How do songs end up in TV shows and movies? This Hollywood North supervisor makes it happen. Plus, the 25 most iconic song-and-scene combinations.
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Fans of the hit Netflix series My Life With the Walter Boys swooned when Jackie and Alex shared their first kiss after a romantic horseback ride.
As the two teens (played by Nikki Rodriguez and Ashby Gentry) came together under a picturesque sky, Vancouver singer/songwriter Jade LeMac’s song Constellations solidified the mood for viewers — and sent thousands of them to their iPhones and the Shazam app to identify the song.
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That led to LeMac’s Shazam numbers rising rapidly. And soon, her numbers across streaming platforms, social media and YouTube followed suit.
“I was like, this is so sick. This is a big show, and my song is on it,” said the 20-year-old artist. “Then I started seeing TikToks of people talking about my song specifically in the show. Not only was the show doing well, but this song stood out to a lot of the watchers, so I was kind of taken back because it wasn’t what I was expecting at all.”
Fans loved Constellations so much that they began posting their own covers and clips of the song.
“That was so cool,” said LeMac.
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Writing songs since she was age 12, LeMac says hearing music in shows has meant a lot to her as a viewer.
“It’s such a great way to connect and relate to a song, finding them through shows,” said LeMac, pointing to Sleeping at Last’s songs on Grey’s Anatomy as personal favourites. “Not only are you relating to the show and connecting with these characters, but then once you find that perfect song in that perfect scene, it means so much more.”
Getting that perfect song in that perfect scene is the job of the music supervisor. And in the case of LeMac’s big break, that came through Vancouver supervisor Natasha Duprey.
A music supervisor since 2004, Duprey says that when she tells people her job title, the first response she gets is often: “What’s that?”
“The short answer is, ‘I say I work in film. I work in music,’” said Duprey. “When you hear a song in a movie — I do that.”
The next thing she hears is usually, “Oh my God, that’s totally my dream job,” which prompts Duprey to explain the job isn’t just listening to music all day.
“I explain to them a little more about all the negotiations of contracts and spreadsheets, and the people part of it. And then they don’t think it’s their dream job as much,” said the award-winning Duprey, whose company is called Must Be Nice Productions, as in “it must be nice to have a job where you get paid to listen to music all day.”
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While a music supervisor’s job does involve a lot of contracts and conversations, at its heart, it’s about enhancing the mood. Think about it: What would the scene where Barbie meets her creator be like without Billie Eilish’s What Was I Made For playing? Or what about the very last scene in The Sopranos without Journey’s Don’t Stop Believin’?
Hard to imagine, right?
“Try and watch a show without music and the emotions are totally different,” said Duprey. “That’s the thing when there are the big moments in movies … That song, that score it is really playing up the tragedy, or playing up the romance, or the sadness. If you turn the music off in those really big moments, it doesn’t turn up the intensity or bring the lump up in your throat in the same way.”
When the music supervisor has done their job well, those on-screen marriages of music and mood are forever imprinted on the viewer.
“I can’t hear Peter Gabriel’s In Your Eyes without seeing that scene. I bet that’s the same for a lot of people,” said Duprey about the moment in the John Hughes film Say Anything when Lloyd Dobler (John Cusack) holds up the boombox and blasts the track toward Diane Court’s (Ione Skye’s) bedroom window.
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A curving path
Duprey’s work — like the many people who work in TV and film — is building back to full steam after a handful of years marked by industry-wide shutdowns due to COVID-19 and the writers’ and actors’ strikes.
This year so far, Duprey has been contracted to work on 12 TV series and 12 movies.
Duprey, whose recent credits include the summer box-office hit and the highest grossing indie/horror film of the last decade, Longlegs starring Nicholas Cage, and the upcoming horror thriller feature Heretic starring Hugh Grant, and the TV shows Animal Control, Murder in a Small Town, My Life With the Walter Boys, and Snowpiercer, didn’t start out with plans to become a music supervisor.
“I have a degree in communications from SFU,” said Duprey. “I kind of wanted to do a Don Draper in Mad Men for some weird reason, be an ad person. But I took a little bit of a detour along the way.”
That detour was into the Canadian music business and a decade-long career in artist management working with acts like 54-40, Junkhouse and Copyright. But, as digital technology hammered artists’ bottom lines, she realized she wanted a more stable financial future.
