Amy Ashworth | Essential Sync Advice

Music supervisor Amy Ashworth is a leading expert in the field of music sync and marrying visual content with audio. 

After stints licensing music for TV and Film at EMI Music Publishing UK and working at Vice.com, Amy is now an independent supervisor with an impressive list of film and TV credits. Her work has included placing music in everything from Channel 4's 'The Circle' to 'Cold Feet' and 'Being Frank: The Chris Sievey Story' documentary.

Amy recently visited ICMP as part of the Careers and Industry Hub's Careers Festival to talk to our students and compiled this list of essential advice:

• Be authentic
• Research online for music supervisors
• Submit mastered music
• Less is more when submitting music
• Include copyright details
• Keep supervisors informed on your projects 
• Join the UK collecting societies 

1. Be authentic

From a drama/comedy perspective the best thing I can advise is to be authentic and write songs you want to write - as opposed to "writing a song for a sad scene with cinematic strings for a film placement".

In drama and comedy I'll go to a great song that exists for real and see if it fits a scene. Also, often the strings/cinematic sounds might come from the score so I might just want a great song.  

2. Research online for music supervisors

IMDB is a great place to find any music supervisors for certain shows. Tunefind might be useful if you want to see the actual music used in a show. 

For example, if your music sounds like a particular artist, then this will help you find out where their music has been used before.

3. Submit mastered music

Generally you want to be sending finished mastered tracks to music supervisors. Time is always tight so we might want to listen to a track and try it in an edit straight away.

4. Less is more when submitting music

I'd say five tracks is a good number to send to a new contact/ supervisor to show your music. If it's for a certain show with a clear genre, then send those tunes first.

You can say you have other genres/include a link but if you want to be considered for a certain show I'd say it's best to be focussed on what you send. Always check that your info is up-to-date and avoid sending music about a show that is already on TV. All the music for this will already have been chosen. 

5. Include copyright details

In any emails always state who owns the rights (e.g. "I own 100% of publishing and master direct" or "my publisher is/.. but I own all recording rights").

Ideally, you should put this in the metadata of the file too (mp3 and AIFF. As far as I know, you can't do this with Wavs).

6. Keep supervisors informed on your projects 

It's worth keeping in touch with supervisors with new music/updates. A short email to say you've got a new song out/just been signed/playing Glastonbury will bring you back in mind to them and you never know what they'll be working on when you email. 

7. Join the UK collecting societies 

A little last thing about copyright once your music starts getting picked up:

For UK TV there are PRS/MCPS and PPL blanket agreements in place with BBC/TV CH4 and C5 and Sky which means that if a song gets picked for a show on one of these broadcasters your music needs to be registered with all these societies.

If you're published or on a label they will sort this for you but if you own the rights yourself you would need to join directly (for a small fee). If you're at the stage where TV shows are asking to use your music and you need any advice on joining the societies/further explanation I'm happy to help - just drop me a line via my website below.

Good luck everyone! It's hard to get a sync so don't be downhearted if you don't succeed first time - play the long game and hang in there.

Visit amyashworth.com to find out more.