The Job Behind the Music in TV Shows with Jennifer Smuckler of Lionsgate

On this week’s episode of Girl Gang the Podcast, we interview Jennifer Smuckler, Executive Director of Television Music at Lionsgate.

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Welcome to season two of girl gang, the podcast. I'm your host, amy will and the founder of Girl Gang, the label.com. To kick things off for season two, we sit down with Jennifer smuggler, executive director of television music at Lionsgate, at their headquarters in Santa Monica. My name is jen smuggler and I work at Lionsgate and our executive director of TV music near listening to grow gang the podcast. So what was your first job and how did you get into this career path? It first started when I was in San Diego and I was listening to 91 x on the radio and they had a commercial, like if someone's interested in being an intern, you know, give us a call or send an email. Um, and I just did it just for fun, just see what would happen. And I got the internship and through that I met a bunch of people. Eventually a friend of mine got a job at house of Blues and San Diego and I thought, hey, this is another infor me. Let's see if I can get a job there. And I did that and I started working as a hostess and then interning there during the daytime I worked for the assistant to the general manager, so I was doing everything that involved the restaurant, the concert hall, I guess what I really was interested in was more of like the marketing aspect and marketing of the shows there. So once I started interning there for maybe about a year, they were giving me more responsibility and I started creating nights in the restaurant. So one of the nights was called vinyl and Vino. And on Wednesdays we would have a dj come and spin records and we'd have half off bottles of wine. And the other one I did was local brews, local groups where we would have a local brewery on top every month. And then every Tuesday have local bands come and play. And that was kind of just the beginning of like the craft beer scene. And thanks so much for tuning into the season premier all around and took the time to curate an awesome playlists playlist. We also included a link directly to it on the label dot political groups. Tune in every Wednesday for new episodes and then I kind of realized that this was probably the best job I'd ever have and I was kind of scared of what was next because I had reached this point of like, this is really what I wanted to do. I was working every day doing the internship during the day and working at night and I was just kind of asking for more and when I realized that I couldn't get more there because there's only limited jobs available. I just started applying and other places I applied to a job in La for summit entertainment and they did all of the twilight movies and I ended up interviewing a couple times and even in my interview with my eventual boss, she even said, Oh, you're a music person. What are you doing here? Like, why would you want to do this again? And I just want to like see what paths I could take. Maybe this is something that I didn't know that I liked or maybe I'd meet someone here that turned me onto something else, which actually eventually happened. Um, I ended up working for her for a year and a half. She was the president of marketing and in that time I met this lady Alex, but service who's music supervisor and she did all their twilight movies. Um, she also did the Osi and grey's anatomy, so a big deal, big deal. Um, and I kinda just realized that this is a job, you know, and I was never taught music supervision in school. I didn't even know that that job existed. We didn't have a music department at summit, so a lot of it fell onto marketing and you would get cds and submissions from bands just trying to be on the soundtrack. So I would listen through them and help kind of pick out the best of what we were getting in that role. I kind of realized this is something that I wanted to do about a year and a half into it. Alex told me to reach out to this Guy Sky Eaker who worked in the TV music department at Lionsgate and she was working on mad men with him. Um, and I just kind of found his email and just sent him an email like, hey, my name's Jennifer, you know, I'm working with Alex over here and I was wondering if maybe I could sit down and pick your brain and see what you do. And he was like, yeah, sure, whatever, like I don't know what I could tell you, but you know, come by. And we ended up having two and a half hour conversation and just got along really well. He was like, Hey, I really need help right now. It's just me and my assistant. And He created a job for me. Oh my gosh. He was like a, it'll be like half supervision, half soundtrack stuff because I did a lot of that at summit and you know, we'll kind of just figure it out from there. But you seem super bright and passionate and we need help. At that time he was supervising himself, the pilot of our show Nashville. Um, and we only had four or five shows at that time. I think it was weeds nurse, Jackie, Nashville, the show boss and maybe one other. Um, and it was right at the perfect point where tv was just becoming this booming enterprise I guess. And now we have 15, 20 shows and spend seven years almost and he's still my boss and he's still a great mentor to me and yeah. Oh my gosh, that's amazing. So when you came on, was he still working on mad men or what was the first show that you kind of were watching that role happened with? Um, so the first one really I jumped in to the national pilot. He was kind of showing me, you