SING OUT 6: Play Your Song for Music Supervisors

Steve Gizicki has the world singing—and smiling—again with his work on Damien Chazelle’s technicolor musical La La Land. Gizicki oversaw the creation and delivery of all things musical on the film, which included the intensive rehearsal and training required for Emma Stone and Ryan Gosling. He produced the soundtrack, which is riding high on the charts. The film’s music garnered two Academy Awards – for score and original song. Gizicki’s work on La La Land also earned him a Guild of Music Supervisor award for Best Music Supervision For Film. He also spent five years as head of the music department at George Lucas’ dream factory, Lucasfilm, where he worked closely with his childhood hero overseeing the filmmaker’s aerial war movie Red Tails and the animated spectacle Strange Magic, as well as several television series in the expanding Star Wars universe—from Clone Wars to Rebels. He also collaborated with the new queen of Star Wars, Lucasfilm president Kathleen Kennedy.
One of Gizicki’s steadiest relationships since he began music supervising nearly two decades ago has been with Walt Disney Animation, where he helped steer the ongoing adventures of several of the studio’s most beloved features, including Mulan 2, Tarzan 2, The Little Mermaid: Ariel’s Beginning, and Bambi II.
The groundwork for it all was laid in Gizicki’s long, vibrant experience as an executive in the record industry. Working with legendary artists like David Bowie, Lenny Kravitz, and the Rolling Stones as a project manager for Virgin Records America, as well as managing soundtrack albums for PolyGram Records, tuned his ears and cultivated relationships that have made for killer music supervising instincts.
Of his approach to music supervision, he says: “It’s all about the story. It’s all about serving the needs of the film. It can be the best song in the world, but if it’s not right for the story, then out it goes. For me, the key is to understand the vision of the director, and to be able to put that vision up on screen.”

Music preferences: “I usually do original musicals, but I’m open to hearing everything.” If you write musicals, this might be a good time to play something you’ve got.

Yvette Metoyer grew up in Southern California and spent countless hours scoring life’s memories by making mixtapes (yes, tapes) for her high school and college friends. Inspired by her love of music and TV at an early age, she pursued a career in television production after having graduated from Cal State Long Beach.

After having worked on several successful shows, including the HBO series Big Love, a lengthy WGA writers’ strike shut down all LA productions, and Yvette decided to take a music supervision extension course at UCLA, where she met one of the top music supervisors in the game, Thomas Golubic. A one-year apprenticeship with Thomas’ company SuperMusicVision blossomed into a nearly ten-year working relationship with exciting collaborations on multiple film and TV projects, including the Emmy Award-winning AMC series Breaking Bad, the zombie apocalypse ratings juggernaut The Walking Dead, the delightfully smart and charming Breaking Bad prequel, Better Call Saul, and the exciting new Amazon series Sneaky Pete. Yvette was recently promoted as co-music supervisor on the critically acclaimed AMC series Halt and Catch Fire and the new Hulu series Shut Eye.

Music preferences: “I’m an ‘alt’ girl – alt electronic, alt R&B, alt & indie rock, alt hip-hop and jazz (Alt-J, Sohn, Badbadnotgood, Fink, Meshell Ndegeocello, SiR, Anderson Paak, Nick Hakim, Her, Childish Gambino, Spoon, Bright Light Social Hour). But certainly open to all genres, especially with the wide array of projects running at SuperMusicVision, and the varied genres of music we use.