This week’s guest lecture was with Lol Hammond, who is Music Supervisor at Vertigo Films, and also works on other films and television programmes on a contract basis.

Lol’s lecture was quite openly structured, and I felt able to ask questions whenever I had them. He began by talking about his life, and how he had come to do the work he does currently, and then showed us his IMDB page, and a few of the more well known films he had worked on. He’s worked on a wide range of projects, with budgets ranging from £60,000 and lower all the way up to Britannia, Sky’s new Television Series, with an approximate budget of £4 million per episode. He then talked a little about the responsibilities a Music Supervisor had, and the skills necessary to do the job well. Essentially, the Music Supervisor sources all of the music used in a project, including original soundtrack and licensed songs as well. They must also provide suggestions regarding the composer of the project. I found it particular interesting thinking about how Lol was able to think of tracks and temp tracks without the finished edit available. Quite often he would have to go off of scripts and storyboards, which gave me a better understanding of how difficult it must be to think of suitable music for a scene.

David then asked Lol to go through the process of purchasing licenses for music, and Lol essentially said that he would always go to the record company first, then the publisher if necessary, in order to haggle over the price of tracks. Often the artist is unaware of their music being used in films and TV, until the project is made publicly available. The price is often extremely negotiable, and Lol spoke about a time when the Director of a film wanted to use a Coldplay song, which would have cost £500,000. However, the band themselves heard about the film and liked the idea and the director so much, that the actual price they paid for the track in the end was around £5,000. Once tracks are provided, filmmakers aren’t generally able to chop up and re-arrange any elements without extra permissions.

Finally, he talked about the problems that can occur when working with Directors and Composers. Quite often a Director will, when listening to a new composition, deride it and utterly reject it, and Lol said that his job also means he has to mediate these discussions, making sure that both parties don’t lose their heads and the work does get done. He quipped that a degree in Psychology would be invaluable if working as a Music Supervisor. His main two points when working on these projects are: Make sure you can work to a deadline; and don’t be too precious. He then took a few questions, and I asked him whether he could recommend any films with a particularly well-made score. Lol praised Clint Mansell, who has composed all of Darren Aronofsky’s films, including Requiem For A Dream and Black Swan, as well as the film High-Rise by Ben Wheatley.