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Merrill, now a partner in Parker Music Group,
has worked on national advertising
campaigns for Nissan Motor Company and Fox
Television Studios, among others.
She has licensed music for numerous television
shows, including
X-Files, The
Simpsons, Ally McBeal, Law & Order, Will
& Grace, and The Office, as well as for
films, most notably for the
Titanic sound track.
www.musicclearance.com
TECHNICAL
MUSIC EDITOR
JOB OVERVIEW
A music editor coordinates the technical
aspects of film scoring between the pro-
duction company and the composer.
PREREQUISITES
To succeed, you should possess musicality, and
technical knowledge of, and skill
using, music editing equipment; you must be
highly motivated, and have the ability
to deliver on schedule. "Being diplomatic; able
to listen carefully to what people are
trying to communicate and then fulfilling their
desire without a lot of problems,
guesswork, or questions back and forth. It is
very important to shut off your mind
and listen carefully to what the director is
trying to say to you."
A DAY IN THE LIFE
Music editor Jeff Chabonneau's schedule is
dictated by where he is in the process
of adding music to picture for his current
project. On a film spotting day, he meets in
the studio with the film producers, director,
film editor, and composer. They review
scenes to determine where the music should
start and end, discuss any stylistic con-
cerns, and address any other issues. If there
is a temporary score already in place, they
might discuss whether it works in different
scenes. They talk about specific songs they
want to use and address any synchronization
problems, if there is a live performance.
The director may discuss a statement he wants
to emphasize with music in a particu-
lar scene. "Involvement in the spotting session
varies from film to film and project to
project. Sometimes the composer and the music
editor will spot the film on their
own, and give their notes or ideas to the
producer or the director, although that is
very rare. On the series I work on, which is
the
X-Files, I do all the music spotting
on
my own. I give my notes to the composer and the
producers, and they give me feed-
back. The reason we've done it this way is to
streamline the process, because we don't
have an enormous amount of time to do the
score, and there is a lot of music in the
show. They trust me with knowing, or figuring
out, where to put the music in, and
where to take it out."
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