feeling supported

11 - unionizing and being treated fairly

Hello friends, 

I took the last two weeks off from this newsletter so I could enjoy a bit of a vacation. I flew back home to Canada to spend some quality time with my family and close friends. It was a pretty incredible trip. I got to see all of my grandparents, one of which just beat cancer. I also connected with nature and even gained my Canadian accent back. Pretty wonderful, eh!? Honestly, I really needed the familiarity of my hometown and childhood friends to ground me. It allowed me to have some space and clarity, which I’m beyond grateful for.

That being said, I felt a weekly newsletter was going to be too daunting for folks, so I’m going to make it either bi-weekly or once a month.. That way, y’all won’t get too sick of me. 

Since my latest newsletter, a wild and wonderful thing was announced! Music Supervisors are officially wanting to unionize! That’s right, over 75% of Music Supervisors want to form a union to protect themselves and get proper compensation. There have been ongoing discussions about how we all wished this could happen years ago and it took a number of passionate people to get it across the finish line, but here we are! The moves are in motion!

Sadly, the AMPTP Film & TV studios refuse to recognize it, which means the community is going public with how important our roles and services are. I’ve seen so many people share in support, from musicians to industry execs – it’s a really exciting time. The level of responsibility and demand of a Music Supervisor is consistently going up but the compensation is depleting at a rapid pace. Not only is it low, but one could work on a project for up to 3-4 years and still not be fully paid for their work. I’m incredibly pleased and proud of my community for standing together to try and make this change for themselves. 

All of that being said, unionzed or not, I am still choosing to step away from this field. It did such a number on me, that I’m not sure I will ever be back. I obviously can’t say “never”, I don’t know what my future holds, but I was so overworked and exhausted that I don’t see myself entering that triggering environment again. Plus, these things don’t change overnight, they take quite some time for transitions this large to occur. But my goodness, am I glad to see something is finally being done about it! 

Even over the past two weeks, the new Stranger Things season came out and Kate Bush’s song “Running Up That Hill” was used and now has a resurgence. You can’t open a social media app or turn the radio on without hearing that song. It’s always been a popular track, heck, it’s been used in hundreds of other projects throughout the past couple of decades, but this time around, it’s popularizing in a way it hasn’t before. And the Music Supe, Nora Felder should definitely be credited for a large portion of that. But even if a song doesn’t go viral, Music Supervisors deserve to be compensated fairly. They deserve to go to work and feel supported, rather than drained and overworked. They shouldn’t be chasing money and benefits when they have a mountain of work to get through. It’s not an easy career path by any means, but I do hope that my fellow friends get recognized, because that’s what they all deserve.

If you want to support Music Supervisors through this, please spread the word via socials. You can post about your favourite music moment from a show or film, you can share your favourite soundtrack, or that you’re simply in support! If you do, please tag @musicneedssupervision and use hashtags #MusicSupervisorEquity and #SilentWithoutUs

Thanks again for choosing to be here!