Lol Hammond is a Music Supervisor at Vertigo Films. He explained his career within the film industry and what he is currently working on.
A music supervisor works very closely with the director of a film. They work together on deciding what music cue is needed at certain points in the film and also what genre/mood of music it needs to be. Lol explained the importance of music within film and how it drives the narrative and also how certain scenes can fall flat without it. But, there is a skill on knowing when music is not needed also, as it can make the contents of particular scenes seem too busy. He has worked on variety of low budget projects and high budget projects such as Sky’s new television show ‘Britannia’, which is currently under production and has an estimated cost of £4 million per episode.
He explained the licensing process of using selected music and how he has to have a good relationship with record companies to reach a deal for using their music. Usually when the music is given to the film to be used, more often than not the record companies don’t allow them to chop and rearrange the music.
An interesting aspect of Lol’s work process was how he had to figure out what mood certain scenes were without actually seeing the final cut. He has to look at quick snippets of the scene and look at story boards to determine what music should be used.
Overall, Lol’s lecture was incredibly interesting. It was refreshing to see learn something new in the industry that I haven’t considered before.