Recording - June 2017 - 55

JUNE 2017
TAXI Road Rally 2016

Picking and Placing Instrumental Cues in Reality TV, Part Two
Michael Laskow, Moderator
PANELISTS

Jonathan Weiss
David McIntosh
Jonathan Weiss is a Los Angeles-based music
supervisor and music producer for film and
television. He was Music Supervisor for over
130 episodes of the MTV series, The Real
World/Road Rules, as well as for two seasons of
the E! Entertainment series, I Am Cait. Jonathan
also supervised music for over 60 episodes of
Keeping Up With the Kardashians on E! Entertainment, the debut season, Motor City Masters
on Tru TV, and Love Games for the Oxygen
Channel. Other music supervision credits
include The Weinstein Company feature film
documentary and PBS's American Masters
Salinger, Interscope Presents The Next Episode for
Showtime Entertainment, The Education of Max
Bickford for CBS, U.C. Undercover for NBC,
Celebrity Undercover for MTV, and the Warner
Bros. Pictures theatrical release, The Big Tease.
Jonathan has also worked in A&R for Capitol
Records and Universal Music Publishing, as
well as TAXI.
David McIntosh is a Reality TV Editor with
Bunim-Murray Productions. Some of his credits include, Keeping Up With the Kardashians, E!
Entertainment, Born This Way, A&E Networks,
Rivals III, The Challenge Bloodlines, I Am Cait,
Total Divas, Million Dollar Maze Runner, and
MTV, just to name a few.
How important are descriptive cue titles that telegraph what the music is going to sound like to
some extent? Something like Spooky Night in the
Pumpkin Patch. Is that helpful in speeding up your
workflow?
Jon: Yeah, it is. I think it's important. It's an important part of marketing your music. When I'm
working on production music library stuff [for a
catalog I own], 80% of the time, I'm coming up with
the titles because I get a lot of cues with titles like,
"Hip-hop cue #1," or "Electro-tension #2." So, I try

Dave McIntosh (left) and Jonathan Weiss on stage during their interview at TAXI's 2016 Road Rally.

to rename them whatever I think is going to get the
most attention from an editor... something that's
going to match the intensity of the cue, or match
the feel of the cue. It's important to take the time
and get it right.

first thing coming back from commercial is action
and dialogue]. You'll see that there's a little bit less
music. We play it, the dialogue has to get it, but
then the music will highlight the scene. [He plays the
scene for the audience.]

Taking off your MTV or music supe hat, and
putting on your TAXI A&R team hat for a moment,
is it a fair statement to say that probably 10 or
15% of the cues that come in from our members
will have a title like, "Halloween cue #1"?
Jon: Yeah. Sometimes it would be specific to the
listing, like if the listing asks for Electro Tension
and I'll see submissions titled, "Electro-tension #1."
If it gets forwarded, then it will end up inevitably in
a music supervisor's hands, and it's better to just
come up with a title that's more evocative of the cue
and more exciting.

All right, so you're watching this. How many people learned something about peaches and
nectarines [the topic of the dialogue]? How many
people could tell me what the genre of the music
was under that scene? The best education you can
give yourself as a musician who is pitching cues, is
to learn to not pay attention to the dialogue!
Watch scenes like that and make a note on a legal
pad at night: What was going on there? There was
a little tension between them, and there was a
tension cue in there to support that mood.

OK, getting back to the video of the show now. So
we're cutting the show. You want to show us some
more stuff?
Dave: Kardashians. This one just aired about four
weeks ago. This is gonna go through an act-in [the

Yesterday, we were talking with [music supervisor]
Frank Palazzolo in this ballroom, and he pointed
out that in a scene we were watching, "All you
could hear really was the bass and a little rhythm."
So, in the end, it's not about being a brilliant comContinued on page 56
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