music supervision
Enter the National Arts Club, a Victorian Gothic Revival brownstone off Manhattan’s Gramercy Park; climb four winding flights of stairs; pass the Pastel Society of America; and there will be the offices of director Wes Anderson’s longtime music supervisor, Randall Poster. And though in summer 2023 Hollywood is at a strike-induced standstill, Poster, creative director of Premier Music — the advertising-focused music supervision agency — is as busy as ever.
(Update: A tentative deal has been reached between screenwriters and the studios, streaming services and production companies.)
Poster’s film projects in the next several months include music supervision for the fall’s The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar (with Anderson), Priscilla (with Sofia Coppola), Killers of the Flower Moon (with frequent collaborator Martin Scorsese), as well as Joker: Folie á Deux (with Todd Phillips) and Hit Man (with Richard Linklater).
And that’s just his day job. Amid the pandemic, an unlikely new passion became a calling when Poster started the Birdsong Project, enlisting his diverse group of artist friends to create music inspired by or incorporating birdsong in an effort to benefit avian life. The result: For the Birds, a 20-album box set containing 172 new pieces of music and 70 works of poetry (all proceeds go to the National Audubon Society) and has led to a growing global community that’s still evolving under his leadership, one in which he hopes the music industry will take a real interest.
How has the strike affected your business?
There are some movies I’m working on that we can’t get finished because we can’t get the main actors to do [automated dialogue replacement]. And then there are movies that were meant to start in the fall that are pushing. I think everyone’s unclear about how it’s going to play out. I don’t really talk to a lot of other music supervisors, but for people who are just scraping by in music supervision, the shutdown of shows is brutal. In terms of music departments, there has been constriction at the streamers, but I’m not sure that was borne out of the strike, at least to this point. But in the short term, I’m busy. And our company, in terms of doing a lot of advertising work, thankfully, that has been very active.
A sampling of Poster’s extensive collection of musician paintings by Dan Melchior, part of an ongoing series, alongside a ceramic bird by Ginny Sims.
Nina Westervelt
Even in the music industry, I think few understand very well what a music supervisor actually does. How would you explain it?
I view my work as a filmmaker, not just a person who deals with the music — using music to best tell a story, to compensate where the story needs a bit of help and having a really candid and fluid relationship with directors and producers. People always say to me, “Oh, Randy Poster’s the guy who picks the music for the Wes Anderson movies” — but I don’t pick the music. I don’t want to be the one who does. Directors pick. I may present, we may have a conversation borne out of months of musical dialogue, but ideally, it’s the director’s medium. When people come out of the movies I work on and say, “Oh, the music was the best part,” that’s not really a victory. When people say, “I don’t really even remember the music,” sometimes that’s the best service you can do to the film — that it feels like the fabric of the movie.
What does a normal day of work look like for you?
Making sure rights are coming in; working on scenes of a movie and putting different songs up to it; making calls to record companies and publishers to see if I can narrow a price differential in terms of what we have to pay and what they’re asking us to pay; reaching out to artists and managers to see if people are interested in recording new music; looking at cues that are coming in from the composer on the movie; putting together a playlist for a director — like when starting a project, using the music to establish a dialogue. Describing what music is doing is very difficult, and words don’t necessarily mean the same things to different people, but if you can relate to songs, it gives you a sense of tempo, vibe, instrumentation they like. And then getting feedback from directors and editors: “This is working. This isn’t. Is there too much music in the movie? Is there not enough?” Sometimes it’s my role to protect the silences.
From left: A painting of country artist Jim Reeves by artist Henry Miller; a ceramic bird sculpture by Joseph Dupré; a painting of Buck Owens’ band, The Buckaroos, by Ashley Bressler (one of many artists Poster has discovered on Instagram).
Nina Westervelt
Has the catalog sales boom affected your bottom line?
When certain catalogs were held by the artist or the artist’s camp, there was a little more flexibility. If a company pays $500 million for an asset, they can’t license something at what they would say is a sort of embarrassing rate. Like, “We’re only licensing this for $10,000 a use; it’s going to take us 200 years to recoup our investment.” On the other hand, I always feel, especially with older catalogs, a movie use is going to open up a new audience to that artist, whether it’s “Oh, that’s Rod Stewart?” or “Wow, I had an idea of what Janis Joplin was like, but I’m surprised by this.”