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“I wanted to make money. And there was no money in the music industry — with MP3s and everything, the industry was really shrinking,” said Duprey. “I had always been a bit more of a film nerd than a music nerd, and so I just kind of figured out a way to weasel my way into the industry.”
Right out of the gate, she landed jobs on the TV shows The Dead Zone and the L-Word.
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The start of something big
Duprey begins her relationship with a project by reading the script.
From there, she gets a sense of “the vibe,” and with the project’s budget firmly top of mind, she sets out to build a “palette” for the show or film.
She digs into a vast personal iTunes library filled with hundreds of thousands of songs that she has separated into folders with names like: Heroic Defeat, Aggressive Empowerment, Country Beers and Boys, Break-up Songs Good News, and Break-up Songs Bad News. She then compiles a playlist for the showrunner and director, who have the final say.
“If you’re doing a Netflix series for young adults, you’re not going to send them some Frank Sinatra croony jazz for boomers,” said Duprey.
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The director and showrunner are presented with many options, sometimes up to 20 songs for one scene.
“She was hugely involved in the Vancouver music scene in the ’80s and ’90s, so she just has this sort of bedrock knowledge, but it is also the approach of a fan, in a way. She loves music,” said Michael MacLennan, a Toronto- and Los Angeles-based screenwriter/producer/showrunner who has worked many times with Duprey, including on the shows Tiny Pretty Things, The Guard and Bletchley Circle.
“She has really varied tastes. And she just has that ability, a sort of encyclopedic knowledge combined with impeccable instincts, and that’s what you are looking for in a music supervisor. Somebody that is going to take you out of the obvious and introduce you to things that are maybe more cutting edge, maybe more affordable and maybe not the usual suspects,” added MacLennan.
More than just music
Duprey’s deep-cut knowledge is a huge plus in her role.
“It’s mind-boggling the depth of what she knows across all genres,” said Todd Giroux, a Vancouver-based associate producer/post-producer who has worked with Duprey for a decade and a half.
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This wide knowledge of obscure and indie music is very much a bonus as not every production has enough money to license a Coldplay cut or Beatles tune.
Duprey says, when it comes to costs, she has secured songs from anywhere between $500 all the way up to $300,000. As for the question of what it costs to license a Coldplay or Beatles song, Duprey says there is no Blue Book for music licensing. Every situation is different and the cost depends on various factors.
In addition to meeting budget demands, Duprey admits licensing a lesser-known artist pleases her as a former artist manager.
“Their revenue streams have really shrunk,” said Duprey. “I’m putting some money in their pockets that they’re not getting anywhere else.”
Plus, it’s great advertising for an artist.
“The fan base can exponentially grow. You get your song in a Netflix show, there could be like 70 million people hearing your song. And 70 million people are not hearing it on Spotify or the radio,” added Duprey.
My Life With the Walter Boys showrunner Melanie Halsall says getting the music right in a show, especially one geared to teens and young adults, is paramount.
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“Music is such a big part of any show,” said Halsall, who is currently shooting the second season of the series in Calgary. “Music affects all different kinds of things, from emotions to situations … for young audiences. They have very specific music tastes.”
A restrictive music budget can be the mother of invention, adds Halsall.
“You have to be more creative when you have a lesser budget because you can’t get all the really well-known songs by big names,” said Halsall. “It’s a chance to be more creative and think outside the box. And to look for more unusual artists and talent. And Natasha is amazing at that.”
In addition to licensing songs, Duprey is responsible for anything musical in the show or film that isn’t a composed score. So, if somebody is singing a song, if somebody is humming a song, if there’s a violinist playing a song, it all falls to her to get the music cleared and licensed.
“It’s not that we have great taste in music. We kind of have to have no taste in music, in a way, because we have to fit ourselves into what that show needs,” said Duprey. “It’s not about what we like, it’s what is best for the scene, the show and the creatives involved.”
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While she considers herself a connector not a creator, she admits she leans into the creative aspect of her job, noting that different productions afford different levels of creativity.
“You kind of have to think of your audience. You don’t want to take them out of the vibe they’re in,” said Duprey. “If you’re in a rom com you can kind of twist it a little, but you don’t want to twist it too much.
