Latest / Come Together with Ephraim Herschmann / Entertainment Series 5: Joel High / Creative Control Content / Music Supervisor / Producing

Transcript

Entertainment Series 5: Joel High / Creative Control Content / Music Supervisor / Producing · Come Together with Ephraim Herschmann

0:01
Welcome to another episode of Come Together.
0:15
Joe, we're live. Take your time with your drink.
0:17
I got my coffee over here, got some water shelter.
0:20
I'm really looking forward to this, man.
0:21
I'm really looking forward for a number of reasons, but number
0:25
one is because I'm a music junkie and a movie junkie.
0:29
And you exist right at the intersection between those
0:32
worlds, which I'm really, which I'm really excited about.
0:36
So you're a music supervisor or we're a music supervisor.
0:39
You do a lot more than that currently.
0:42
Still a music supervisor? Still a music supervisor, among
0:45
other things, And you run a company called Creative Control
0:47
Entertainment. That is correct.
0:49
Can you tell me just briefly I guess then we'll talk, we'll get
0:53
into it just about the company and about how you got started
0:56
with this. Sure, I started this many
1:02
decades ago when I started working at Trimark Pictures,
1:08
which is is no longer existence, but it was the home of
1:13
everything from Eve's Bayou to the Leprechaun series and
1:18
Warlock and other fun, fun, fun movies.
1:22
And so I started in the music department there and within a
1:25
year of if going into the music department, became the head of
1:29
the music department and built out their publishing company,
1:33
built out their record label and supervised all of the films that
1:36
went through there and also oversaw everything from
1:39
deliverables in terms of music for acquisitions.
1:44
You know, everything had to do with music.
1:45
And then Lionsgate acquired Trimark and in the process
1:52
acquired me and I became the head of music for Lionsgate and
1:56
did the same activity there. Or, you know, I supervised
1:59
almost every single title both in in film and television that
2:04
came through those doors and started their label, started,
2:08
you know, built up their publishing catalog and ran that
2:12
department for a good long while.
2:16
And then in 2006, I decided to go independent and started my
2:23
own company, Creative Control, which was founded on the idea
2:28
that I had already, you know, basically been the music
2:33
department for for two, you know, film studios.
2:36
And I could do the same for independent film studios who
2:42
didn't have the wherewithal or need the, the need for a full
2:46
time music department. And so we, we contract with,
2:52
with several companies to do their, all their music services.
2:57
And also at the same time, I was, you know, you know,
3:01
starting my own company and I wanted to explore what more I
3:03
could do. And we started a live events
3:07
division where we worked with different usually Canadian
3:15
groups like like SEMA, Canadian Independent Music Lines and
3:20
they're publishing groups and you know, factor and all these
3:23
great, you know, governmental kind of funded entities that,
3:28
you know, were there to, you know, support the arts.
3:31
And my pitch was, you know, you guys have such amazing artists
3:35
up in Canada. Why don't you engage more with
3:38
the, the community that is putting music and film and
3:41
television in the United States? And so they basically contracted
3:45
with me to start like I started Canada House and the Canadian
3:50
Blast BBQ with them at South by Southwest.
3:53
And you know, did that for several years as well.
3:56
So we had a very vibrant kind of live kind of event thing where
4:01
we would host also like lunchtime events at, at like
4:06
Hotel Cafe here in Los Angeles where we would invite a like the
4:10
entire like film and television community to come out and see
4:14
various Canadian artists and, and meet the, the label people
4:18
and the reps and all that stuff. And so that was fun.
4:21
We did that for years. And we did, Canada had us host
4:26
all of their Grammy events for years and, you know, everywhere
4:30
from like the House of Blues to other kind of venues.
4:34
And then I realized that that was exhausting.
4:36
So it was much more my, my, my passion was in, you know,
4:43
telling stories with music. And so I focused much more on
4:47
like film and television. And early on you can tell me if
4:52
I'm just rambling, but. No, I'm loving this.
4:55
I'm going to backtrack at that. When you when you when you
4:57
finish. And I'm going to go back to the,
4:59
you know, asking questions from the beginning, but this is
5:01
great. My my first major client, in
5:04
fact, one of the the impetus for me not renewing my contract with
5:09
Lionsgate and started my own company was that I met Tyler
5:13
Perry and worked on his first movie there, which was Diary of
5:18
a Mad Black Woman. And we hit it off like
5:20
gangbusters. And he's a totally independent
5:24
guy. Firm believer in doing it
5:26
yourself. And don't like listen to how
5:28
other people tell you how it's supposed to be done, but do what
5:32
your gut says. And so I've been with with Tyler
5:36
for 20 years, ever since his first movie.
5:38
And I've worked on basically every movie he's ever done.
5:41
And that's 30, maybe some movies and all of his television series
5:46
that he does. And he currently has the biggest
5:48
studio on the planet and. He really?
5:52
Oh yeah. He's got where, where, where,
5:54
Where's the base it's. In Atlanta.
5:56
It's in Atlanta television. Studios 12 Gigantic sound stages
6:00
back lot A A scale model replica of the White House.
6:05
You know it's like it's amazing. It's astounding when the first
6:08
time people come out there and see it, they're just like, wow,
6:11
it's 400 acres. He bought a an old Civil War era
6:16
army based. And.
6:18
Converted into, like I said, like the biggest studio on the
6:21
planet as far as I know. So incredible he's.
6:23
Been my, my main client for the last 20 years and yeah, and it's
6:29
been great working with him and working with all the other film
6:32
makers that I, I continue to have a relationship with.
6:36
Wow, it's awesome. It's awesome.
6:38
And you got into producing a little bit also, right?
6:40
Yeah, when I originally started in this industry, I wanted to be
6:47
a filmmaker, and I started when I was in my teens here in LA
6:51
working on music videos. You know, everything from like
6:53
being APA to shooting B roll to, you know, working as assistant
6:59
director, working at the lighting department and
7:02
everything like that. And so I originally started
7:05
working at Trimark in their production department and was
7:10
kind of encouraged to go into music because there was no
7:14
opportunities to move up in the production department.
7:17
So my first love was, was making movies, you know, And so I spent
7:23
many decades doing that by through the music department and
7:27
I've given like the first starts to a number of huge composers
7:31
and things like that. But as if I was preceding my
7:36
career as a music supervisor, I was brought on several films
7:42
where I my role was outsized for just like the music I was
7:47
involved in casting I. Was involved in.
7:49
Helping with the financing, helping with secure
7:52
distribution, things like that. And so I'm like, I'm producing
7:55
this in a way. So I started asking for, you
7:58
know, a producer credit when that kind of a lift and that
8:02
broad of a scope of work was was required of me.
8:05
And they didn't necessarily have the money to pay me as much as
8:10
like they should. I said, well, make me a
8:12
producer, make me a participant in this.
8:14
And so I was like, who was that first Mario?
8:21
Alright, man Peoples. Which is like one of the first
8:23
ones who said, yeah, you're a producer.
8:25
That's a, that's a pretty common trade off from what I've, from
8:27
what I've read, right, that if films have a hard time coming up
8:31
with the money that they'll offer produce or some kind of
8:33
title. So you can associate, you can
8:35
associate and leverage it for another job in the future,
8:37
right? Yeah, that's exactly right.
8:39
Having a, a track record as a producer is, is something that
8:42
you can have as a precedent and kind of it, it's unusual for a
8:46
music supervisor to, to take on that role.
8:49
But I was, you know, very lucky when I was at Trimark.
8:52
My my boss there, Kenny Winikoff, who was at a
8:56
production, allowed me to sit in all of the meetings that I
8:59
wanted. To So I sat in.
