Finishing up your work on a new track sums up some of the best feelings on Earth- relief, exhilaration, satisfaction, enthusiasm and confidence.  You've managed to find the right lyrics to the right beats for the message you were trying to express and, in the end, you've got one fantastic song that you feel has a lot of potential; since the music business is, nevertheless, a business and the main objective of a business is to make profit, one of your best options after having reached the finish line is to have your music placed in movies, TV, video games or advertisements.  But how exactly do you do that?

Well, you don't.  The music industry has its own expert for that: the music supervisor.  This is the person responsible for matching up your art with that of others to obtain a perfectly tailored end product that will sweep the public off its feet.  This is also a person who receives hundreds of e-mails, letters, resumes, CD's and project proposals everyday from other emerging bands and singers that are building up a discography, just like you, so the question you should know how to answer is what to do before the actual contacting of a supervisor in order to make sure that your piece will be selected.

1. Make Your Music YOUR Music

With the risk of telling you something that you have probably already heard of time and time again, there is no deal to make unless you actually own that which you are planning to sell.  The very first thing you should do upon the completion of your song or album is to make sure it is acknowledged as being yours.  For this, you need to file a copyright form with an attached sample of what you are trying to register to your national copyright office; after it gets cleared and goes through all the legal forms regarding ownership and publishing, you  will be able  to license it and thus earn some well-deserved money for letting others use it. Even though you have a copyright to your song from the minute you write it, it could become controversial if another similar song pops up that has a copyright certification and you don't.

2. Do Your Homework

Music supervision is undeniably linked to the essence and main ideas of whatever visual media it is trying to enhance by music accompaniment.  For every TV show or video game out there, there is a particular type of music someone would deem fit to associate it with, depending on the concepts approached and addressing a specific target audience.  Just to give you an example, if you're a hard core heavy-metal band, the chances are probably slim that you will get your songs aired somewhere within the calm and profound revelations brought on by Grey's Anatomy.

You should do a bit of research in order to assess what kind of production your tracks are most suited for - magazines such as "Variety" or "Hollywood Reporter", websites such as Imdb or even the entertainment news are good sources of getting a clue about up and coming projects that could serve as outlets for your music.  Stay informed about what's cooking in the movie business and find out the names of the people in the production team who are in charge with music.  If you already know a TV show,for instance, that you think your music would work well with, find out the name of the music supervisor; reaching  him will be your main goal.

3. Categorize

As we already know, the life of a music supervisor can get pretty hectic; on a daily basis, these people are literally bombed with all sorts of materials from all kinds of artists, and the day only has twenty-four hours for them,too.  If you want to smooth and help speed up the process, the best thing you can do is categorize your music.  You've already done your homework, you have a hint as to which track would suit the current work of the specific supervisor you intend to approach, so it only makes sense that you use all this knowledge to highlight the specific genres or emotions that your songs could be linked to.

For instance, on the demo CD you plan to send, either only include that part of your discography which you feel could be taken into consideration or, if you do decide to showcase several and various tracks, remember to write down the specific keywords or states of mind that describe each track.  This is a sign of respect for the busy schedule of the supervisor and it will duly be appreciated.

4. The CD

While we're talking about the CD, we should REALLY talk about the CD.  Your demo CD is pretty much your business card and, in this business, you have to be clever and play your cards well.  The most important thing you have to tick on your checklist is to create a compilation that is made up of songs and not 30-second samples.  The fear of waking up to see your songs unrighteously used by someone is unjustified when you already own the rights to your music, so don't stick to just teasing the music supervisor with what you could do, but, instead, show him what you can and already have done.  Also, it would be advisable to have instrumental or mixed versions of your songs, in case these alternatives would go better with the supervisor's interests.

After you've got the content of your future CD sorted out, the next thing you should worry about is the packaging.  The majority of music supervisors out there would tell you they prefer that the CD come in a standard-sized case and that both the case and the disc itself should spell out some essential information: the titles and subtypes of each track, the owners of the publishing rights and of the recording itself, your contact info, as well as the contact info of the people handling the rights to license(if you are not doing this yourself).Do not overcrowd the CD with unnecessary information and do not create a bundle send- out pack filled with resumes, letters of recommendation and the like; the trick to a successful collaboration and to  building a solid future  relationship is to KISS - Keep It Short and Simple: a simple CD, accompanied perhaps by a letter to introduce yourself will be much more valued.

5. The E-Mail

In case you've decided to take advantage of technology's endless opportunities and use the almighty Internet to reach your goals, you need to do this skillfully. If  CD's are physically present and harder to overlook, e-mails can get quite lost in the enormous mass of almost identical messages clogging a person's inbox, therefore your aim is to make yours as attractive, professional and easy to follow up as possible.  Again, keep it simple, state your case in an honest and concise way, and try to make your subject line as catchy and original as possible.

As for sending out materials online, the most modern and productive key to success in the case of trying to pitch your songs via e-mails is to have your e-mails include a link towards your website or artist-supporting platform - YouTube, MySpace, MyHitOnline, Last.fm or any other advanced or  amateur song-hosting and marketing system - so that the music supervisor can get a taste of the music you play after accessing these links; a self-respecting and ambitious artists knows it is a necessity to have a personal profile page on these sites, as it has also been suggested in previous articles.  Attaching mp3 files to your e-mail is NOT recommended. Note, we also do not recommend you to use yousendit.com or similar services because they don't allow the recipients to know what they are actually downloading and the liklihood that a music supervisor will take the chance to do so is low. For that they would actually have to know and trust you for some time before they would do so.

Imagine that, on top of all the text in the actual body of the message, each email a supervisor receives has media attachments- this could lead to complete chaos of their mail boxes or servers and could even get you spammed.  Today's technological advancements offer a wide variety of opportunities for you to take your songs into the music placement business on the web, and, just as you're saved from the hassle of having to record, copy and mail CD's or to upload your songs in e-mails, supervisors also appreciate it if you make it less time-consuming for them to give you a chance.

These basic steps are the ground on which you will establish a harmonious and possibly long-lasting collaboration with music supervisors.  Music placement is becoming more and more appealing, both for the unknown artist struggling to make it and for the movie studio looking to impress, so music supervisors are basically the hottest "go to" persons if you're looking for a smash hit outcome.  This, of course, implies that those involved in music placement are raising the bar and pumping up the gas, so the last thing you want to do is get left behind.  As long as you remember the ABC's of  assembling your objectives, music  and information into one bulletproof  image, success is guaranteed.
 
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