“Where I find I can twist it the most is in more of a horror sci-fi genre. Snowpiercer is a good example of that. The world has ended, we’re all on a train in the frozen Earth with all the last humans in humanity going around the world. And f—ed things are happening on the train. So the showrunner on that show kind of gave a lot of licence to do something weird because you’re already suspending disbelief.”
Enter: Tiny Tim’s Tiptoe Through the Tulips during a murder scene.
As for whether Duprey has a favourite song placement as a viewer of TV and film, she does: “I love the show Six Feet Under and the Sia song Breathe Me that ends the entire series is insane,” said Duprey. “Basically, they play the whole song and they show all the main characters aging then dying.
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“So, it ties everything up with a bow.”
25 most memorable movie/TV song moments
When it comes to a scene in a TV show or film, the right song in the right place is truly a vibe-enhancer. Here are some of our favourite song-and-scene combinations:
Singing in the Rain, by Gene Kelly
From the film: Singing in the Rain (1952)
This is by far one of the most famous songs from a movie. Kelly’s song and dance in the film is legendary. But the song gets a reboot when Alex (Malcolm McDowell) sings it during a truly terrifying scene in A Clockwork Orange in 1971.
Everybody’s Talkin’ (Echoes), by Harry Nilsson
From the film: Midnight Cowboy (1969)
Written and recorded by American singer-songwriter Fred Neil in 1966, Nilsson’s version became a hit in 1969 after it was featured in the beginning of the film Midnight Cowboy.
Old Time Rock & Roll, by Bob Seger
From the film: Risky Business (1983)
Tom Cruise wearing only a shirt, underpants, sports socks and, of course, those Ray-Ban Wayfarer sunglasses, sliding into the frame lip-synching to this 1979 classic rock staple is the definition of iconic.
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Purple Rain, by Prince
From the film: Purple Rain (1984)
Prince on a motorbike in purple leathers is an image no one can (or wants to) forget. This song became one of his biggest hits. And if the artist had a theme song, this would probably be it.
Don’t You (Forget About Me), by Simple Minds
From the film: The Breakfast Club (1985) and The Handmaid’s Tale (2017)
This song has two iconic placements. First it played as a finally happy Bender (Judd Nelson) strode across the football field and gave the perfect fist pump. It came back in 2017 for the ending of The Handmaid’s Tale Season 1, Episode 2 and succinctly expressed what Offred (Elizabeth Moss), and other women can’t: a deep urge to rebel against the horrifying and oppressive system of Gilead.
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9 to 5, by Dolly Parton
From the film: 9 to 5 (1985)
Because you must include Dolly Parton whenever you can — it’s the law — 9 to 5 comes from the movie of the same name co-starring Jane Fonda and Lilly Tomlin. The tune went on to become one of Parton’s biggest hits and a feminist anthem. Oh, and there’s this: “When I actually wrote this song, I used my acrylic nails on the set when I was writing it,” Parton told Vogue in 2019. “They make noise that kind of sounds like a typewriter.”
Stand by Me, by Ben E. King
From the film: Stand By Me (1986)
For the 1986 film of the same name, the King soul classic found a whole new audience thanks to its use in this perfect coming-of-age film from Rob Reiner.
(I’ve Had the) Time of My Life, by Bill Medley and Jennifer Warnes
From the film: Dirty Dancing (1987)
This top pick karaoke duo track is the perfect build-up song for that big dance finale. Warning: don’t try the lift, as YouTube can confirm, it often goes sideways.
In Your Eyes, by Peter Gabriel
From the film: Say Anything (1989)
From John Hughes’ classic film this boombox serenade went on to become a go-to tune for the first dance at Gen X weddings.
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Bohemian Rhapsody, by Queen
From the film: Wayne’s World (1992)
Wayne and Garth’s (Mike Myers and Dana Carvey) headbanging along to this Queen anthem in the Mirthmobile, Garth’s 1976 AMC Pacer, is pure joy and may make you hurl from laughing so hard.
I Will Always Love You, by Whitney Houston
From the film: The Bodyguard (1992)
Oh, look we can mention Parton again, yeah. Parton’s 1973 track got a David Foster and Whitney Houston makeover for the soundtrack for the movie The Bodyguard. And boom, it became a massive hit.
