Recording - February 2013 - 57

FEBRUARY 2013 TAXI Road Rally 2011

Meet the Houlihans, Part 2
Moderated by Michael Laskow
John Houlihan – Music Supervisor and Composer Kevin Houlihan – Composer, Songwriter, Music Supervisor and Coordinator Julie Glaze Houlihan – Music Supervisor, Music Editor Patrick Houlihan – Composer, Music Supervisor, and V.P. of Music at Fox Films It’s really rare to find a family where most of its members are in the music for Film and TV end of the business. The Houlihans are just such a family, and they share their wisdom in this interview from the 2011 TAXI Road Rally. Kevin, as part of our A&R team, you get very handson with TAXI members’ music. Can you tell the audience what metadata is, and why it’s important for them to do it, and get it right? Kevin: It’s basically the tagging of the song once you put it into the digital realm. It includes song titles, the artist’s name, genre; things like contact information. And it’s not always is a standard format. Everybody would think it’s pretty straightforward, but we do get a lot of material that we forward to companies, and it’s missing certain elements that can really get in the way and blow a deal for somebody—especially in the TV world where things happen at an extremely fast pace. If you don’t have an artist’s name [in the digital file], you don’t know who to contact to license it. And if you’ve got five other songs waiting in the wings, and that song, even though it’s the best one for that opportunity, is out the window. So it’s definitely important. A lot of people will send in songs with fragmented titles that say things like, Rough Mix 1. Just stick to the song’s title, the artist’s name, and contact information at the very least, so when we get it into our system, we have everything we need to work with. Just yesterday a friend of mine called me… I was at a conference, and they gave me a memory stick of the new catalog they represent. So they

The Royal Family of music supervisors? John, Julie, a cardboard cutout of Patrick, and Kevin Houlihan pose for a shot after their panel at the 2011 TAXI Road Rally. Patrick was on a family vacation, so he joined the panel via telephone from Martha’s Vineyard, and we used the cardboard cutout to fill his seat on the panel.

called and asked, “Did you listen to that thing?” And I said, “No, but it’s right here.” She said, “Can you tell me, is there metadata on those WAV files?” So I popped it in, and there wasn’t any metadata. It was just the song title, everything else was blank.” “Darn!” Another supervisor told her that she refused to even listen to it and pop it in her computer until it’s redone and sent back with all the metadata. She doesn’t even want to listen. So it’s not thrown out the window. It never gets in the window because it didn’t have good metadata on it! Julie: There are some supervisors who feel very strongly about that. I’ve been on panels… and I’ve heard people say that if they put it in there and you can’t read the information all the way across or there’s no information, they won’t bother even listening. You don’t know when you’re going to use the song. I have this happen all the time. Even CDs, they don’t sticker it when they send it to you. They might send a letter, but I can guarantee you we are not keeping your letter. The letter is going

right in the trash. Put it right on the CD or right in the metadata, because we can’t keep up with all that stuff. I see people that put it on the disc, but then you shove the CD in the player and you have to pull it back out again to see the track list or the contact info. So put it on the CD and on the sleeve or the tray card both! John: I’m not the best myself at opening mail and packages. It always gets stacked up, and I have to deal with a very large volume of it. And we have three boys, and the older two boys I hire for illegal wages to help me open mail. When I taught them the very first time, I said, “OK, you rip it open here and here. And all that paper and those four-color pictures, just take that and put it in the trash, and let’s look at what kind of music it is on the CD, and let’s make a pile.” I heard some oohs and aahs. Tell everybody why you don’t have time to read their life story and look at the color pictures. [laughter] You know what I’d like, though? I’d like to read Continued on page 58
57

Recording - February 2013

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Recording - February 2013