9:01
Marketing meetings, I sat in finance meetings, I sat in
9:05
acquisitions, distribution meetings and all that kind of
9:07
stuff just so I could learn. And that.
9:09
Was kind of our trade off that was she allowed me to
9:12
participate and learn everything from like how to get a picture
9:17
bonded to how to work with a, you know, distribution and you
9:22
know, PNA spends and things like that.
9:25
So. Incredible.
9:27
Yeah. I, I, I one of the things that I
9:30
noticed in your story and that I feel like I've noticed in a lot
9:33
of people's stories that kind of run their own businesses or
9:35
start steering their own chips is that you're a, a willingness
9:38
to kind of put on a lot of hats and like be willing to just
9:41
learn whatever your whatever's out there, you know, and you
9:44
know, to be so. Yeah, yeah.
9:46
And you know, because I've noticed that recently, or at
9:49
least in a corporate world, and I don't know if you have this
9:51
experience, but jobs and responsibilities are very
9:54
compartmentalized. And you know, whoever you know,
9:57
whoever does one thing, that's what they that's the lane they
10:00
steer in and stay in, you know? But for you to be able to do
10:03
what you did right, which is to branch off eventually on your
10:05
owner, to even do a job exceeding all expectations at
10:09
other companies, you'd have to be willing to go above and
10:12
beyond, I'd imagine, right? Yeah, it's completely.
10:15
It's like you, you get what you kind of give into it, what you
10:20
want to participate in. So it's like at my company, I
10:24
have a couple of music supervisors who work with me and
10:29
I basically give them as much responsibility as I have.
10:32
I'm an open book with them. I let them read all the
10:34
contracts because I want them to learn how I learned.
10:37
I want to be able to say, hey, I've got to step away for a
10:39
little bit to deal with this. You're in charge of all this.
10:42
And they go, yeah, got it. Because they have that
10:44
experience. And so, you know, I've had a lot
10:46
of of, you know, we have very strong internship program here
10:51
where we bring in interns from different universities and give
10:55
them a very broad kind of like education on how we do this.
11:00
Because you know, in, in my way of thinking again, I, I am, I
11:04
come from film production to get into, into music supervision and
11:10
it's always been in my kind of my kind of view of it is the
11:16
proper view is that I don't work in the music industry.
11:19
I work in the film industry. So.
11:20
I am. A a, an employee of a film and
11:24
my responsibility is the department of music.
11:27
So where there is like a camera department, there is an electric
11:30
department. There's like sets and hair and
11:32
makeup and whoever's in charge of that isn't in charge of
11:35
everything from budget, schedule, you know, employees,
11:40
all that kind of stuff. And so when I come on to a
11:42
movie, I start at the script phase, break it down, do a
11:46
budget and do like a, a plan of how we're going to do it from
11:50
very start to distribution and marketing and things like that.
11:54
And so I. Let the people who come through
11:56
my shop, including the interns, learn the basics, but then I
12:02
expose them to whatever they want to go so they can go to
12:05
recording sessions they can go to like the mix stage, they can
12:08
go to set if it's allowed and participate in everything we do
12:12
there. So and because I want them to be
12:14
able to get a real good education that they're not going
12:16
to get at school. Yeah, definitely, definitely.
12:19
You learn way more from our experiences, I imagine.
12:24
I feel like at least for myself and actually when I was talking
12:26
to a couple of buddies of mine that was telling them how
12:28
excited I was for this conversation, you know, I
12:31
mentioned music, music supervisor.
12:33
I got mixed responses as far as questions for does this music
12:39
supervisor have to do with the score, like, you know, like the,
12:42
you know, famous scores from like, John Williams or Hans
12:45
Zimmer's and that's being composed on the spot.
12:48
Or whether it's more of like a Guardians of the Galaxy or
12:50
Scorsese or Tarantino type of acquiring the rights to, you
12:55
know, different types of songs to be able to play in the film.
12:58
And you know, and, and you know, so and maybe you could shed some
13:01
clarity as to like what the responsibilities are for a music
13:04
supervisor if it goes over both. Yeah, I mean, it's it what it's
13:07
done, right? It's all of that.
13:09
Because like I said, it's it's the, it's the boring stuff of
13:12
like, you know, budget and schedule and, and legal
13:15
clearances and everything like that.
13:16
But it's also, you know, the exciting stuff about, you know,
13:20
trying to find a great composer, setting up interviews, you know,
13:25
and listening to that and recommending them to a director,
13:28
putting them together, you know, doing like spotting sessions
13:31
where we watch the film and say, I want I think that you should
13:34
start here. And I think that this is a big.
13:36
Action. That you should get a little bit
13:38
bigger here and and then you should end here and, you know,
13:41
go through that whole thing with the composer and the director
13:44
and the producer and be involved in that.
13:47
And because I've done, you know, close to 300 movies, maybe I
13:51
don't even remember now, but you know, it's like I have a good
13:53
experience and a good instinct for that.
13:55
And I let and I and I work with the composers through the whole
13:58
thing. And at the same time, I'll also
14:01
be picking songs to play some different places and
14:05
recommending those to the, the creative people.
14:08
We don't ever choose anything necessarily because that's not
14:11
our job. Our job is to give options and
14:13
to fulfill a film makers vision and help them tell their story
14:18
with music. And so we recommend different
14:23
songs and stuff and then it's our job to go after the rights
14:26
to make sure that we can secure those rights to use it.
14:29
And then you know that it comes in budget and all that stuff.
14:32
So what it's done right? It is all of the above and
14:37
beyond. Like you wouldn't even imagine
14:40
some of the stuff that we have to do as to music, but can.
14:43
You give me some examples, some details I mean.
14:46
Please. Sure.
14:50
Right now we've got a movie coming up that we're in pre
14:54
production on and it has 23 songs that are all on camera
15:00
that are written into the script.
15:02
And so right now I'm securing the rights to use those.
15:06
I'm looking for somebody who's going to be doing the
15:10
arrangements on this because that's not my job.
15:12
I, I hire the people who do this.
15:16
So we're going to have to do arrangements of them, do demo
15:19
recordings, set up sessions with the we're going to talk to the
15:24
management for all the actors who are going to be singing
15:26
these things to make sure we know what their their, their
15:29
right pitch, the right key is for these things.
15:32
Because if we do an. Arrangement.
15:33
We have to make sure that it's in the key that they can sing in
15:36
most easily. Sure.
15:39
And then send it over to them. Help them rehearse.
15:42
Hire vocal coaches if we need to work.
15:45
With the coach. And the actors hire songwriters
15:48
if there's not a song that's specifically enumerated in the
15:51
script. So we'll hire a songwriter, give
15:54
them a brief of what we want, and then work with a songwriter
15:57
to do the a demo of that. And then, you know, negotiate
16:02
those rights, you know, hire musicians to record a track of
16:09
these things. You know, your own, like listed
16:12
label, essentially you're your own.
16:13
Yeah. I mean, it's a whole thing.
16:15
This part is like a record label for this movie, right?
16:19
Yeah. We have to make sure that we
16:21
have a pre record done in time so that if we need to, we can
16:24
play that back on set and we can pantomime, you know, doing this.
16:28
But most likely we're going to have, you know, some live
16:31
performance of this stuff. And so I have to be in touch
16:36
with the assistant directors crews to make sure that I'm in
16:39
touch with the cast and that they are aware of what we're
16:42
doing. I have to be in touch with props
16:44
because we have to make sure that there are functioning
16:47
instruments. I have to be in touch with hair
16:50
and makeup. I have to be in touch with
16:51
casting about setting this up and and making sure everybody's
16:54
properly contracted and you know, all through it.
