Image via Indiewire
Of all the things there are to like about Celeste and Jesse Forever—and there are many—the one I liked most when I saw the film a couple weeks ago was the music. There was a vibe to it that felt like some of my favorite house parties from my old life in Los Angeles. And I confess that at least one music choice made me say, “Oh, shit!” as soon as it oozed out of the cinema’s speakers when I sat in a movie theatre in DC this August.
After returning home from the film, I scanned IMDB to learn who should get the props for that. Three names seemed to be taking a bow on my computer screen: Jon Hafter, the film’s music supervisor, and Sunny Levine and Zach Cowie, the gentlemen who created the musical palate for the film, including some of its original music.
I emailed Jon to ask him a couple questions about his work on Celeste and Jesse Forever. He kindly obliged and invited Zach to share some insights. Following is our brief conversation:
I want to start with a couple of elementary questions about your discipline, Jon. What exactly is the role of a music supervisor? And who is a music supervisor most likely to take direction from?
JON: The definition of the role of music supervisor is pretty flexible. There’s a wide range of responsibilities tied to the job aside from picking songs; one has to have the ability to negotiate the deals, understand music rights, licensing issues and have some connections in the clearance world (as opposed to managers or A&R people who focus on creative issues). They also have to, in many cases, handle the often voluminous paperwork attached to licensing: quote requests, confirm letters, licenses to masters, licenses to publishers, sample clearances, etc. A lot of times the studios handle the paperwork but the supervisor still needs to be on top of what’s going on there and make sure everything is in order. They also have to make sure the music is properly delivered to the sound stages for mixing. Then there’s the more creative idea of making suggestions to the filmmakers or producers about what goes where or coaxing them into some alternative or helping them to weigh options.
Some music supervisors are curators, people who, at best, understand genres, time periods or pop culture enough to bring some kind of expert advice to a project, and, at worst, that manifests itself in DJ hobbyists or friends of filmmakers or producers that happen to have big record collections or “like music.” Sometimes the filmmaker knows what they want, or in the case of another film I worked on, Scratch, the music is already in the film and being manipulated on camera so we’ve got to be creative, connected and make those deals work.
On Celeste and Jesse, I actually came on after the first cut of the film, so most of the music was already there and my job was to make the budget work, handle all the clearance issues and make creative suggestions where we had to change out songs or needed something additional. The best supervisors are the ones who can juggle all the creative and business aspects of the jobs as well as keep the directors, producers, etc happy and engaged. And that leads to your second question, which is that there are a lot of cooks in the kitchen when it comes to music, and usually the supervisor is balancing between the producers and the filmmakers.
What’s the standard relationship between the work of a music supervisor and the work of a film’s composer?
JON: That’s a case-by-case thing. Some supervisors work with certain composers all the time, and agents package both together where they can. But a lot of the time they are on separate but converging paths. While the composer’s work falls under the oversight of the supervisor, a lot of time, the composer is working totally separate from the music supervisor and the two don’t come together until the mixing of the film’s elements begin. There are certainly times where the debate over where to use score and where source can work gets heated, and we can go off on a whole tangent here on the work of a music editor on a film, but most of the time the music supervisor’s job is to make sure the score is delivered by the composer, to facilitate any additional musical elements the composer may not have time or connection to, and to keep an open ear for how things are fitting together.
Sometimes the film’s budget can dictate that additional score might be needed to fill in slots where a source cue might not fit or the film can’t afford a cue or a cue isn’t crucial enough to license something. Sometimes the composer might also have a creative desire to score something where source might be sitting and the supervisor will help massage that potential conflict. Sunny’s work was mostly done by the time I came aboard so I was there more on a technical level for him. Zach’s work with Sunny was also to bounce score/source ideas off each other but Sunny was the composer here.
One of the first sounds we hear in Celeste and Jesse are some chords that a lot of folks would recognize as the opening notes of Big Pun and Joe’s “Still Not a Player.” Of course, it’s not that song. Instead, we hear Brenda Russell’s “Little Bit of Love.” What were you hoping to accomplish by opening the film with a song that contains such a classic break?
