Spooky Music in Visual Media: Live from Midsummer Scream 2022

Announcement: Welcome to Midsummer Scream. Spooky music is everywhere in television shows, movies and even commercials. How do music supervisors choose the right tune for a soundtrack? Let's find out please welcome to the stage songwriter and co-founder of LVCRFT, Evan “Kidd” Bogart, AKA Lil Punpkin.

Evan “Kidd” Bogart: Hi everyone. Welcome to the Monster... No, wait, the Spooky Music Panel. This is really exciting. This is our first panel at Midsummer Scream, and we're huge fans. So, we've been coming here for years and we're excited to do this. So, welcome to the spooky music and visual media panel, something we know a bit about. Our first panelist today is a Southern California native, the founder of our own music supervision company, Rat Dance Party, serving up spooky tunes for TV, film, podcast, documentaries, and more. She has also represented numerous songwriters, producers and music creators, helping them get their deadly bops placed in all sorts of media. A staunch advocate for women in music supervision and visual media, and even teaches her craft to the next generation. Please welcome to the Midsummer Scream stage, the incredible Jennifer Smith,

Evan “Kidd” Bogart: Our next panelist has been possessing our hearts and minds, and ears for almost 20 years. Working on over 120 TV shows, film, soundtracks, advertisements, and more. Working with songwriters, producers, artists, composers, and a slew of music creators. Her remarkable career in music supervision has had her summoning songs for NBC Universal, including Bravo, Sci-Fi Channel, E, and for Lionsgate Pictures. She's worked on projects and campaigns with the likes of Janelle Monet, Fitz and The Tantrums, Rob Zombie, and our upcoming third panelist MNDR to name a ferocious few. Please give a Midsummer Scream welcome to the wonderful Rebecca Rienks.

Evan “Kidd” Bogart: Our final girl, or I mean, panelist is a ridiculously talented songwriter, music producer, recording artist, musician, creative executive, and just all-around superstar. She fucking slays. She launched onto the popular music scene with Mark Ronson, and has since collaborated with everyone from Flume, to Pussy Riot, to Duran Duran, and everyone in between. Most importantly, she is co-founder and original spooky freak for your favorite Halloween and spooky music collective LVCRFT. She has an encyclopedic knowledge of all things, horror movies, music, and more. Better known to the paranormal and the freaks that come out at night as Deep Cuts and to the living as the incomparable MNDR, please. Welcome to the Midsummer Scream stage MNDR.

Evan “Kidd” Bogart: Okay. Let's start with a question for everyone up here, okay? For those that don't really understand what music supervision is, what is it? Where does the role sit in the process of spookifying our favorite movies shows and more Rebecca I'll start with you and we'll go down the line.

Rebecca Rienks: Depending on the project and the people involved ideally, and hopefully, it would start at the very Genesis of creating the palette for the show, the film, the project itself. In an ideal world, you'd be working with someone like a Rob Zombie who has a very specific aesthetic to begin with, and you'd be helping hone his vision from before the project even starts to film, all the way through to the very end through post production.

Jennifer Smith: I got nothing to add to that.

Rebecca Rienks: Nailed it.

MNDR: Nailed it.

Evan “Kidd” Bogart: I mean, has anybody here ever watched a movie or a TV show without music in it? Like at any point? I will tell you...

Rebecca Rienks: Very weird,

Jennifer Smith: It's super weird.

Evan “Kidd” Bogart: It's terrible. Like it's awful. "What, what is this?" It's crazy how much music plays such a part in what we watch. Sometimes when people are cared and they're watching a horror movie, they're like, "just mute it." You know, because it's actually less scary when it's muted. I find that interesting. Jennifer, you've championed both music creators trying to get their music heard on TV shows and in films, and you represented shows looking for music. How is that process different?

Jennifer Smith: Well, first of all, the process is very different when I worked with creators, which ironically is also MNDR, I would pitch their music to the creative of a show. So, I was doing the opposite side of my job. Then I missed working with creators, with film and TV and audio creators, so I went back on the other side. Now I'm on this job, I'm creating a sonic vision that's in line with the filmmaker, the network, the executive. So, there's a lot of skill sets that go back and forth, but also it's very different because you have a very different goal depending on what the job is. When you're representing an artist, you want to make sure the music's in line, it's papered properly, it's paid properly, there's different types of guidelines. Versus on this side, the guidelines are very different because, for example, if you're working in a horror film and they say, "you know, we have the scene and we want X, Y, Z." And you're like, "okay, that could work." Or this, you're going to their vision versus saying, "I represent this artist. I want this song in this project." So, it's just different creative needs on both sides, but they're both fun, different and intersect really well.