16:59
We have to go through all of the different departments to make
17:01
sure that we're like set up ready to go and everything is
17:04
there and in place. Then they shoot it and then we
17:07
take that and we off to the races in post production.
17:10
So it's. Crazy.
17:12
And how much of this do you have as a I mean, I'm sure by now,
17:16
but it's already down to science.
17:17
But when you were starting, how much of it?
17:19
No, it's not. You make it up, it's different
17:23
every time because you don't know who you're going to be
17:24
necessarily working with and what their capabilities are and
17:29
and what it's it's going to entail on on for me and my crew.
17:34
And every movie is different. So it's like I have, you know,
17:38
best practices of how it's supposed to go.
17:40
But again, you know, we adapt how we do it based on the the
17:46
situation at hand, so. So you have to be really
17:48
flexible. You have to be able to fly by
17:50
the seat of your pants if you know something comes up.
17:52
And you just got to have how much of this is contacts versus
17:57
experience? Like, OK, I need someone to call
17:59
that knows how to deal with this or oh, I've dealt with this.
18:02
They're one. In the same, they're one in the
18:03
same, you know? Yeah, that experience that I
18:05
have of, of how to execute something like this is, is also
18:09
the experience that I have of who because I can't do any of
18:13
it. So it's like my experience is
18:15
like, oh, I know exactly who to call on that one and.
18:17
Then. Rely on their experience, you
18:19
know, so it's, it's, it's all one and the same.
18:23
It's like I've been doing this for long enough so that I have,
18:25
you know, deep contacts and deep resources.
18:29
And if I don't know that, I know who to call to, who will know
18:32
somebody who can do something? Right, so.
18:35
I rely on my team a lot to be able to handle a lot of this
18:38
stuff and yeah. Awesome.
18:41
And who who was some what was some inspirational movies or
18:46
some inspirational directors, actors, people in the industry
18:48
that got you, you know, started in it that, that, that, that
18:52
that wanted you down this path, you know, starting down this
18:54
path because it sounds like you started early enough that you
18:57
didn't have a ton of commitments that you could have thrown
19:00
yourself all in, you know, to this.
19:02
But if you know one thing I've always wanted, you know, I've
19:05
always had, like, my heart in the entertainment world, and it
19:08
just felt like you have to really throw everything aside
19:11
for it. Do you feel that's the case?
19:15
Sometimes I, I worked myself very hard to get to a place
19:22
where I knew this and I worked long hours and, and I, and I
19:25
actually, you know, worked in the legal department as well.
19:28
And that was at a time when there was no like, you know, on
19:31
computers, there wasn't like cut and paste function.
19:35
So I had to retype all of these contracts and stuff like that.
19:39
And it was brutal because I. I was not a somebody who's
19:42
sitting in front of a keyboard kind of a person.
19:44
I was like an onset guy. So I had to really lean into it
19:50
and learn it and, and be devoted to it.
19:52
And, you know, and that's, you know, good or bad.
19:55
I, it got me to where I am. I don't have my crew.
20:02
I don't ask them to devote that kind of, of time and energy to
20:06
what they do. I depend on them getting the job
20:08
done. But it's like our our rule is
20:11
like don't call me before 9:00 AM unless it's an emergency.
20:14
And I won't call you at all unless it's an emergency.
20:18
And you know, after 6, I don't want to hear from you unless
20:22
it's an emergency. And I won't call you unless it's
20:24
an emergency because I want them to be.
20:25
I don't want to burn them out you.
20:27
Know because. This is really hard work.
20:30
When we're deep into it, it's very much like it's all hands on
20:34
deck. So like this movie that we've
20:35
got with the 23 songs, you know, it's, it's a lot of work and.
20:39
So and. And we're not even at, we're
20:41
like 3 weeks out from production and so all the pre production
20:45
stuff has to go into it. And so then then the real hard
20:47
stuff of being on set happens. And so I want them to not have
20:51
burned out by the time we get to set.
20:54
Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's so funny.
20:55
It's so funny you say that. I lived in Seattle for a year
20:58
and one of my roommates while I was living there got a job with
21:00
Microsoft and, you know, there's a lot of big tech companies
21:03
around there. And one thing that a lot of
21:05
young people had that said, you know, in common, you know, one
21:09
common theme was that the companies that they work for
21:11
Microsoft, Facebook, Airbnb, you know, whatever they want their
21:15
employees to be happy, you know, and their and their hours were
21:18
generally like what you said, nine to five, nine to six, you
21:22
know, pretty flexible. If you have anything going on,
21:25
take your time. Exactly.
21:27
And he said, because, but when we have projects, you know, we
21:31
got, we, you know, we, we're the best, we're the, we're the best
21:33
at what we do, you know. And so, you know, they, they, so
21:36
I, I, I, I think that's a good mentality because I grew up in
21:39
the New York world where it was almost like a matter of like
21:43
pride. How many hours you worked that
21:45
week, you know, Oh, I worked 70. That's the way I was when.
21:47
I started, I was like, I was in the office for 10 hours doing
21:52
this stuff and they're like, oh, cool.
21:54
I guess, yeah, yeah, it's a, it's a, it's a mentality.
21:58
And I, and I, I hear that because I think people equate
22:01
busyness with productivity, you know, so, oh, you're spending X
22:04
amount of time busy, you must be really, really productive, you
22:07
know, and yeah, starting to work in the, starting to starting to
22:11
do sales. I've learned the opposite, you
22:13
know, that the amount of time that you spend actually working
22:17
generally does not necessarily correlate with how productive
22:19
you're being while you're while you're there.
22:21
You know, that's really, really cool.
22:24
So what, what when, when the when, when the Tristar got
22:30
acquired by Lionsgate. I'm I'm sure that's a pretty
22:34
significant cultural switch in terms of the size of the studio,
22:38
what you had, you know, the type of management that you had hand
22:41
holding. Sort of, yeah.
22:43
I mean, Lionsgate was not very big.
22:45
It was just they had a lot of money and some leadership that
22:48
was that was very aggressive. So they were actually smaller
22:53
than than Trimark was. Oh yeah.
22:56
Staff and, and production and all that stuff.
22:59
And they acquired Trimark because of that they library,
23:03
but they also wanted the infrastructure because it was,
23:06
it was not a huge production house like it is now.
23:10
Like, I think like, like American Psycho was one of their
23:14
first movies and stuff. And they were not like a, a
23:20
hugely productive entity. They were Canadian company.
23:23
As a matter of fact, that was mostly about acquisitions and
23:27
distribution. And they acquired Trimark for
23:30
the library and for the infrastructure.
23:33
And so it wasn't a big shift and it was very nerve racking, but
23:38
you know, it's like I'd proven myself at, at at Trimark and
23:43
what I had built basically single handedly.
23:46
And so when it they came and they were like doing like these
23:49
these nerve wracking kind of interviews about like, you know,
23:52
tell us what you do and what. Value do you bring?
23:54
To the company kind of stuff. I was like, let's take up a
23:57
seat, let's go. Yeah, you.
23:59
Know and I told them all the stuff that I had built and and
24:02
how about like the the revenue that comes from music publishing
24:06
pays for this and makes sure that this is actually a not just
24:10
a a straight out expense, but it is an investment in and what
24:15
you're going to have is an asset and stuff and they're.
24:17
Like, yeah, yeah, it's really cool.
24:20
Did you do you ever listen to the podcast The Town with Matt
24:22
Bellamy? It's it's like a business
24:25
oriented Hollywood podcast. Half an hour 2-3 times a week.