Does it feel less personal than working with publishers and songwriters?
I wish things were more human and less corporate, but I’ve seen it throughout my whole career. You used to have 12 companies you’d license music from, and then two companies would merge and they’d cut half the staff. They’d have the catalog, but no one would know whom to talk to. A lot of times, what we have to do is convince these companies they actually own something or help them make a connection. That can also be fun — the detective work that goes into figuring out who owns the rights to something. I just wish the music companies had more of an understanding of the process of filmmaking. Oftentimes, it’s not just needing the price to be right — it’s also getting a timely answer. Name the price; just give me an answer.
A cardboard replica of the police car from the Blues Brothers movie by artist Richard Willis.
Nina Westervelt
On the flip side of that, the synch business is so huge. Do you get pitched often?
Yeah, people are pitching nonstop. There are people whom I respect and trust, and my response is always I want to listen to anything you think is great, but I just want to find the right music. This is going to sound horrible, but I don’t do anybody any favors. I’ll do you a favor in life as my friend, but I will not put music in a movie because I’m connected to somebody. I certainly do file things away for the future. I may love a song but not have the right movie for it. At the moment, I’m working on things in the ’20s, the ’50s — period pieces.
How do you seek out new music?
Every way — through social media, through traditional music press, recommendations. I have two daughters who are very into music. Artists lead you to artists a lot. I’ve been very reluctant to use an algorithm to find music. Probably at certain points I’d benefit from that, but I like to discover it myself.
A beaded African tribal hat Poster bought from a street vendor on Manhattan’s Houston Street. “As we started reaching out to artists we loved to make album covers for the box set, I found myself looking at all sorts of bird- centric pieces, and I couldn’t resist them.”
Nina Westervelt
Speaking of discovery, how did you get the idea for the Birdsong Project?
I’m a New York City kid; I’m not really a nature boy. But during the pandemic, we were all somewhat soothed by the way nature seemed to be doing its thing, unperturbed by the virus, and a lot of my friends were noticing there were so many birds. A friend I work with, Rebecca Reagan, who lives in California and is much more involved in nature causes, was like, “You should get all your musician friends to create music around birdsong. That would be a great way to joyfully draw people’s attention not only to the beauty and variety of birds but also the crises facing birds. It would be a nonpolitical way to draw people to protect the birds.” For the most part, I’ve found, no one wants to see birds die. It’s a way to bring together people in community, which seems to be so difficult otherwise. The response from artists was very positive, and it just kept going.
What do you get out of it that you don’t from your day job?
I’m usually the person who has to be a very strong editorial hand in getting what we need for a movie. Here, I just said [to artists], “Thank you.” It was very much a broad invitation to do what they feel. I didn’t really give notes, other than maybe, “Hey, this is beautiful. Can it be nine minutes versus 23 minutes?” It was liberating. I had to allow a certain kind of randomness versus how you sequence music for a movie.
What are your ambitions for the project with respect to the music industry?
I would like to see us adopted by the music community like they have the TJ Martell Foundation. But that may be a longer road. So we’re just working away. The label Erase Tapes has 10 artists on the compilation, so in 2024, they’re going to do a Birdsong album by taking their artists and remixing them, and I’d like to do collaborations with other labels so it spreads. That way I’m not the record company — we work with your artists, we curate with you. I think we’ll be ready in 2025 to hopefully do a big Birdsong concert maybe in Central Park.
At this point in your career, you’re a bit of a music supervision legend. How do you advise young people who want to do what you do?
I encourage them to find their contemporaries who want to make movies and throw in. It has never been easier to make movies. I wanted to work on movies where that one kid in the movie theater thinks, “I want to do this” — Wes and I were that kid. Do whatever you need to do to create and be creative. When people ask me the difference between how I work now and how I worked 25 years ago — well, I probably cry a little bit less, in the sense that when a director does not choose a song I feel is so right, I have more of a balanced [reaction]. I still am up for battles, though. And hopefully, people want to work with me because I’m not just a rubber stamp. We have to fight for every cue.
The last time film and TV screenwriters went on strike, for a hundred days in the winter of 2007 and 2008, production on shows and movies abruptly shut down, advertising plunged and pink slips were passed out. Freelance music supervisors like Julie Glaze Houlihan, whose credits include Malcolm in the Middle and Roswell, also felt the pain.