Evan “Kidd” Bogart: Would you guide, like having been on both sides, is there one way that you would guide either like the network to understand music creators better, or music creators to understand what a studio or network might be looking for?

Jennifer Smith: I think education's important, and I think you need to educate, and I do educate my filmmakers, especially working with a lot of independent filmmakers, especially in the horror side, just them understanding the process of music, and also on the network side as well, as well as educating musicians and artists. Education's important. You need to understand what this means for your art, what this means money wise, how stuff is made, how is music created, what goes into it. Then you educate the musicians or the artists, how are projects made, how is it funded, how is it distributed, all the different things that go into that one little placement, how is the whole cake made and how is it made after continue baking if it's a film or a TV show as well,

Rebecca Rienks: How many people it takes to make one placement happen?

Jennifer Smith: It takes a lot.

Rebecca Rienks: And get over the finish line.

Jennifer Smith: Yes. It's a city. It's not a village. It's a city.

Evan “Kidd” Bogart: Do you ever disagree with, I mean, you don't have to say who, but I'm just saying like do you ever disagree like, "this would work amazing for this scene." Then someone else who's part of that line is like, "it doesn't."

Rebecca Rienks: All the time, because everyone who enjoys music has an opinion, it's a universal thing that people have an opinion about. You know, I'm not a grip, I'm not working production, I couldn't just show up and go, like, "I can do what the grip does," but people show up all the time and say that they can do a version of what one of us does.

Jennifer Smith: All the time. You know, people are music experts. "I could do your job." But I don't walk up and say, "you know what, for this camera frame, I think you should do X, Y, Z, and use this lens." So yes, my PC line is, I keep to the integrity of the vision of the filmmaker, but yes, I always disagree.

Evan “Kidd” Bogart: I love that.

Rebecca Rienks: It's your job to have an opinion. Yeah.

Evan “Kidd” Bogart: Well, so you worked for you work for Kobalt, which is which is a huge publishing administration company, and for people who don't know, they represent hundreds of songwriters and thousands of songs. I'm actually signed to Kobalt. Now you have your own company, Rat Dance Party. Tell us about Rat Dance Party. What is it?

Jennifer Smith: So, Rat Dance Party is a full-service music supervision company. So, I work with filmmakers, creators, that could be also podcast creators as well, to help them find their sonic sound from creation through execution. Because education's important to me, I also offer education programs to musicians. Since coming from Kobalt it's really important to educate people, but I do not represent music, I don't pitch music anymore, that is a past life. Where I sit is in the creative process of filmmaking TV, podcast, but I think education's important, so I also have that branch as well.

Evan “Kidd” Bogart: Do you miss pitching music?

Jennifer Smith: No.

Evan “Kidd” Bogart: So, like that's challenging, obviously.

Jennifer Smith: It's challenging. Also, not only is it challenging, but it's not as creative. I am a storyteller ,and I'm a storyteller at heart. When you pitch music it's a different type of storytelling, and a different type of thing. But for me, as a storyteller, this is my home, to help tell the Sonic story with projects.

Evan “Kidd” Bogart: Cool. I mean, like you've worked on like Netflix's Deadly Illusions, CBS, Why Women Kill, and the film adaption of Bad Kids Go to Hell. I see a trend, there's like very spooky titles. Do they just find you? I mean, seriously, I know they aren't all horror, but do you prefer working on shows with an edge?

Jennifer Smith: Yeah, I guess it's interesting. I don't consider myself cool in any sort of way, but whenever I go to meetings, they're like, "you're kind of edgy." And I was like, "I don't know what that means." But I think it's just the type of, stories that I'm attracted to and the type of filmmakers that are attracted to me. We have an understanding of something that's a little edgier, whatever that means, I guess. I wouldn't be the type of person you would hire on a Grey's Anatomy.