24:30
It's awesome. He's great, but no, not
24:32
anything. Well, either way, it's like I.
24:35
Don't. I don't watch the studio, you
24:37
know. Oh, yes, yes, yes, yes.
24:38
Right. I'm like, no.
24:41
Right, so they stay away from they stay away from their
24:45
opinions on things. They more report on the business
24:48
of what's going on. For example, you know, this Leo
24:51
movie that just opened this weekend, is it a hit or not?
24:53
You know, and they discussed the potential down the line business
24:56
opportunities and, and OK, well, if open to 30, then what does it
25:00
mean down the run and what does it mean domestic versus
25:02
international? So it's cool to be able to
25:04
explain because those concepts have like didn't mean anything
25:06
to me. And now I mean, you know, I
25:09
mean, the way I, the way I consume entertainment is totally
25:12
different. You know, when I kind of have a
25:13
little bit more of that, of that concept in my mind, it's really
25:17
cool. So how did how, how does, for
25:20
example, again, Guardians of the Galaxy, and maybe you don't know
25:24
the answer to this, but I'm sure with your experience, you know
25:26
something about it that Disney repackages their, you know, the
25:30
collection of songs that guardians put on in the movie
25:34
and they sell it on vinyl and on Spotify.
25:36
They put on Spotify and everything Disney makes the
25:39
money from that or the original artist some some of the money.
25:43
So. It's like when you have like a
25:45
soundtrack that is is like on Spotify of pre-existing songs.
25:50
It's a playlist. It's a playlist.
25:52
It's. Almost impossible for them to
25:54
monetize something like that as they do some sort of a deal with
25:58
with like the artist that says, you know, we're going to put it
26:00
on this playlist and it's going to boost your sales by this and
26:04
we want a participation in it, which they may do, I don't know.
26:07
OK. But generally speaking, it's a
26:09
playlist. It's like if I made a playlist
26:11
and and put it on the world and it's like, great, you know?
26:14
And I guess that would be incentive for the families or
26:16
for the for the. Yeah, they may.
26:18
Do that. And that's, that's kind of like,
26:19
you know, they may do that and I don't know, but it is, it is a
26:23
marketing thing for for the most part, like we have like for
26:26
beauty and black, which is a show that I supervised with Leah
26:31
Avraham. And it's all we they Netflix
26:35
puts out a playlist of like the songs that we've used in in that
26:39
scene. Right.
26:42
And then they, they, it's just there, but it's like the
26:45
audience wants it. So it drives, it drives people
26:49
to go to the, the playlist and, and do the show.
26:52
But we also have a, a, a soundtrack that's digital for
26:56
the show. That is the score from Wow Jones
27:00
and Jimmy James. That is phenomenal.
27:03
All their, their, their score for the show.
27:05
And that one we do participate in because we own that music.
27:09
Right. When Disney puts out like, you
27:11
know, a Guardians of the Galaxy as a mixtape, like a physical,
27:15
it's just like, it's just like the old school, you know,
27:18
compilation album. Yeah, yeah.
27:21
Final, because that's a physical good that you can cut out a
27:24
royalty to go to these artists, but then the over is going to go
27:29
to to Disney, whoever releases it.
27:31
I see, I see. And how difficult is it to kind
27:34
of get these rights, You know, like, I mean, if I, I and I, you
27:37
know, I know not not very hard most of the time.
27:39
So to put to rights on our record.
27:42
No, I'm so sorry to it writes for songs to use in a in a film.
27:45
Oh. It's it's totally dependent on
27:49
billions of factors. You know, there's like there's
27:52
libraries you can go to where you're like, here's $5, can I
27:54
use the song? And they were like, yeah, go,
27:56
please. Yeah, yeah.
27:57
Or there's, you know, if you want to go and and put like, you
28:00
know, ACDC in your movie, Yeah, you know.
28:04
Get ready to write 7 fucking. Figures.
28:08
Yeah, I heard about that film. There's other artists, you know,
28:11
it's like, they're like, no. Not for.
28:14
Any circumstance will you be able to use this song unless you
28:17
are related to one of the people on the record, you know, kind of
28:20
a thing It's like, and it's again, it depends on the deal
28:23
that these artists have with the with the labels, the deal with
28:27
their publishing companies, who the publishing companies and
28:29
labels are, their responsiveness.
28:31
All of these things are factors that that which is, you know,
28:35
one of the skills that we develop music supervisors.
28:39
Yeah. And I guess that's why, I guess
28:40
it's the value of having an in house kind of program or an in
28:43
house label or record or whatever because you you have
28:46
your own selection of music to pick from.
28:47
No. Not really.
28:49
I mean we do some of that. I mean like there is no like
28:54
there like Sony Pictures does not have a special deal with
28:57
Sony Records. Oh no, does not No.
29:01
I mean, they can't because they can walk over to their building
29:04
and be. Like, yeah.
29:05
Let's do this and they can be like, no, we're a different
29:08
revenue stream and we've got to make sure that our, you know,
29:12
quarterly numbers. Are.
29:13
Yeah, sure. And.
29:14
We don't care about what your numbers are, you know, so it's
29:19
not always that and it's, you know, it's also like anti
29:21
monopoly kind of stuff and all that.
29:23
Kind of thing. So it's.
29:25
You know, they used to say that you cannot have like the label
29:29
on the same campus as the film studio and the publishing
29:32
company had to be at a different campus as well.
29:34
Like physically could not be at the same place.
29:36
Those rules are not the same anymore.
29:38
But you know, that's how how kind of like firewall they were
29:42
because again, an artist doesn't want to sign with the label
29:46
who's going to go? Yeah, yeah, you can totally have
29:49
this song for like $5.00 because it's.
29:51
Going to have the. Bottom line of the of the film
29:53
and stuff because the artist would be like what?
29:56
Yeah. That's my money.
29:59
Right. But I would, I would imagine if
30:00
I was an artist, right? And you were a studio and you
30:02
said, hey man, I'm Sony, I'm Tristar, you know, I'm
30:06
Lionsgate. I'm about to put your movie,
30:09
your song in Iron Claw with Zac Efron, right?
30:13
I don't have a lot of money budgeted for this, but this
30:15
could be really big for your career, you know?
30:17
What do you say about getting your?
30:18
What about getting this on here? It's not fair, you know, I mean,
30:21
it's, it's totally cut throat and, and, and a lie you.
30:25
Know. So I I never do that.
30:27
You never do that, but. We have Beauty in the Black,
30:29
which is #1 Series in Netflix #1 Series on all streamers, right?
30:35
Huge, huge 1.3 billion people watched it, but hours were
30:40
watched in a week. And so we could say, hey, you
30:45
know, we're going to, we're going to make you famous.
30:46
You're going to get into this thing and you should pay us to
30:50
be in Beauty in Black. But the philosophy we have is
30:54
that music matters and music should have value and should be
30:58
paid. We don't have a lot of money in
30:59
Beauty in Black for, for these licenses and we use a ton of
31:04
music. And so we tell them upfront and
31:06
like, we'll, we've only got this much and that's what we're
31:10
paying other people as well. Just so you know, we're not
31:12
like, you know, just undervaluing you.
31:14
We're undervaluing everybody. Right.
31:18
And so you can say no, you can just say no and don't want to do
31:21
it. We're not going to promise you
31:22
that you're going to have like, you know, this many TikTok, you
31:26
know, watchers and, or any of that shit, because we can't
31:28
control that and it's a lie. Well.
31:31
You can't control it. You, you definitely can't
31:33
control it. But I as an art I, I if I was an
31:36
artist, I would imagine. That I would let you do that I'm
31:39
not going to talk anybody into. It I gotcha.
