What You Need to Know About Securing Music Rights

Katy McIlvaine served as music supervisor on Sam and Max Eggers’ directorial debut, The Front Room, a new horror film based on Susan Hill's short story of the same name.

The movie finds expectant mother Belinda (Brandy) dealing with her husband's pushy, religious, racist stepmother Solange (Kathryn Hunter), who moves into their home after losing her husband. Belinda, an academic who doesn't have much patience for these extreme beliefs, obviously clashes with the woman from the start.

With the film's focus on Solange's old-fashioned thinking, the soundtrack skews toward traditional songs, gospel featuring heavily. It was McIlvaine's job to find music that worked, and also to make sure they were cleared to use it in the release.

We hopped on Zoom to chat with her about her work on the movie, the challenges of music clearance, and what her best advice to indie filmmakers is.

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Editor's note: The following interview has been edited for length and clarity.

No Film School: I want to start with a primer for our readers on what your position is, and how it's collaborative with the director and the whole team.

Katy McIlvaine: The position of music supervision can be anything that's music-related. We have to be ready to step in on anything music-related that's needed. So whether it's finding musicians for on camera, trying to help find composers, or working with preexisting music and working to clear the copyrights, which was a lot of what I did on this project.

There were "needle drops," as we call them, and that's where you come in and take a look at what the creative needs are and what the budgetary needs are, and try to find some great options with the directors and maybe an editor, and try and find the best song for the spot.

NFS: If I'm remembering correctly, the movie starts with Mozart, and it's a weird version of Mozart. It's a theremin or something.

McIlvaine: This was an interesting one. The directors, Sam and Max [Eggers], really loved theremin for this whole project. That was one of the last songs that was actually pulled.

They came in with this idea, and we poked around and had to pair a few things. This orchestral track was something that they had heard, and we were able to license. And then Marcelo [Zarvos], the brilliant composer, put that theremin line in over it to tie that in with the rest of the sounds that you hear throughout the rest of the film.

NFS: I would love to have that just to listen to, but it sounds like it's not available.

McIlvaine: That's where some of the rights come in, because it's these two separate things. The licensers on the orchestral piece were aware of us putting that theremin line in over it, but then it becomes this new thing. And so I can point you towards the license cue, but it won't have Marcelo's theremin, and then the theremin on its own isn't the same.

The Front RoomA24

NFS: A lot of times writers will put in music cues in a script. What did that look like here?

McIlvaine: They brought me on during script stages because there were some songs that were scripted. It did change throughout the course of making the film, but the one thing that stuck was the "Hold Fast to the Right" song. That was scripted, but they didn't have a version picked out. They wanted to be able to play it on set.

So we were working to find that recording years ago when we first looked at the script, when they were getting ready to shoot. That was the first one that we picked and locked in, and that helped set the tone as well.

It's used three times in the film in various places because they really loved the line of, "kneel down by the side of your mother," because the film is so much about motherhood. They knew that they wanted a version of that song to be in it, and they stuck with that throughout.

NFS: A lot of these songs are older, more churchy songs. So what did securing those rights look like?

McIlvaine: That was so different. When you get into older stuff, it's always a mystery as to what you're going to find. There's one use of Dottie West's "I Believe," and that was a song that in the day was popularized by Elvis. They were used to this song being a really big deal, and there were lots of rights and approvals that were needed because it had been so much of a big deal in its heyday. There were lots of publishers and lots of rights and clearances needed.

And then on the flip side, something like the "Hold Fast to the Right"—that was something that I found on iTunes, and we just reached out. It was this tiny little label. ... They have people who represent the legal side of things, but it's not like they're out there pitching it, and the underlying composition is public domain.

So that was a vastly different situation than something like "I Believe." That's where it really is just a mystery. You can cull songs out, but until you really start digging into who the copyright holders are and what the history of the songs are, you don't always know what you're going to find.

Katy McIlvaine with the Eggers Brothers
Provided

NFS: Is it easier for a filmmaker if they find a song that is public domain?

McIlvaine: Not really! That can be tricky with public domain. You really want to make sure that that version isn't arranged by somebody who is then claiming the copyright version for that arrangement.

We have to find the people who own the recording and get information from them and verify whether or not their recording has any copyrighted arrangement. And if not, then take it to the legal team and say, "This is the sheet music that I had found for the public domain." I was working a lot with lawyers to verify that this is legitimately public domain and we can move forward without having to track somebody down. And there were some things that the lawyers said, "Yep, looks good."

There was a song that we were looking into, and we were talking to the daughter of the woman who had originally recorded it. The daughter, you could tell, didn't really fully understand the music clearance process. And so her answers were a little back and forth and a little ambiguous, and the lawyer just said, "No, you cannot move forward with that version." So it just depends on how familiar people are and how closely they kept track of where those rights are.

