I stumbled upon an interview online this week through Indie Supervisor. For those interested in the career of a Music Supervisor, I advise you to check it out. It's written and created by Music Supervisors, provides interviews and blogs, and even allows you to ask the professionals questions about the business or about music licensing.
This interview was with Richard Glasser and his experiences as a Music Supervisor and Music Executive on several films & television. His past work has included movies such as The King's Speech, Our Idiot Brother, The Illusionist, and The JFK Conspiracy. He is also a past motown recording artist, and a current composer and songwriter on the side. He has accomplished a lot in his career and has worked on some well-noted films. He currently works for The Weinstein Company located in New York City.
Glasser spoke about the direction The Weinstein Company, TWC, is taking. He mentioned they were currently working on a music library for their movies and he was personally creating a organizing everything systematically. This way, it becomes easier for their workers to navigate through their files.
Glasser also looked at this new library of old material as a way to easily license it out to other companies either as individual songs and files or in library groups. This is a fantastic way he is bringing revenue into the company he just joined. In turn, Glasser has shown his company he's a capable leader that can bring them to new successes.
Some overlook the impact it has in a film. Try imagining Pirates of the Caribbean without their signature score, or how scary a horror film would really be if there were no tension build up from the background music, or even if it were to be playing the newest bubblegum pop hit on the radio in the scariest parts. Not only would the audience not feel immersed in the scene, but in the case of the horror films, the scenes wouldn't be taken seriously and lose the production company money. A good point he made was about the importance and role of music. Glasser mentioned how even reality TV shows like "American Idol" gain even iTunes and YouTube money with downloads and hits, so everyone benefits. These productions should be taken more seriously in the music industry as it brings in revenue for different media outlets.
Budgeting was a topic he spoke about out in the interview. He suggests that if you're working with a low budget as a music supervisor, you have to know where you can make cuts that won't hurt the overall projects. Although, you should not give up on aiming for a better budget, but to be ready and willing to negotiate.
For those aspiring Music Supervisors or Music Executive reading this, Richard Glasser was kind enough to share some advice on starting out in the business. If you haven't heard it enough already, he urges the importance of networking. He suggests you go out to conferences and film festivals to find up and coming directors and producers. Tell these people what you do, offer your services, and in the chance they become a big name, they'll more than likely take you with them to the top. If not, then it's just added experience and achievements for you.
In closing, if you're interested in this career, Richard Glasser is a great leader to learn from. He's been in the business for a while and is more than willing to help people out. My recommendation would be to follow his career and to possibly attend a conference he speaks at if you have the chance. You can learn a lot from him and his successes.
No comments:
Post a Comment