31:42
Promises like that if you say, Oh my God, I love beauty in
31:45
black. I have to be.
31:46
I mean, we, we, we did the clearances for, for several
31:50
seasons of, of the game FIFA, right?
31:53
And the money they paid for, for licensing on FIFA is, is
31:56
miniscule to like what like a big film will pay and all that
32:00
kind of stuff. But guaranteed if you, if FIFA
32:04
calls up one of these artists who's kind of like breaking
32:07
through and stuff and said, we want to put you in FIFA, they
32:09
are like stoked. They are so stoked.
32:12
They're like, Oh my God, I'm a FIFA artist now.
32:14
And. It's like it's.
32:16
Like bragging rights to the entire world because everybody
32:19
plays this and then they get super excited and they can
32:22
literally tell everybody they know I'm in FIFA and it's like,
32:25
it totally makes it happen. People are like absolutely,
32:28
absolutely, we'll do the deal, you know, and they'll do it for
32:31
not very much money, but we do the same deal with everybody
32:35
unless it's like a big superstar that we want to do.
32:36
But they tend to want to go for the up and coming, you know,
32:40
artists out of Nigeria and stuff.
32:42
So it's like they want to blow these guys up too, so.
32:45
It's awesome. It's really cool judgment.
32:46
Calls based on this and and and you know, anybody who tells you
32:49
that you should do this because you're going to get famous and
32:53
you know, we're bigger than anything is a lie because that
32:57
could be true, but it should be coming from a place where music
33:02
has value and you should be paid something fair.
33:05
Yeah, I totally agree with that. I totally agree with that.
33:07
I was thinking actually more from the other side than the
33:09
studios, the studio side in that case.
33:11
That's all. That's what I was asking about.
33:13
But from the studio side I totally agree with you that in
33:14
the sense like the moral thing to do I would imagine, or the
33:17
fair thing. To agree come at me and my
33:19
people constantly. I bet.
33:22
My music in your movie. I please put my music in your
33:24
movie. Put it in.
33:25
I love Tyler Perry. I want to be in this thing.
33:27
Whatever. Let's do it.
33:29
And then I don't make a decision based on on, you know,
33:32
somebody's desire to get in a Tyler Perry movie.
33:36
I make a decision on what's best for the movie and tells the
33:38
story. Yeah, yeah, definitely,
33:41
definitely. How different is get is the
33:43
gaming world and the television world and the and the film world
33:46
from one another when it comes to this kind of to to the music?
33:49
It's subtle. It's subtle.
33:50
I mean, films are obviously much more longer stretch of time that
33:56
you're able to work on something.
33:58
It's much more of a of a slower pace.
34:02
And they tend to, you know, except for like an independent
34:05
film, they tend to have a little bit bigger budgets.
34:09
And so you could make decisions. You can watch something, play it
34:12
back and, and going forward and see if it really works and all
34:15
that kind of stuff. Whereas in television, again
34:19
going back to the model Beauty in Black, we those are we did
34:24
16-1 hour episodes the first and second season and we were
34:29
literally given a week to do 2 episodes.
34:32
Wow. So and that was, you know, 8
34:35
weeks, 16 episodes, no time to think, put the music in, make
34:40
sure we would pre clear a lot of stuff too.
34:42
So just because we didn't have the flexibility of like wanting
34:45
to put something in and then waiting on, you know,
34:48
negotiations, we would pre negotiate, you know, some of
34:51
these fees and be like, drop it in, let's go.
34:55
And then we tell them. If it was used or not, you know,
34:57
that kind of thing. It was totally different pace
35:00
that that's an extreme version. Most TV series are going to have
35:03
a lot more time to be able to do that, but it's still a lot
35:06
faster than a film. And then games on the other
35:09
hand, it is a long time that they are in development and all
35:12
these things and thinking about these things and and be able to
35:17
play songs and work with score. And it's very much more involved
35:21
because you have to be have the score be adaptable to like
35:25
different scenarios and it changes whenever the player
35:29
decides that they're going to do something different, like if
35:31
all. Of a sudden, they're going to.
35:32
Pull out a sword and attack something right in the middle of
35:36
like this beautiful Meadow or something like that.
35:38
You have to go from Meadow music to metal music, you know?
35:41
And be able. To seamlessly transition.
35:44
I made that one up fine. Yeah, let's close these guys.
35:46
It's great. Between the the score as part of
35:49
the, the, the the writing process, they have to be able to
35:53
make it so that that the the songs don't or the music doesn't
35:58
like bump against each other and make the the gameplay feel
36:03
wrong. You know what I mean?
36:04
Yeah. And also one of the the big
36:06
things about games is it's the the only one of those that's not
36:11
a fixed medium. So whereas like a film, you
36:15
finish it, you release it and it's done right.
36:18
TV shows, same thing, release it, it's done right.
36:22
Games you can go and and you know like with like FIFA or
36:25
something like that if you're playing and some reason like
36:29
some one of the players that's in one of the teams becomes like
36:32
a huge superstar, you can go and adapt it and have like you know
36:37
downloads that'll like change some of the music and see like
36:40
if you want to play this player here's a modular kind of thing
36:43
that you can do that this is this player's favorite songs and
36:46
and change it as it goes so. Yeah, wow.
36:50
It's probably, it's bigger projects than I imagine, right,
36:52
Because you have to have a lot, you have to be able to adapt to,
36:56
you have to have the potential response to a lot of different
36:59
scenarios and they all have to be pre.
37:02
I mean, that's The thing is. It's there's, you know, there's,
37:04
there's like, you know, giant games like, you know, like.
37:10
Like even the Mario theme song is is classic or whatever.
37:14
Yeah, but I mean. Like then there's also like
37:16
these, you know, portable, you know, downloadable games that
37:20
are made in somebody's garage, you know?
37:23
And. It yeah, it's still like, you
37:24
know, it's, it's a different thing of, of scope, but you
37:28
know, but the same philosophy on how you craft it.
37:33
I see, I see, I see. And Which one do you enjoy the
37:36
most working with? Working on.
37:39
I like. Films you like films I.
37:41
Like films. It's yeah, where I came up,
37:44
where I grew up, you know? Yeah, so cool.
37:47
So you get a script and in the script it has, you know, all the
37:51
lines, it's got the dialogue. And then it does it usually say
37:54
in the script, you know, in the scene instructions or whatever
37:57
it's called, you know, XY and Z song begins to play or.
38:02
Sometimes, I mean, like with with Tyler Perry, he'll
38:05
sometimes put in songs in the script.
38:08
And because he is the writer, the director and the producer
38:12
and the star, those will probably stay, right.
38:15
In other cases, when you're doing that, the writer sells the
38:19
script, hands it off, it says, you know, the band starts to
38:22
perform Stairway to Heaven and then the producer sees that and
38:26
goes, oh, no, they don't. They're not paying for a
38:29
Stairway to Heaven. And so it's gone.
38:31
You know, it could be written into the script, but again,
38:34
those are just like, you know, that kind of stuff is just a
38:36
rough guide because when it gets into production, you know, even
38:41
if somebody's singing fly, fly me to the moon in, in the in the
38:44
script, the director goes, I hate that song.
38:47
I want them to be singing, you know, something totally
38:49
different. And then, OK, they're singing
38:51
something totally different. Or if like it's written in like
38:53
the the end titles role and then you hear, you know, ACDC and
38:58
then the director's like, no, that's not what I want.
39:02
I want it to be score. And so now it's score.
39:05
So it could be written in there, but it doesn't mean that it's,
39:07
it's totally, absolutely set in stone.
