
Speaker 6: Music Cares is the charity arm of the Recording Academy
Speaker 6: the Grammys more colloquially, and it does great work for
Speaker 6: music people, so not only artists, producers, but also the
Speaker 6: the folks in the industry that support those artists, sound people,
Speaker 6: managers and as they do great work.
Speaker 4: They do hearing.
Speaker 6: Clinics, they do mental health work, uh and have supported
Speaker 6: musicians and music people in need for many years now.
Speaker 6: They did great work with the tragic Eaton Canyon and
Speaker 6: Palisades fires in LA last year and not you know,
Speaker 6: they're not.
Speaker 4: Natural disaster focused but of course there's an extra special.
Speaker 6: Need sometimes in those times. But it's really close to
Speaker 6: my heart. It's it's a it's a life raft, I think,
Speaker 6: for for folks who need it when they need it, right,
Speaker 6: So thank you for highlighting that.
Speaker 2: It's great organization and it's you know, it's they're better
Speaker 2: for having you involved. And it's just an honor to
Speaker 2: be able to talk to you for shaping our musical
Speaker 2: world seriously legitimately as people who grew up doing music,
Speaker 2: both of us. Those those little things that you know,
Speaker 2: go from you making decisions in your office with your
Speaker 2: teams and talking to all these people and then OC
Speaker 2: comes on and I'm in Plano, Texas, and I'm like,
Speaker 2: what is this music? Reach Like, yeah, like what is this?
Speaker 2: This is like, Mom, come listen.
Speaker 4: To this glorious Death Cab.
Speaker 2: Truly, are you kidding me? I remember making my mom
Speaker 2: drive me to Best Buy to go get Death Cab
Speaker 2: for cutie. Yeah because of that.
Speaker 4: That is a good story. Yeah, that is the story, right.
Speaker 2: And you've done it time and time again. So thank
Speaker 2: you for your work and contribution to you know, our world.
Speaker 1: She'd be very proud of the work you've done.
Speaker 4: Thank you so much, thanks for having me.
Speaker 2: So nice to meet you.
Speaker 1: Nice to meet you.
Speaker 2: Bye bye bye.
Speaker 3: The the resume is resumeing. I I cannot get over
Speaker 3: the body of work that she has done and the
Speaker 3: care that she has given it since the day one.
Speaker 1: Right like you, it's very evident that.
Speaker 3: She cares deeply about the stories, and not just about
Speaker 3: the music and her role in it, but the team
Speaker 3: and the people and the importance of getting the right
Speaker 3: piece of music to tell.
Speaker 1: The right story.
Speaker 2: For very unselfish. Yeah, that is a team player.
Speaker 1: And what a wonderful job to have, my gosh.
Speaker 2: I mean, also, like we need to bring up all
Speaker 2: the accolades and like three time Grammy nomination. She's been
Speaker 2: bill Ward Magazine's Power one hundred Executives and Top Women
Speaker 2: in Music. She's been in Cosmo, Wired, New York Times, Financial,
Speaker 2: wouldn't she reattime like?
Speaker 1: She's just really incredible.
Speaker 2: It's interesting to be able to put a face to
Speaker 2: so many musical important musical moments, and she.
Speaker 1: Had her hands on and Yes was a part of Yes.
Speaker 2: And it's wow, what a what a gift she has
Speaker 2: Like taste, I.
Speaker 3: Know, really good taste, and I'm just such a an
Speaker 3: Encyclopedia of Music Knowledge. My god, I would not want
Speaker 3: to go up against her and Trivia Alex Putsavas. Thank
Speaker 3: you so much for joining us today. We hope you
Speaker 3: guys enjoyed such a fruitful conversation about music in film
Speaker 3: and TV so important, and thanks to you guys for listening,
Speaker 3: and that's what you really missed.
Speaker 2: Thanks for listening, and follow us on Instagram at and
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Speaker 2: us a review and leave us five stars. See you
Speaker 2: next time.