Rebecca Rienks: I'd hire you, Jen.

Jennifer Smith: Well, thanks Rebecca.

MNDR: I would want to see a scary Grey's Anatomy.

Jennifer Smith: I guess if you had to pick between two people, they wouldn't pick me, but that's okay. I guess it's just that, because those filmmakers have a certain point of view, and I think I understand that point of view a little bit more than some other points of view.

Evan “Kidd” Bogart: Is that like where your musical tastes lie?

Jennifer Smith: Well, fun fact about music supervision, your taste does not matter. It a hundred percent does not matter. I work on projects that are not my personal taste, and that's okay, but yeah, I would say probably storytelling taste more than sonic taste and character taste.

Evan “Kidd” Bogart: Is that for you too?

Rebecca Rienks: I think your taste matters. I think that, what you are actually saying is that you have to have the ability to have range because your personal decision making is not really the thing that matters.

Jennifer Smith: That's exactly what I was trying to say. Thank you.

Rebecca Rienks: Interpolating.

Evan “Kidd” Bogart: You take yourself out of it. You become a conduit for between the creator and the project.

Rebecca Rienks: I had a boss once that equated it to, you're painting someone else's house. Like, you're not there to really enforce your opinion on things, you're there to give options and outlets for someone's creative vision. To mention Rob Zombie again, I'm not going to show up and tell Rob Zombie what to do, but I can also go, "okay, that's a cool direction. What about if we try to do it this way? Or what if we invite like this sort of tone here or there?" You can add to somebody's vision, but hopefully somebody already, you know, they know what they're looking for. Sometimes people don't.

Evan “Kidd” Bogart: Jennifer, I'm so excited to talk to you about this new project that you're even producing, it's called Hollow's Bend. They're coming out in September, right?

Jennifer Smith: Yep. September,

Evan “Kidd” Bogart: I am such a fan of where people's imaginations take them. As a songwriter myself, I'm constantly storytelling in my mind as I'm writing, and some of my favorite movies and shows have been most impactful from what you don't see. But you've taken this to another level, or should I say, like throw back to a spookiness of yesteryear? I love this. Tell us everything about Hollow's Bend, because I feel like people need to know and I want to hear it from you.

Jennifer Smith: Okay. So Hollow's Bend is called Hollow's Bend the Radio Play. I'm calling it a radio play, not a podcast. So, you know, a little history lesson in audio is when War of the Worlds was put on the radio and turned it on, people thought it was actually happening. So, there is something beautiful in storytelling with sound that has to do with radio plays. So, I was working with these two young writers, they had a script, and I was like, "you know, this would be really interesting in the sonic space." So, I helped develop them out the script into a 90 minute radio play. They'll be on all streaming platforms for free in September. And it's really fun. It's about a spirit named Andres who is kind of stuck in this small town, we'll say middle America, east coast type of thing, and all of a sudden he is able to possess the new girl in town where things are changing in the town. He has to make a decision, "oh my God, I can get out of purgatory, or can I help this rag tag group of children, of teenagers, solve the mystery of what's going on in the town?" We have possessions, we have evil, we have deciding what's good and evil, we have the non-traditional type of characters in there. Where there are traditional kind of like the John Hughes archetype, but it's modern, and it's really fun, and the soundscapes were really, really fun to do to create spirit realms and what does that mean? And kind of playing with breaking the audio wall as a character.

Evan “Kidd” Bogart: How do you do that?

Jennifer Smith: Oh, you, you want to know?

Evan “Kidd” Bogart: It's a secret sauce.

Jennifer Smith: So, fun story. I have pet rodents, obviously Rat Dance Party. So, I do actually have pet rats. On my Instagram, my rat Liberty was very upset she couldn't come today, even though she was wearing her vampire cape known as ratcula cape.

Rebecca Rienks: She was really cute.

Evan “Kidd” Bogart: Ratcula is amazing.