39:10
Like my obligation is to then, you know, give recommendations
39:14
and say if you use Stairway to Heaven, it's going to be 7
39:18
figures. And if you're ready to pay for
39:19
that, I'll go and secure those rights for you.
39:21
Or try, you know, yeah. But so that would be like, you
39:27
know, pre production, try and get those rights.
39:29
What it says in the script, it'd be literal about it.
39:31
But also be smart and give recommendations saying this is
39:34
going to be really expensive. Here's some other options
39:37
recommended if you like Led Zeppelin kind of stuff.
39:40
Yeah, I gotcha. I gotcha.
39:42
And how much what you recommended, you recommended
39:45
similar types of, by the way, it's kind of fun.
39:46
I feel like it's like sharing a song with a friend and like, Oh
39:49
yeah, if you like this, I'll turn you on to that, you know?
39:51
That's our job. It's like who's the cheap
39:53
version of this? It's really cool.
39:56
And by the way, there are a lot of them out there.
39:57
I've noticed at least, you know, like all my friends, I, I listen
40:01
to a lot of different genres of music and all my friends and I
40:03
have like different friends compartmentalised for each
40:05
genre. And you know, and each time I'll
40:08
show them something new, they'll come back with something similar
40:11
or better within minutes that I've never heard of.
40:14
And I just can't, I, I, it's hard to keep track of
40:16
everything, you know, I mean, it's really, really cool.
40:20
So you said that you got to go into the in person?
40:24
Industry a lot in person entertainment a lot or events
40:28
rather. I'm sorry, in person livestock,
40:31
yes. Has that rebounded?
40:34
Is that industry kind of gone? Is that back?
40:36
Not at all. I mean it's.
40:38
Different, it's different. I think that, you know, with
40:41
streaming and everything that being so readily available and
40:45
it's and it seems so, you know, it's so cheap to just stream a
40:49
song and listen to it. That you.
40:51
Know live is is very vibrant you know it's it's it's it's come
40:55
back in a lot of ways that's why you know like vinyl is come back
40:58
it's. Because.
40:59
You want something that has that has value, you know, and, and
41:02
experience is something that's going to have value, a live kind
41:05
of event and stuff like that. It's not, it's not perfect.
41:07
The industry is not, you know, always going to be like, you
41:11
know, blowing up, but it's it is one something that is still like
41:14
actually I think has more value now.
41:17
And so, you know, people want an experience, they want to hold
41:20
the physical thing. They don't.
41:22
Want to just? Be like, Oh yeah, that song,
41:24
Here you go. Boom, here it is.
41:26
I mean, like when I grew up, sorry.
41:30
I used to call up KXOU was the local college radio station.
41:35
And when I was in, in junior high and high school, we'd stay
41:39
up until midnight on a Saturday. And Stella on straight pop with
41:47
straight pop was the DJ then. And she still is.
41:51
And she would play all the punk rock stuff.
41:54
And so we you could call her, you'd physically just pick up
41:57
the phone, call Stella and be like, Stella, can you play TV
42:01
Party by Black Flag? And she's like, yeah, sure.
42:03
Hold on a second. Talk to you.
42:04
Later, Joel, you know, with our tape recorder, you know, I'm
42:08
play, record, pause, and when it comes on, we'd take the pause
42:11
button off and we'd record it. It's so experience and it was.
42:15
Because we didn't have digital, we didn't have things that this
42:18
and I couldn't afford to go out and buy all the records so.
42:22
I had one of my buddies from college and my former roommate
42:25
Sam, who actually, he moved me to Seattle.
42:28
He's a Brewer, but he's also a musician, a beer Brewer rather.
42:31
And, and he used to run the radio station in Binghamton,
42:36
upstate New York for the college.
42:38
And I'd TuneIn from wherever I was, you know, whenever his, it
42:42
was his hour and I'd always give him a call and I'd always, you
42:45
know, recommend a couple of songs and he'd always laugh and
42:48
you know, and then, you know, it would be different time slots,
42:50
you know, so like 1 semester when he first started, he had
42:53
like the three to three to four, 3 to 5:00 AM slot.
42:57
And you would be coming back from a party and like, we'd just
43:00
see him getting up and getting ready to get out of the, you
43:03
know, walk out of his apartment. And it was, and he had a host
43:06
room of records. And he would, and I'd ask him
43:08
about the song, he'd go to the room and he'd pick out the
43:11
record and pop it on. And he invited me to a couple of
43:15
the shows and I came down and it's, it's, it's like a music,
43:18
it's a music junkie heaven. It's so cool.
43:20
It's so much fun to be in those kind of environments.
43:23
I tell you the the, the Loyola Marymount station because it's,
43:27
it's, it's not an algorithm. It's not going to play me what I
43:30
want to hear it's. Going to play.
43:31
Whatever these people play, you know, like I can't control it
43:34
and I'll be experiencing something new.
43:36
And I listen to KZSC up in Santa Cruz.
43:39
I listen to that online. I listen to like tons of like
43:42
college radio stations because I always hear something that I
43:45
didn't expect or didn't know about or whatever.
43:48
And it's but I get so much of my inspiration from that still.
43:52
I was going to say how much? What do you what do you notice
43:54
about music today versus music while you're growing up?
43:57
I guess you listened to punk rock growing up, but everything.
44:00
But yeah, everything. So what do you think of music
44:02
today? That was.
44:03
My mainstay I was, I was a punk kid here in LA.
44:05
But music today versus it's easier to make.
44:12
And so. There's like very low threshold
44:15
to be able to create music. Now people just get out their
44:18
garage band and make it, you know, but that means that
44:21
there's it's just flooded with stuff on on online and stuff
44:25
like that. So it's, it's kind of hard to
44:27
filter through and kind of find something that's a gem.
44:30
I that's why I listen to like the radio.
44:32
That's why I like, I talk to friends about what it is so that
44:36
I don't have to sit there and, and be flooded with because I
44:38
get, I get, I get so many emails every morning I wake up and
44:43
literally I've got emails from every single artist that you can
44:46
imagine of like listen to this. And by and large, unless it's
44:50
like personalized to me and knows they know what I'm working
44:54
on, I spend my morning just going delete, delete, delete,
44:57
delete. Oh my man, listen to this stuff.
44:59
Yeah, because you don't. Yeah, it's.
45:01
Like I have to just get through and delete all the stuff unless
45:04
somebody is like, Oh my God, I love Beauty in Black.
45:06
And yeah, I know your season 3 is going to come up.
45:09
This would be great. I'm a Chicago area hip hop
45:11
artist and blah, blah, blah. And I'm like, yes, I will
45:13
listen. To that right, right, right.
45:15
So you so, so you got to have some kind of something that
45:17
makes you stand out and also relevant to the projects you're
45:21
working on if if you're trying to get your attention.
45:23
Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's a e-mail.
45:26
First of all, sorry. Don't call me dear music
45:28
supervisor. Right, yeah, I've got a couple
45:34
of those emails also, like dear come together podcasts and I'm
45:36
like yes, my name is all over the website.
45:39
You couldn't take 5 minutes to figure out you know what my
45:41
first name is, then you know, whatever the.
45:43
Ones the emails that are like dear Joel.
45:46
I really loved episode one O 6 in Beauty and Black where you
45:50
used this song and my song is very similar to that.
45:53
I'm like, oh, OK, OK. You are.
45:56
So talented Joel, the music that you put in your shows blows me
46:00
away every time. It's like you're reading my
46:02
mind. Oh, yeah, Oh, yeah.
46:05
My first podcast that I the way I got my first guest on my
46:09
podcast was sending an e-mail because I, I actually read his
46:12
book, a gentleman named Ben Fritz.
