Susan Jacobs: A music supervisor? I would call myself a facilitator for the vision of a director. It's really building the infrastructure and the architecture of the music and the sound, and every director is different.
Cold, Little Heart under – Big Little Lies
Adam Kampe: PERHAPS BEST KNOWN FOR HER RECENT WORK ON THE GRIPPING SEVEN-PART HBO MINISERIES, BIG LITTLE LIES, SUSAN JACOBS HAS FOR YEARS SUPERVISED THE MUSIC FOR DOZENS OF FILMS. SHORTCUTS, BASQUIAT, LITTLE MISS SUNSHINE, JOY, WILD, AND ON AND ON. AS SHE TELLS IT, EVERY PROJECT IS DIFFERENT. IT ALL COMES DOWN TO THE DIRECTOR’S VISION AND THE BUDGET. ARE THEY AFTER IMPOSSIBLY OUT-OF-REACH MUSIC LIKE LED ZEPPELIN, OR AN INSTRUMENTAL SCORE BY AN AFFORDABLE COMPOSER? NO MATTER WHAT THE SITUATION, JACOBS HAS PROVEN GAME FOR THE TASK AT HAND. IN FACT, HER INTEREST IN CURATING MUSIC DATES BACK TO DJING FAMILY DINNERS AS A KID.
Susan Jacobs: Music was always super emotional for me. When I was a child, my parents used to have a very formal dinner, and my favorite part of being a six and seven-year-old was trying to figure out what song I could put on that was going to make them super happy. That was sort of not the Frank Sinatra and not the Mabel Mercer that we would always have, but I would look to see what was going to go, "Oh, wow. We haven't heard James Galway in such a long time." I always wanted that surprise. That part of me has never stopped in terms of the way that I work. I always want to surprise.
I Feel Free – Joy
And then, I ended up in the music industry completely randomly, and the first film that I ever worked on was on the record company side and my first sound track credit is, "She's Gotta Have It." After that, I left, I started working with Hal Willner who's an amazing music producer. He and I had a production company for 10 years together producing all these multi-artist records. So I was very musically off-the-grid, met Hal whose very musically off-the-grid and then Robert Altman called and said, "Do you want to come do Shortcuts?"
Evil California – Shortcuts
That was technically my first music supervision job, but there wasn't a title for it then. By the time I did Kansas City two years later, I was actually titled, and somebody's, "Oh, that's a job." And we did everything live. So, I started in with Bob Altman saying, "Here's the music and we're shooting it all live." And we had a truck outside with 72 tracks recording, and I just knew if we didn't have it together that whole movie set was going to go down.
Soon to be Innocent/Let’s Have Fun - Keep the Lights On
Adam Kampe: SOMETIMES A FILM SOUNDTRACK WILL FEATURE ONE ARTIST, FUNCTIONING LIKE A COMPOSED SCORE. ONE EXAMPLE OF THAT IS THE MUSIC OF THE GRITTY DRAMA KEEP THE LIGHTS ON.
Susan Jacobs: The director Ira Sachs, who I've worked with a lot said, "I'm writing this movie and I want to use Arthur Russell’s music." So, that came from Ira. That's the joy, when somebody brings you music that I thought was so ahead of its time.
Our Last Night Together – Keep the Lights On
And we work as a team with the music editor, Susanna Peric. The music editor becomes a very critical part of cutting in Pro Tools, we can do rough placements, but she'll sit there and be the one weaving and cutting these things into the picture. And I will often work with a music editor in the very same way that a director will work with a film editor. It's, it’s a ballet. We start cutting everything around and then the director will come in and will present ideas. And you try to present four or five ideas to one scene. The most important thing is to never assume that you know.
So, we'll cut something in many different ways.
David O. Russell he's got a very different energy than almost any director I worked with in the fact that he has absolutely no fear.
Things are always changing. You do a lot of work and you scrap it and throw it out going, “Oh, really? We’re not going in blues anymore? We’re going into heavy rock? Okay. Well, I just wasted three weeks listening in the wrong direc-- it’s always a slog. Every movie has a challenge and every composer will tell you and every supervisor will tell you there’s one scene that’s just going to break your back. And, for me, on “American Hustle” it was “White Rabbit.”