Jennifer Smith: Yes. She was very upset, very upset about it. So, rodents like to make noises, obviously, between the wheel and the chattering and everything. So, I started recording all those little things. I rescued this little pet mouse from a trashcan, and I call her my nemesis, because every time I'm on the phone, she just gets in this wheel and just like, "eeeeeeeeeeee" for hours. So, I recorded it and then I warped it, and it's going to be in my different sonicscapes. So, I just was like, "okay, here's a rat chattering. What can I do with this and everything?" So, what's great about just like music and audio is it's such an amazing storytelling mechanism, and with audio, you don't need permission to create something. If you have an idea of a story, whether it's a horror thing or whatever, thriller, those are I think the best in the audio world, because you can just really get in and story tell. Just do it. Honestly, it's free to put online, like it's free. don't, don't let anyone ask, don't say, "oh, I need to get permission from a studio or an audio platform." Just do it, because I'm a hundred percent independent and I'm doing it and putting it up. We have great actors in there as well. James Marsters.

Evan “Kidd” Bogart: Who's in it other than rats?

Jennifer Smith: Well, besides the rodents that are kind of like the sonic sound, we have James Marsters who played Spike from Buffy the Vampire Slayer. We have Paul Joe Hanson from One Tree Hill, he plays a villain, surprise. We have a lot of upcoming talent. We have JLC, we have George, so the actor from 13 Reasons Why, and I forget where the other one's from, my bad. But yeah, and a lot of really amazing upcoming talent. I believe in giving people with a new voice a chance, and there's a lot of amazing talent out there. So, I just logged into it and just went from there, including some actors that are known in the audio space that just were like, "yeah, I'll help you out. It's fine. I got nothing to do." And I was like, "okay, thanks."

Evan “Kidd” Bogart: Does music play into it?

Jennifer Smith: Oh yes. Music definitely plays into it. No, I am not ripping off Stranger Things, this has been in the works before Stranger Things. Also, news flash any children out there, the eighties existed before Stranger Things. I'm just going to say this.

Rebecca Rienks: Many things were inspired by the 80s.

Evan “Kidd” Bogart: Hot take.

Jennifer Smith: Yes, exactly, many things were inspired by the eighties. So, I'm already preparing for people calling it a Stranger Things rip off and I'm just like rolling my eyes already. So, it's a modern sonic eighties space that I'm also putting in, obviously, elements of horror. So, whether that is sounds, wind, silence, crunching, all the things we love in a good horror film that kind of give you anticipation and texture, that add on the music. So, the music's not literal, obviously there is some literal uses, but it's more of an abstract. Think of, you know, just like the genre we love, it's magical. It's not always like A, B, C, D, there's so many beautiful things you can do in the horror thriller space with sound and music.

Evan “Kidd” Bogart: That's amazing. Rebecca, you've obviously been killing the game for years.

Jennifer Smith: Yeah, she has.

Evan “Kidd” Bogart: You've worked for film companies, TV companies, on behalf of so many different types of media, how do you know when you've matched the perfect song to a scene? Like how do you know? Like when do you know? Do you ever know?

Rebecca Rienks: Maybe when someone else sees it that isn't as close to it as you are and gets the intended feeling, because really at the end of the day, whether it's with score or putting a song in, creating like Jen was talking about something with just a texture or, born out of tones or sound effects, you're attempting to reach an end goal of emotion, whatever it is. You're seeking to find, people need to understand that there's levity here, they should laugh, or this is tense, something is about to happen, we want to give them that sense of anticipation. So, we were talking earlier about how you see things with no music and it's so strange, in our kind of role, you also see, see things with lots of different tones underneath it to try to find the right tone. Or you see something, like a singer/songwriter song is going to be very different in a scene than something that's hard rock, metal, or whatever, so you're going to get a different reaction from an audience from it. So, there's so many ways that music and media can strangely be successful with different music under it to achieve a different emotion. But when it really is successful is when someone, who's maybe seeing it for the first time, or has not lived and breathed the project like you have, sees it and is affected by it and is affected in the way that it is intended by the creator.

Evan “Kidd” Bogart: You obviously both worked on spooky things, and also lots of non-spooky things. Do you have to take a different approach to spooky visual media? Like how do you know when something should just be score, or like when to inject something that feels... How do you know which one to pick? I don't know. It just feels like there's so much music. Do you have to know all the music? I mean, I have decision fatigue, so that sounds really challenging. Like, I don't know how I'd be. Like, I don't know if I could never make up my mind. Do you have to know all music? Do you have to be this music encyclopedia?