46:15
He wrote a book about Hollywood. He's a Wall Street Journal
46:18
writer for a while and and my first e-mail I sent him was
46:22
introduction from a fan and podcast request, you know, and I
46:24
told him how much I loved his book.
46:25
And the first thing he said to me was compliments.
46:28
We'll get you everywhere. Let's have a talk.
46:29
Let's have a conversation, you know, let's talk about it.
46:31
You got a hold of me too. Yeah, it is to say I, I, I, I,
46:36
I, I'm thinking, listen, this is salesman, you know, I mean,
46:40
being a being a one man show, I'm sure, you know, is, is a lot
46:43
of sales and a lot of relationships and a lot of a lot
46:45
of following up, you know, but it's, but that's actually go,
46:49
you know, full circle back to the live events kind of thing.
46:52
I really feel like that's what the value of it, you know, is.
46:55
And it's hard to kind of put a dollar value on, you know,
46:58
relationships and networking and stuff like that.
47:00
And I know that during COVID, a lot of companies felt like, holy
47:04
cow, look how much money we're saving by not doing corporate
47:06
dinners or not going to drinks anymore as a team and not doing
47:08
this. But then everything kind of felt
47:11
cold and dead, you know, like, you know, and like even this, I
47:14
mean, how much, how much fun would it be if we had, you know,
47:16
if we were able to sit together with a cup of coffee or a beer
47:18
in a studio? And, you know, I mean, this is
47:20
great, you know, but ideally, you know, the ideal world, I'd
47:24
fly you out, have you come down and, you know, and sit down with
47:26
you because that's the ideal experience.
47:28
You know, we're working on it, man.
47:30
Well. I mean, look, I, I mean for, for
47:32
my company, like when COVID hit, I had, you know, another
47:36
supervisor working for me and like 3 coordinators and stuff at
47:40
the time. And we would get together like
47:42
every day and go over stuff. And then COVID and we're all
47:45
apart. And I feel like they're, what I,
47:48
the way I came up to was like, you know, the supervisors and
47:51
the labels and the publishers would all get together and go
47:54
someplace they don't, they would invite us out to see a show and
47:57
we'd get together and get to know each other.
47:59
And that just went out the door. So it's like a lot of the people
48:01
who were working for me at the time did not get the experience
48:04
of, of being able to, to mix it up with the people that we work
48:08
with and get to know each other. And I think the industry really
48:11
suffered because of it. I think that people lost some of
48:14
the big skills and some of the connections that are important
48:17
because my job is so much easier because I'm, you know, work
48:22
friends with so many people. I've.
48:25
Been doing this so long, it's like, you know, it's like I was
48:27
an assistant the same time as the CEO for Warner Chapel was an
48:34
assistant. And so she's a dear friend of
48:35
mine because we went back and we went to shows together and
48:38
stuff. And now she's like big mucky
48:40
muck. And it's the same thing.
48:43
You know, it's like that's how you make these relationships
48:45
where I or I can pick up the phone and get like Doctor Dre's
48:49
lawyer on the phone because I worked with them like, you know,
48:52
20 years ago. And so it was like that.
48:54
Relationship and I always make sure that my, my, that my
49:00
interactions with people are honest and, you know, no games
49:05
and, and, you know, friendly and, and, you know, really like
49:08
to say thank you to people because you never know down the
49:12
road where you're going to need to pick up the phone and ask for
49:14
a favour or something like that. And we do it all.
49:17
The time and it's like, like my, the people who work for me are
49:21
able to do their jobs really well and, you know, do
49:23
clearances and do all that stuff.
49:25
But if something's going a little bit sideways, like we
49:28
just had a clearance for some something from Tupac and it was
49:34
going really slowly, really slowly.
49:36
And we were getting responses because the the state wasn't
49:39
taking it seriously and stuff. And so I got on the phone and I
49:42
said, can you make this a priority?
49:44
And they said, yeah, it was done.
49:47
By the way, a lot of my problems in business, in life, have been
49:52
resolved with a phone call instead of an e-mail or a text.
49:55
So many issues have been resolved by picking up the phone
49:57
and saying, what's the story? Dead skill?
50:00
What's the? Deal.
50:02
Yeah, like the yeah, by the way, I I also hear it because it's
50:05
not it's not entirely pleasant to call someone and say AI need
50:09
something or BI don't have news that you necessarily want to
50:11
hear or maybe I'm bothering you out of the blue or whatever it
50:13
is. Like I, I, I do understand that
50:15
level of it, but well, you know, when I started in sales, I would
50:19
like, I work with my, I, I, it's a family business.
50:21
I work with my dad. I used to literally, we worked 2
50:23
desks apart from one another, you know, across, and every time
50:27
I phoned a ring with a potential customer, I would run around,
50:29
give the phone to my dad and answer the phone for me, you
50:32
know, and, and give it to him. And then eventually I was like,
50:36
eventually I'd realized, what's the worst that can happen?
50:38
I'll just say, I don't know. I'll, I'll find out, I'll get
50:40
your number, I'll call you back, you know, and I started doing
50:42
that and then all of a sudden I realized there's nothing to be
50:46
afraid of, you know, and it took, for it took, it took
50:48
probably a year for me to, you know, really get that skill.
50:50
So I encourage anyone listening or anyone in general to really
50:54
work on that, work on that. Too is that, you know, I'm a big
50:58
fan of fake it till you make it, you know, and say, yes, you
51:00
could do anything and everything like that because that's how I
51:03
got here. Like, like I, you know, you
51:06
know, I didn't have the skill sets in a lot of ways and to get
51:08
jobs and stuff at the same time when I was at at the head of
51:13
music for Trimark when I was first started, I had a year in
51:16
my under my belt of actually doing this industry.
51:18
So I would get on the phone with like the heads of other music
51:22
departments at big studios and be like, can I take it to lunch?
51:25
Because I don't know what the hell I'm doing.
51:26
And I would love to hear it's because none of it's online
51:30
back. Then because there.
51:31
Wasn't that kind of a thing? This was back when we had to fax
51:34
requests and stuff. Sure, high pitched beeps I.
51:40
Mean the relationships that I formed by telling, being honest
51:43
with these, these other heads of studios was great because they
51:47
were like, Oh, yeah, completely. Come on, let's go.
51:49
And I'll, I'll give tell you anything you need to do because
51:51
there's, you know, there's no reason not to in this community
51:54
that I'm in is very much like a generous kind of like, you know,
51:58
it's like if I don't get a gig and I find out that one of my
52:00
peers got the job that I didn't get, I'd be like, oh, good
52:03
choice. That's actually great.
52:05
You know, they're actually wonderful.
52:06
I think that's actually a better choice than than hiring me.
52:09
So it's kind of like that kind of a community is is hard to
52:12
find and I'm really grateful for it.
52:14
Yeah, Yeah, It's a it's, it's, it's really, really cool.
52:17
It's really special. I what do you think that the
52:23
industry has changed so dramatically that you would
52:26
recommend to someone young and starting out in it that they
52:30
would follow the kind of path that you did, which was try to
52:33
get into, you know, a place where as many hats as possible
52:38
be OK with, you know, taking on more responsibilities than you
52:41
thought you signed up for and that'll work out for you.
52:42
Or what kind of direction do you think people need to take these
52:45
days to kind of make it? Really, it's so hard to get into
52:49
the industry. My first instruction is if
52:52
you're at at a university, do internships.
52:56
That's how you start meeting everybody and you Start learning
53:00
the craft, you know. And then when it comes time to,
53:02
when it comes time to find a job, take anything.
53:08
Take anything. Anything.