“My husband and I both were independent music supervisors, so the money just fell. We struggled,” she recalls. “We had savings and we dipped into it. We had three small children. It was a difficult time.”
Unlike actors, directors, music editors and other unionized professionals who would still receive contractual benefits in the event of a strike, music supervisors are a largely freelance group of specialists who lack employer-provided healthcare, paid leave and safety protections. So the supervisors are more vulnerable than many of their colleagues if the Writers Guild of America follows through with a walkout when its members’ contract with studios and networks expires May 1.
“We all care about the writers getting a fair deal. We’re all in it together,” says Houlihan, who recently supervised music for Glass Onion and is working on upcoming ESPN and MGM+ docuseries. “But if they strike, it’ll affect all of us. Other people have some type of safety net and we have nothing.”
The Writers Guild unions, east and west, represent 11,000 movie and TV writers and began negotiations March 20 for a three-year contract with the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers. Few expect a fast resolution over issues like higher compensation, more contributions to health and pension funds and improvements in workplace standards. Anticipating a strike, studios are rushing production schedules for existing shows.
A strike “would definitely be scary,” says Justin Kamps, who works on Grey’s Anatomy and Bridgerton. “If you can’t get the scripts written and the shows brought into post-(production), there’s not much you’re going to be doing as a supervisor. You’re going to be out of luck.”
A prolonged strike could narrow the opportunities for music synchs in shows and movies, which generated $318 million in 2022, or 2% of overall revenue, according to the Recording Industry Association of America. “The most obvious point is that if there is a strike, it’s going to put a hold on shows being put out, which means there’s no music being requested for shows,” says Sara Torres, synch and licensing supervisor for ASAP Clearances, which clears songs for TV.
Uncertainty has kicked in. “I’ve been meeting on a new project and they have been in a holding pattern, waiting to see what happens. They are not able to actually hire anybody until that is sorted out,” says Kier Lehman, a music supervisor whose recent works include Abbott Elementary and Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse. “Without having new things starting, it definitely would affect us and our income — if it goes on for a long time, I could see it having a big effect.”
Like everybody in Hollywood, music supervisors are scrambling to figure out where the money might come from in the event of a strike. Houlihan doubles as a music editor, an industry with its own unions, so she expects to receive certain benefits no matter what. Torres’ company emphasizes reality shows, which surged in the ratings during the last strike (including, notably, Donald Trump’s The Celebrity Apprentice); she suggests reality shows might temporarily dominate the synch business and indie artists might have more opportunities to place songs.
“People are always looking for music,” she says. “It’s just being able to pivot.”
Music supervisors are not unionized, but last October, a group of Netflix supervisors filed to certify their union with the National Labor Relations Board, seeking representation with the labor union the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees, or IATSE. Netflix opposed the move and the NLRB’s decision is pending. (Netflix reps did not respond to inquiries.) If the board rules in the supervisors’ favor, they can negotiate a contract with the streaming giant — “which would make a great precedent,” says Lindsay Wolfington, a music supervisor for shows including Virgin River and The Venery of Samantha Bird and has been active in the Netflix unionization efforts.
Laura Webb, who frequently works with Wolfington, says the supervisors want more reliable payment deliveries, cost-of-living increases and healthcare and retirement and pension plans — as opposed to relying on the gig economy. “We’re not paid by the studios that would allow us to have the same safety net that most employees get,” adds Joel High, president of the Guild of Music Supervisors. “We don’t have health insurance through anybody. We don’t have a 401(k). We’re basically left to our own devices, working from show to show and studio to studio.”
Supervisors say they’ll keep working on shows after writers have finished their work. “Most of our job is post-production, so hopefully things don’t change that much,” says Webb, who works on Wolf Pack, Monster High the Movie Sequel and others. Adds Lehman: “If there was a show that was already written, and just being finished, that becomes the complicated issue.”
For now, music supervisors remain hopeful the writers and studios will come to an agreement and avoid a strike, even as unionization is gathering momentum in the U.S., with workers from Amazon to YouTube Music filing for certification. “If there’s an atmosphere to strike in, it would be now,” Houlihan says. “Go, writers! I hope they don’t have to strike.”
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