Rebecca Rienks: I think one of the fun things about our job is that you can never know all music. But I appreciate being thrown into projects where I didn't have a base of knowledge about that, and now, because I'm thrown into doing something with a certain creator, or now I'm doing something that's based in a certain time period, or a certain region. I've worked on movies set in World War II, and suddenly I have to know everything about big band music during World War II. I wasn't necessarily listening to that in the car, but now I have more of a knowledge base about it going forward. So, that's kind of the joy of working on projects that lead you to different places, in that respect.

Jennifer Smith: The research phase is the best. It really is the best.

Evan “Kidd” Bogart: I can imagine, like someone says we're doing something and you're like, "oh my God, this is like brand new. I get to listen, to like discover all this music."

Rebecca Rienks: Yeah. You go down a lot of rabbit holes.

Evan “Kidd” Bogart: Oh, that's so cool. Well, let's talk about something very spooky that you worked on, the iconic Rob Zombies Devil's Rejects.

Rebecca Rienks: Still traumatized. 15 years later.

Evan “Kidd” Bogart: What's the specific approach that you guys took to that process?

Rebecca Rienks: Well, the movie itself was set in 1978, so that already creates a parameter. Because we were making something that was specific to the time, we were not doing one of those omniscient things where it's 1978, but we're using music from the nineties or something like that. So, we were using all 1978 and prior music, and the film is set in Texas, where I'm from. So, set in Texas and Rob just wanted to have like a Southern rock, gritty bar band kind of feel to it. I was listening to the soundtrack on the drive down here. I was like, "oh shit, this is Good. I forgot." I hadn't watched it in a minute. But just to refresh, there was like Alman Brothers Band, the big scene at the end. How many people have seen that movie? I mean the big scene at the end.

Evan “Kidd” Bogart: You're in the right place to ask that question.

Rebecca Rienks: That's Freebird and you're going to go out in a blaze of glory, I definitely want Freebird to play. There was some like old honky-tonk country. It really ran the gamut, some British rock, but it all kind of rooted back into Southern rock bar band feel, like low down and dirty in that respect.

Evan “Kidd” Bogart: So that's interesting. None of that is spooky.

Rebecca Rienks: No, not at all. Again, these visuals were spooky enough.

Evan “Kidd” Bogart: Right, no, but so that's an interesting question, right? Like, is doing spooky music sometimes for spooky visuals to on the nose?

Rebecca Rienks: A hundred percent. A hundred percent, especially when, let's be honest, you're being visually met with gratuitous violence, right? Like I don't need to underscore a project like that with stuff to tell you it's scary, it's already scary.

Evan “Kidd” Bogart: I guess for both of you there's been like this trend, obviously, I guess it it's been so long now it's not really a trend, but it's still a trend of people taking popular songs and then making them spooky to work for trailers or for movies.

Rebecca Rienks: Snore.

Evan “Kidd” Bogart: You're over it, right?

Rebecca Rienks: Trend that should die.

Evan “Kidd” Bogart: But it seems to work though, right?

Rebecca Rienks: Taste maker's drinking from the same glass.

Jennifer Smith: Pretty much. I mean, the reason it continues to work is besides, I agree with your personal opinion, is everyone has a relationship to music, to a song, right? So, if you hear a song, you have a different memory that goes with it. Everyone has a different relationship with that song, and it immediately creates a connection with the audience viewer. That's why it's amazing. We can do more. We can do more, you know? You don't need to all do the same thing where it's rip off Lord, rip off Billy Eilish, or rip off insert anything that's whatever. There's more to it, but it's just the big drums, the drones, all that stuff. But that's why it's still popular, because if you want people to watch your film or your TV show, or whatever it is you're advertising, you want to create immediate connection with the people, because now we're on our phones, people have what, 30 second attention spans?

Evan “Kidd” Bogart: It's the familiarity of the song

Jennifer Smith: Yeah. You're going to pay attention being like, "oh, I remember that song when I was 16 years old. My friends and I were driving down and this really funny thing happened." And then you're like, "whoa, whoa, that's kind of different and weird."

Evan “Kidd” Bogart: Yeah. I get that.