53:09
Yeah, basically, unless it's like terrible, terrible work and
53:13
terrible work environment. Take anything because you don't
53:16
know what path you're going to go down to.
53:17
And once you have a job, it's easier than to find other
53:21
things, make the connections while you're working and then
53:24
find another job. You know, I mean, I, I, I'm a
53:27
big fan of loyalty and, and sticking with it and everything
53:30
like that. But with like my people, I'm,
53:32
I'm like, if you're finding that you have, are like there's
53:36
opportunities for you, tell me about it first.
53:39
If you're like looking at like going at in studio or something
53:42
like that and like they're courting you, tell me right off
53:44
the bat like #1 be honest with me.
53:47
Don't surprise me about this stuff because in return I will
53:51
give you the best letter of recommendation that you will
53:53
ever, ever get. And I will say I love working
53:56
with this person at my company, but this opportunity of being
54:00
able to go over to the studio and work for you is something
54:02
that I cannot tell them not to take.
54:05
And I. I totally support and that's the
54:07
exchange that we have is that if they need to go somewhere else
54:10
and they have a great opportunity, they tell me early
54:12
and I say, yeah, go, you know, and it's worked out for all of
54:16
us. And so I've got a lot of people
54:17
who used to work for me are up in high level positions.
54:20
So it's like, I don't know what that wasn't what what you asked,
54:24
but. No, it is.
54:25
It's what you would have meant. Take any.
54:27
Job. Take any job because you don't
54:30
know where that's going to lead. And it could lead to your
54:32
because I didn't know I was going to be a music supervisor
54:34
because I didn't know that was a job.
54:36
But then I ended up there and I've been doing it for 30 years.
54:40
So you just don't know where it's going to take you.
54:42
And if you are too picky and finicky and think that you
54:46
should be the head of XYZ right off the bat of the gates, you're
54:49
insane. So.
54:51
Be humble, take whatever position you get.
54:54
Entertainment business is tough. It doesn't always pay the best.
54:58
And I always say that you either got to be dumb or crazy to want
55:01
to do it. Most of them are kind of crazy
55:03
because they love film, television, music, all that
55:06
stuff. And that's what they want to do.
55:08
And so that's, that's, that's it, Go go for it.
55:11
And if you're dumb, OK, go for it too.
55:14
Good luck. Yeah.
55:18
And it's interesting because I only, I always imagined, you
55:22
know, when I said I want to work in Hollywood, I'm like, I got to
55:24
work for Disney, like period. You know, like that's the
55:27
company. But as I like, started diving
55:29
into this, I realized that there's tons of small mom and
55:32
pop businesses, that there's a whole ecosystem of Hollywood or
55:35
entertainment rather that exists when it ended, you know, within
55:39
it of itself. And so, yeah, yeah, I don't.
55:44
Know anybody that woke up like when they were a kid and we're
55:46
like, I want to be a Foley artist.
55:50
I want to do footsteps for elevation, you know, but it's
55:52
like a great job. It's really like everyone of you
55:54
go to these sound stages. I take like my interns when they
55:58
come in, I'm like, we're going to go to the Foley stage because
56:00
it'll blow you away. We go to the Foley stage and
56:02
they've got like 90 different kinds of shoes and broccoli and
56:07
celery to make sounds and like glass to break.
56:10
And it's, it's like that's what they do is they, they make sound
56:13
effects all day long. And I'm like.
56:14
That. So is that stuff usually in
56:15
house or hired out, that kind of stuff?
56:19
There's people who are freelance.
56:21
A lot of it is like, it's at a sound house.
56:23
Like a sound supervisor is going to be like, we'll mix it here
56:25
and we'll, you know, do all the editing here and we'll do our
56:29
Foley here and we'll have like Walla, which is like, you know,
56:32
background people. Like if you're in a restaurant,
56:36
people are there. Literally it's like people in a
56:38
room going, how are you doing? I'm doing fine.
56:40
I'm glad to see you. Like a whole bunch of them all
56:43
at once doing that. And that's a, that's a job.
56:45
Yeah. It's like background Walla, you
56:47
know, it's like, and that all takes place under like, you
56:50
know, usually one like sound supervisor is going to do that
56:53
and take care of all those details.
56:55
And then I'm the music guy, so I'm the enemy.
56:58
So you're the enemy because you're because you're
57:00
contrasting their sounds. Yes.
57:03
That's right, it's. It's, it's, it's music, dialogue
57:06
and effects. Those are the, the three things
57:08
that go into a mix and they're all kind of competing.
57:11
And of course, I'm like maybe turn down some of those effects
57:15
because you can't say turn down the dialogue because dialogue,
57:19
dialogue, all those. Things I I was, I showed my high
57:22
school class, I teach high school English part time.
57:24
And one assign, you know, and one is, yeah, you got to, you
57:28
got to pause it for a minute. I, no, I got, I think I got to
57:30
get going. I think I have something backing
57:32
into this. I didn't know how long this was
57:33
supposed to be. But no problem.
57:34
No problem. OK, well, let's let's call it
57:36
here, Joe. Thank you.
57:38
So. Much if you if you had another
57:40
question, I have time for a second because they're they're
57:41
going to be calling me and that's why I know I have to jump
57:43
but. OK, so I'll cut that part out.
57:46
Well, I didn't even think I had a question.
57:50
I was going to say that I, I, I showed them the the Toy Story
57:55
and I was explaining to them. I was showing them the
57:58
background stuff in the in. I was like everything was CGI.
58:01
It started with a blank movie screen, you know, and sorry,
58:04
blank computer screen. I was like every shadow that you
58:06
see, every ripple, every ray of sunshine that could that you
58:10
know that that's in this shot. You think it's intentional,
58:14
right? It's put there every single time
58:16
that you that you know that you have this background behind me
58:18
and that light bulb is over there and you see the reflection
58:20
off the off the off the window, you know, like that was that was
58:24
black. Yeah, same thing with sound.
58:27
You know, it's like you have production sound that's recorded
58:29
when you shoot it, but almost everything else, including the
58:32
music, is all created intentionally.
58:35
And it's like, we're on the stage and we're like, you know,
58:38
a car peels out in the driveway and you're like, I don't like
58:42
that. Doesn't sound right.
58:43
They're like, oh, let me try another one.
58:44
And you try like all these different cars peeing up, you
58:46
find the right one. Amazing footsteps.
58:52
Footsteps are all created. You know, every time it'll,
58:55
it'll blow you away when you watch movies and you're like,
58:58
like people like talking off screen is all created because
59:01
somebody's like, I need somebody to say this.
59:02
And you're like, OK, there we go.
59:04
Now you got it. So cool.
59:05
So cool. Yeah.
59:06
And then you you hear, you hear $200 million budgets and you're
59:08
like, what could that possibly go to?
59:10
And then you hear, then you think about everything that
59:12
we're talking about and you're like, oh, now I see where it all
59:13
goes to. Makes a ton of sense.
59:16
Joe, I really appreciate your time.
59:18
This is so this is so much fun. This is such a pleasure.
59:20
I'm really so happy you got to connect and thank you so much
59:23
for the opportunity and for being great.
59:25
This is this is awesome conversation.
59:26
I really appreciate it. Well.
59:28
And if you celebrate, which I think you do, have an easy fast.
59:31
Thank you very much. I do and I will I'll do my best
59:33
to at least I'm pretty good about that and and I look to I
59:37
hope I hope to be in touch. This is this is really such a
59:39
pleasure. Thank you so much, Joe.
59:40
Absolutely. You reach out anytime.
59:42
All right, take care. Have a great one.
59:43
Bye. Bye now.
59:44
Bye. Music.