What Do You Do? Becca Gatrell, Director, Wow & Flutter Music & Music Supervisor

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What Do You Do? Becca Gatrell, Director, Wow & Flutter Music & Music Supervisor

The latest guest in our What Do You Do series is Becca Gatrell, director of Wow & Flutter Music. Becca shines a light on sync, one of the most important (but often misunderstood) areas of the industry, and provides some tips on how to best present your music for sync.

What does your role contribute to a release campaign/artist career ?

Sync has become a key way of reaching an audience, especially since the reduction of space on the radio and TV for emerging artists. Sync is dependent on a track working really well creatively, and sometimes on an artist fitting the demographic of the target audience; the release date is not usually that important to the client. Bearing this in mind the focus with sync is a much bigger picture one around the growth of a track or artist, rather than a release week momentum tool. A sync will usually arrive at an unpredictable time in a campaign but can then be used to regroup and find new ways to galvanise support from DSPs, radio and fan engagement. Syncs often kick start a trending on Shazam which of course can open further doors.

What does a typical day look like in your job?

I am not sure much is typical except a requisite almond cappuccino to get started and lots of juggling of diverse creative tasks while keeping the never ending admin in check! I am a Music Supervisor as well as running a label/publishing set up so what I am doing for sync varies wildly. A few of things I have done this week including finding a voice coach for an actor singing Italian Opera in a film, swimming in the sea with Eliza Shaddad’s new album to create content for socials to help engage clients in the new music, listening to lots of new grime artists for a TV show and raking through the internet and PRS/PPL databases trying to ascertain ownership rights on songs.

What’s the biggest misconception about what you do?

I think the idealised version of a job in sync is being sent a wonderful, finished film you absolutely love and choosing all your favourite pieces of music and putting them where you think they will sound great. There are elements of that of course but it is the icing on a cake made of managing lots of different opinions and ideas and admin. You are always working within lots of restrictions and the more important part of the job it to allow the director and production company to get what they want creatively despite the restrictions.

If I’m an artist or manager, what can I do to get the most out of your area of work ?

I think it is very important to stay in regular communication with whoever is representing music to sync. The area is definitely saturated and the key thing is for the representatives to know the songs so that when a brief comes in they come to mind. Taking clients to live shows is a great way to do this once that is up and running fully again. It is also important to make sure you create instrumental versions of everything when you mix. These are often needed for an edit and can be a deal breaker if not readily available. Always make sure registrations at the PRS and PPL are correct and send music as downloadable and clearly tagged/labelled wherever possible. DISCO is a great system for this.

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