Stuck in the Middle with You, by Stealers Wheel
From the film: Reservoir Dogs (1992)
This track (recorded in 1972) plays in the Quentin Tarantino film as Mr. Blonde (Michael Madsen) dances around and gets serious with a knife during a gruesome torture scene. This placement is a great example of how a scene can change the way we hear a song forever.
I’ll Be There For You, by The Rembrandts
From the show: Friends (1994)
The song, written for the show Friends, gained immense fame as it played during the show’s iconic opening sequence. Soon, radio picked up the short theme and then, clap, clap, clap, clap, the band wrote additional verses and, in 1995, put it on their third studio album.
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Lust for Life, by Iggy Pop
From the film: Trainspotting (1996)
Pop’s 1977 banger, co-written by David Bowie, opens the Danny Boyle film with a kinetic bang. The placement in this film also reminded people that Pop was still out there in the world.
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Free Fallin’, by Tom Petty
From the film: Jerry Maguire (1996)
Cruise’s Jerry, who has finally had some good news, is in his car flipping through radio stations when he lands on Petty’s hit and does a full-voiced, what else can you do with this chorus?, singalong.
My Heart will Go On, by Celine Dion
From the film: Titanic (1997)
Love it or not, this track from the biggest movie of all time is instantly recognizable and helped to further solidify Dion’s status as queen of the singing world.
Tiny Dancer, by Elton John
From the film: Almost Famous (2000)
This seminal 1971 song flew back into our lives in fantastic, heartwarming fashion as a tour bus filled with beat-up, burnt out musicians and hangers-on sing along to it in the Cameron Crowe film, Almost Famous. The song was back on the big screen 19 years later in the Elton John biopic, Rocketman.
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I’m a Believer, by Donkey (Eddie Murphy)
From the film: Shrek (2001)
The song was first written by Neil Diamond and recorded by The Monkeys in 1966, but a whole new generation fell in love with it when Donkey (Eddie Murphy) sang it at the party after Shrek (Myers) and Fiona (Cameron Diaz) got married. Smash Mouth, which also gave us the catchy All Star to open the 2001 film, do I’m a Believer on the soundtrack album.
Lose Yourself (8 Mile), by Eminem
From the film: 8 Mile (2002)
Eminem’s autobiographical movie was a resounding success for the rapper. Anchoring the super-successful soundtrack was Lose Yourself. Masterfully produced by Dr. Dre, the song is like a plot map for the movie.
Breathe Me, by Sia
From the show: Six Feet Under (2005)
One of the best finales to any TV show — ever — was Six Feet Under’s exit. While Breathe Me played, viewers saw the characters age and then die.
How to Save a Life, by The Fray
From the show: Grey’s Anatomy (2006)
This song fittingly plays in Season 2 of Grey’s Anatomy during a montage of surgery scenes. You know, where doctors are trying to save some lives.
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Don’t Stop Believin’, by Journey
From the show: The Sopranos (2007)
Widely considered one of the best TV shows ever, HBO’s The Sopranos gave fans a fright in the last scene of the last show of the series in 2007. While the Soprano family trickled into the diner, the song played, and viewers wondered who was going to get whacked. And, in the spirit of omertà, that’s all we are going to say.
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I Think We’re Alone Now, by Tiffany
From the show: The Umbrella Academy (2019)
In the very first episode of the Netflix show, the Hargreeves kids dance, in separate rooms, to Tiffany’s 1987 cover of I Think We’re Alone Now. A major hit in 1987, the song soared again after a new generation Shazamed the heck out of it.
Running Up That Hill, by Kate Bush
From the show: Stranger Things (2022)
Close to four decades after Bush released the song, it gained an unexpected resurgence in popularity thanks to its use in various forms in Season 4 of Stranger Things.
Goo Goo Muck, by The Cramps
From the show: Wednesday (2022)
The supernatural horror comedy Wednesday brought The Cramps back to life, and blew up social media, with a dance sequence set to The Cramps’ 1981 cover of Ronnie Cook & the Gaylads’ 1962 track, Goo Goo Muck. Do yourself a favour and watch the video clip of this scene from the episode Woe What a Night. While Wednesday (Jenna Ortega) might not approve, you will not be able to suppress a smile.
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