NFS: I know that it is such a sticking point, even if you're doing a short film and you want to throw it on YouTube, and it's like, "Nope, copyright strike."

McIlvaine: Yeah, it's very tricky. "I know this is murky, but I don't really know how to proceed so that it's clear." Every song is a different situation.

NFS: What are some other challenges in your field right now? I know that AI is obviously on a lot of filmmakers' minds.

McIlvaine: I think for music supervisors, we've talked about it at the conferences a couple of times now, and there are a couple sides of it.

On the one hand, we've seen the fees for smaller, independent musicians pretty much bottoming out already. When people stopped paying to buy music, people kind of took the whole value of everything down with it. So it's already a struggle, and you really are already looking to find people who value the soul behind the song and what a human puts into it.

You can get cheap alternatives with some online production libraries already, and do a subscription model if you're a creator of some sort. So it's already a struggle to say, "Hey, this was made by somebody who really cares about the song, and they want to have maybe a career, maybe just enough to recoup what it costs to make the album, but you should pay them for this."

So in that respect, I feel like we're already battling that, trying to convince people that these songs that were made with heart by someone are worth paying for.

Then on the flip side, as a music supervisor, there are definitely going to be demands for songs made by AI, and so we still do have to figure out how to clear those. I don't have any titles off the top of my head, but I know there are some that are just hilarious and comedically have gone viral, and so there's going to be somebody at some point who wants to put that in their film, and we're going to have to figure out what the licensing situation is. Is it owned by the company, and how do we contact that AI company? It's coming, it's going to get interesting.

The Front RoomA24

NFS: I've heard those songs.

McIlvaine: That's the thing is, it's unavoidable. It's going to seep into pop culture in a way that people are going to eventually want to incorporate it into a film. Certainly none of the people I work with are writing those kinds of songs, so I don't think they're feeling like they've had their money snatched away from them.

I've listened to podcasts where they A/B an original song from the '60s with an AI-generated version, and it's close. The RIAA [Recording Industry Association of America] is taking them to court. ... Somebody with a much higher pay grade than me is figuring that out, and we will abide by whatever rules they come to in their agreement.

NFS: We've talked about challenges. Is there a moment on the film that you're most proud of?

McIlvaine: I'm really proud of the "This Little Light of Mine" montage, which does have a lot of poop in it. But I loved that song, and we tried it in a couple of different places, and it didn't clear in time.

That was actually a song that Max and Sam came to me with, and I was in the process of trying to find the clearance parties for it and just kept coming up with—not quite nothing.

A website that had a contact form, but the contact form never responded. And so I was like, somebody's out there, but I cannot find them. We were looking at it for a particular spot that was going to be on camera, and we just didn't get it cleared in time. So that was a bummer. And by that time, I had found the heir to the arranger, and the guy in the band who created the recording. He had pointed me in the direction, and we were in touch with the label and we were in touch with him, and we were so close, we just didn't have that official paper trail signing off on it in time.

And so that involvement stayed in the back of my mind because I appreciated how hard the son had worked. When it came time to look for a song in that spot, I also really wanted to try to bring a Black woman's voice into that scene that was so predominantly on Belinda and her experience. It just felt like "This Little Light of Mine," that had all of these civil rights connotations that it brought along with it, fit really well. It was the tone that they were looking for. That was exciting to have that work and have everybody think it was the right fit in the end.

NFS: Do you have any other advice for indie filmmakers and how they should approach this process?

McIlvaine: My number-one advice is that there are two sides of the song. There's a recording and underlying composition, and I get a lot of people who are like, "Oh, I cleared it," and they only cleared it with one party, and that's when they're coming to me having trouble.

I would definitely say that there are a lot of people out there who are trying to be music supervisors, and looking for somebody to work with doesn't have to be cost-prohibitive. If they need help navigating the clearance side, it's a great opportunity for somebody who wants to grow their music supervision credits to make a new contact. Then that person who's looking to grow in music supervision probably knows somebody else in the industry and can call in a favor and make sure that it's all done and everything because it is one of those legal things that can get your video pulled down off YouTube or ineligible for the festival.

It is one of those things that has to be done well. I know the process can be overwhelming, but there are people out there like me who absolutely love it. I love doing it. I think it's so fun. I think it's investigating. I feel like I'm Nancy Drew, and I'm finding these people.

I think that's my biggest advice, pull somebody else in who you can delegate this to—and early. It can happen in the script stages because especially if you have something written in and you don't realize what that process is going to be like, the last thing you want to do is shoot something to picture and not have vetted it yet. So find somebody. There are all sorts of people out there, and they can help you navigate it if it's too much, but find somebody and find somebody early.

NFS: Is there anything else that you wanted to add?

McIlvaine: I'd just like to say it was a great experience working with Sam and Max and Justin Scutieri, the post supervisor. He's the one who brought me onto the project, and I'm grateful for him for always coming back to me to work on more stuff with them.