White Rabbit – American Hustle
…because David did not want that song in the movie. I put it in with an editor first week going out there as a temp like, “Here, Julian. Put it in. Like Dave”-- he was like, “So when are you getting “White Rabbit” out of my movie?” And we couldn’t get-- the footprint of it was so specific that we couldn’t get it out so I covered it in Arabic. I was like, “Great. I’m going to make this in Arabic, because it was over a scene of De Niro speaking Arabic. And I just knew it would work and he was like, “You’re crazy.” And I hired this great producer Mike Betz and then we did it. It’s a puzzle but you have to like it. You have to love it. I always tell kids, “If you’re not passionate, if you don’t wake up every day going, ‘Yay! I can’t wait to help that director get there,’ this is not the job for you because you’ll wear out and you’ll be really unhappy.”
Television, it’s not as expensive as theatrical stuff but it’s very difficult. Your whole music budget is usually $150/$200,000 and that could be like two songs if they’re too big, and then you’re done. So a lot of it is the art of clearing.
Cold, Little Heart – Big Little Lies
Susan Jacobs: "Big Little Lies" and working with Jean-Marc Vallee is I mean, again, these relationships are so different. He cut many different openings but the one thing that he knew he wanted to do on “Big Little Lies” was have the power of the ocean, which represented the women. And I think that having that male vocal with the images of mostly women and the ocean was very important to him.
Cold, Little Heart – Big Little Lies, up
What makes "Big Little Lies" so special, different, musically, then I think almost anything else? Jean Marc is getting better and better and better at his craft in terms of how he's using music.
He paints with music, like Jackson Pollock, "Oh, I'm going to take three bars of this over here and four bars of that over here." He was a DJ, so his knowledge of music is huge. We just have a beautiful rhythm of working together. So when he starts on a series, and he'll look at the script, then he'll do his pass of the script and then he'll say, "Okay, Sue, we're going to put an iPod here. We're going to put a record player there. We're going to be doing this there.” He's the Fred Astaire and I'm Ginger Rogers. I'm always working backwards off his mind. So he’s planning and thinking, “I need this mood. I need that mood…” He’s color grading all the way through.
September Song – Big Little Lies
They have it in their head one way and have it in your head, we all experiencing film so differently and that's why it's so important to stay open and stay to choice. I always tell people to look at every scene from five or six angles. The idea is to try to get them to think about how the scene should play because there's no right way or wrong way to do anything. You're helping the director have that conversation with themself.
This job is hard but it’s also so incredibly engaging. I mean, when you sit back and go, “Wow, that was tough but look, it’s beautiful. It got finished.
Adam Kampe: THAT WAS MUSIC SUPERVISOR SUSAN JACOBS ON THE INS AND OUTS OF FINDING AND LICENSING THE RIGHT SONG AND MOOD FOR FILM AND TELEVISION. FOR MORE INFO ABOUT THE MUSIC IN THIS PIECE, GOT TO ARTS.GOV AND SEARCH SUSAN JACOBS IN THE ARTWORKS BLOG. FOR THE NATIONAL ENDOWMENT FOR THE ARTS, I’M ADAM KAMPE.
Music Credits:
Excerpts of “Evil California (These Blues)” by Iggy Pop and Terry Adams, and performed by Annie Ross and The Low Note Quintet with Iggy Pop and Anthony Coleman, from the film Shortcuts.
Excerpt of “I Feel Free” written by Jack Bruce and Peter Brown, and performed by Brittany Howard, from the film, Joy.
Excerpts of “Soon to be Innocent/Let’s Have Fun” and “Our Last Night Together” composed and performed by Arthur Russell, from the film, Keep the Lights On.
Excerpt of “White Rabbit” written by Grace Slick and performed by Maysaa Karaa for the film, American Hustle.
Excerpt of “Markham” written and performed by Blake Mills, from the film, Joy. Fox Film Music Corp. (BMI)
Excerpts of “Cold Little Heart” written and performed by Michael Kiwanuka and “September Song” written and performed by Agnes Obel, from the soundtrack to the HBO miniseries, Big Little Lies.