Rebecca Rienks: When you use covers of any kind, which I don't mean to bash this trend, but when people do a cover well and bring something new to it, that's very exciting. But in general, when you're using a cover of a song that is very, very established, comes from very specific artist, or the song itself is iconic, you're bringing all the baggage of that song and what it means to people to what you're doing, and that's good and bad. So, to me, I would love to be judicious about those kinds of covers that are used, because it is such a go-to thing now, especially in advertising and such that, you want to like use the dark cover of Notorious by Duran Duran, which is something I've done.

Evan “Kidd” Bogart: Right.

Rebecca Rienks: Don't judge me.

Evan “Kidd” Bogart: So, back to Rob though, for a sec, when you're working on something like Devil's Rejects, how involved is Rob in those decisions? Like, he seems like a real personality type. I don't know him, but I bet he's a riot.

Rebecca Rienks: That is a word to use.

Evan “Kidd” Bogart:  I mean, is he like, so in that soundtrack and that list of songs that came from him, like, I want these songs, or this vibe, this style, or is that something where you guys present to him? He's involved, I would assume?

Rebecca Rienks: From the very beginning, he knew that he wanted the Blaze of Glory to be on Freebird, because you have to. Then, everything else was a little bit of filling in the dots. But again, within that pallet of feeling like honk- tonk, bar band, Southern rock, the grit of that, the blues of that, the rockabilly aspect of that. There's a band that's in the movie, so there was a little element of that too. But you know, he is very much a person because he has his own aesthetic as an artist, and then also as a creator. It doesn't necessarily come fully formed, but it comes to you like this is 80% of the idea, now how do we make it a reality? Especially whenever we also get to be the fun Debbie downer, negative Nancy about nuts and bolts, things. Like, you know, "such and such person is not really on board with your vision because it's violent, and they're not going to license you your song." You know, or, "that's too expensive. That person wants too much money." Just logistics that impact the creative process that have nothing to do with just plucking an idea out of the ether and trying to make it happen.

Evan “Kidd” Bogart: That's so interesting. Do you think that horror, as a genre itself has, has more trouble getting people to agree to license their music?

Rebecca Rienks: Yes.

Evan “Kidd” Bogart: Yeah, because people have like, "I love my music being licensed, but not if someone's being tortured."

Rebecca Rienks: Yes.

Evan “Kidd” Bogart: Got it.

Jennifer Smith: I would like to say a different perspective.

Evan “Kidd” Bogart: Well, some people might actually be like, "I love my music, but only if people are being tortured. Right?"

Rebecca Rienks: You don't know until you ask.

Jennifer Smith: Yeah. Well, you don't until you ask and also, I think, because working with artists is, "how is your art being used within another form of art?" Having those conversations about what that means. Yes, there's different layers of horror. As a horror fan myself, yeah there's gratuitous horror where you don't want your music used in torture, but horror is such an amazing storytelling mechanism to talk about social issues, about all those different things. So I think it just depends on the project. Jordan Peel with his different types of horror things, that's a different type of horror. I think horror just kind of has such a negative connotation that when I work on a project, I don't use the word horror, because people just assume there's something wrong with it. So, I'll give a description and say, I won't say horror, I might say, "socially conscious thriller," right? Or I'll just kind of change those little wordings a lot. Like on Deadly Illusions, because it is on the horror thriller perspective, the filmmaker I work with, all of her films are horror, thrillers that are social commentary on issues that women go through. So, that one was about female sexuality. Deadly Illusions was about female sexuality, it's on Netflix. The new one that we're currently shooting called Blunt, which will probably be out next year, is looking at the perspective of following your dream as a woman. And if you're a single mom, people say," you can't do it all. There must be something wrong with you because you are going after your dream." So, every film that she makes comes from a different perspective, but it is from the horror thriller lens. There's a lot of things that go with it, but it has an intentional thing. So, I think it's just about having those conversation with those filmmakers. Don't get me wrong, I love Rob zombie films, like love them, but getting the music on that is very difficult, I'm sure

Rebecca Rienks: I didn't get to use any of that fancy description for the things I was trying to pedal to people.

Jennifer Smith: I would love to see your scene description. She's hanging from a meat hook.

Rebecca Rienks: She's wearing someone else's face that they've ripped the other person's face off, and she's wearing it like a mask. Are you fine with that?

Jennifer Smith: I don't know how you could eloquently write that out.