JON: Both Sunny and Rashida grew up with this song playing in their homes. Brenda is Sunny’s godmother, and it’s also a great sample in the Big Pun song so when they were compiling songs they wanted to use, this one came up and it just fit perfectly for the segment in the film.
“Little Bit of Love” is not the only break featured in the film. In one scene, we hear characters singing Biz Markie’s “Just a Friend” and later we hear Freddie Scott’s “You Got What I Need.” Is there a business reason for going with the original song instead of the more familiar song that sampled it?
JON: The presence of both in the film created a bit of a challenge for us for several reasons but one music supervisor issue of note was the responsibility to make sure the actual words sung in the film were attributed to the right entity. Is it all the Biz? Or is some of it “Just A Friend” and some “You Got What I Need?” You need to know to ask those questions.
ZACH: Sunny and I had started messing around on projects together shortly before he was asked if he’d be interested in contributing musically to C&J. I got lucky and Sunny brought me along to help round out the source side of the film’s musical world. We saw a rough cut at Rashida’s and went back to the studio to start putting together a vibes mixtape of ideas to help get everyone on the same page. (Top fact: a large percentage of jams in the final cut appeared on that initial mix.) Most folks on the production are hip hop heads (Sunny and myself included), and we’re also huge record nerds…so the idea of using lesser known originals that most of the world knows through samples just made sense to all of us as a fresh way to satisfy everyone involved.
P.S. You forgot to mention our use of “Open Your Eyes” by Bobby Caldwell, which Dilla flipped for Common’s “The Light.” J Dilla is one of my heroes so that little nod was a pretty important one for me.
Overall, I felt like the music in the film was very LA-centric. Or a certain kind of LA-centric. Like, if you’ve been in LA at any point in the last 10-12 years and you’ve attended a party where Garth Trinidad, J-Logic or Dam Funk was spinning, the vibe you’d get from those parties is what you get in the film. Were the music choices intended as a tribute to that sub-culture within the city?
ZACH: In my other life, I’m a DJ that goes by the name of Turquoise Wisdom, and I’ve been a resident DJ on dublab.com since moving to LA 6 years ago, which has thrown me straight into the mix alongside fine folks like those you’ve mentioned above. Sunny has also been an active contributor to many of the realms suggested above—long before I showed up in this city! At this point, I think we’d both have to try pretty hard to not instinctively represent LA.
With Rashida Jones as writer, producer and lead actor and Sunny helping to create original music for the film, your work is a collaboration with one of Quincy Jones’ kids and one of his grandkids. Was he involved with the film at all? Did you draw any inspiration from his work?
JON: Aside from having met him through Rashida, we didn’t have any creative discussions with him and we got no love from the label or publisher when we tried to license an older song of his from another film.
It’s a really relevant and interesting situation that we often confront. Even though the film might have a personal relationship with a performer or writer, often the label or publisher has fee structures they’re unwilling to bend. We could have probably gotten Quincy to make some calls but the use ultimately didn’t warrant that kind of attention.
And since Rashida’s his daughter, Sonny’s his grandson and there’s some other family ties implied in the musical choices, he’s well represented at a higher creative/personal level.
Of the music that didn’t make the final cut of the film, which do you regret not including? And which are you relieved didn’t make it?
JON: It’s really hard to please everyone, and with our modest budget it was impossible to have all the music they wanted in the final mix. I was able to get some great deals for them, and we called in a lot of favors from friends and family. I leaned a lot on Zach and Sunny, to finesse some of the fees where they knew someone in the food chain.
ZACH: I feel like every single person involved called in a favor (or five) to get what you’re hearing up on that screen! I was happy to do whatever I could to help the cause by calling upon anything from my background in the record business. I spent 10 years working at four different labels and toured with a ton of bands all over the world either as a tour manager or a DJ.
JON: Some of the songs that were really expensive were also, from my perch, not necessary. A song that you hear in the edit bay and fall in love with gets mixed so far down in the final that no one could hear it clearly over dialogue etc. or the uses were so short that the use was just not worth the fee. It’s a great feeling to suggest a replacement track and see the scene pop in a totally different way and make everyone happy with the new cue.