know, what he was doing. So he's like, here's a scene where Juliet gets into a limo and there's music that's playing in the limo, let's try to find something that works for her. And who is she, what would she be listening to? What would be her, like jump off music to go to a party. And that's kind of where I would sit with our assistant at the time who was a music editor and I would send him music and we'd start cutting it in and then send it producers. And that was kind of my first foray into it and that was the first week in Nashville that like, has such a music influence too. Yeah. And when I got picked up it, I mean it should, we just wrapped the last season, which is pretty sad, but I mean six seasons is a really long time for a show. But yeah, that was Kinda like my first foray into it. And then the next week he gave me a book which was orange, the new black. And he was like, read this book, we're going to do the show. So it was a lot right away and no one really to teach me I guess. Um, I really just learned on my own because no one, I had my position before me. Um, and now we've kind of done this thing where, because we have so many shows and we can't all work on all of them, we have our own shows. So dear white people would be my show that I, you know, control and work on or the show casual on Hulu. So everything music that is involved in that show, I'd be lead on. And obviously there's only four of us now in our department, um, so we're pretty small and we all kind of work closely together. Both of those shows I love so much too casual and dear white people. What's that like to work on a show like dear white people and be a part of that? It's probably my favorite show that I've worked on to date just because I'm so passionate about the subject matter. It's very rare I think. Especially when working in entertainment, do you feel like you're doing anything or giving back to the community at all? I feel like yes, it's entertainment, but um, I see people out there, you know, helping the world a better place and I don't feel like I'm doing that on my day to day and I feel like with this show we're actually making an impact. Um, so it feels really special to be a part of that. Also, the music on the show is incredible. Our music supervisor on the show, Morgan Rhodes, and I really tried to find up and coming indie artists just because a, we have a really small budget and b, it kind of is an indie show. Um, so it kind of fits really well. I don't necessarily as much as I love, you know, the Kendrick Lamar is and the chance to rappers. There's a time and place for that and I feel like this is a great music discovery show, so it's really fun to find cool acts and have people be like, oh my God, that song in this scene like that was great. I should sand it and is this person and now I've downloaded their album and I'm seeing them next week. Um, it's really fun to hear and that's kind of the first show I've really had that. Also it being on Netflix, just visibility wise. Um, it's fun to like get reactions from friends and family on shows that I've watched or worked on. What is that like to bring on an indie artist onto a super popular show and then see them blow up. Does it, like, what does that feel like for you? Um, it's really fun to get in touch with them because for the most part I'm reaching out to their emails on soundcloud or on their facebooks or like damning them on twitter or I just got an email back from someone on soundcloud actually the other day. Um, and they're like, oh, I don't have any representation. It's just me, which is super rare to not have a manager, a lawyer. Um, so it's really fun to be like, Hey, this is going to be your first sink on a TV show, you know, and then be able to also create a soundtrack and put them on that. You're a part of bringing artists to the public eye. So being able to do it with indie artists I think is such a special part of your job on these new type of shows. Yeah. And with sync, which I don't think a lot of people know artists really get paid as opposed to record sales go. A lot of it goes back to the label. They're actually getting paid, especially if they write the song a good amount, especially if they own it themselves and they don't have publishing or manager, they get the entire sum of money. Um, so I think for a lot of people it's actually helps them make a living. I get to look at their instagrams and twitters and they're like, hey, check out my song that's been used on this episode of Jerry White people and then all of their friends and fans like it was great and I watched the show and that also comes back to the show of like we've brought people into the show based on this song or this artist being in the show. So it comes full circle like that. And that's fun to watch. Is there a specific artists that you can think of that not even just for dear white people, but on any show that you put on and just watched them explode that felt really close to your heart? This wasn't exactly, I didn't put them in the show, but the first week that I was ever here, and we're working on the pilot of Notch Nashville. I pitched a song, I just got to know us and my boss was like, who is the s? And was like, no, you have to check it out. And I was like, it's not necessarily country, but I think it kind of runs the gamut of it will work for this. It's something that people will listen to and we didn't end up using it in that scene. We ended up using them later on. Um, and I thought that was really fun because now they just opened for beyonce. Coachella, right. Um, I discovered them from your music blog you had in San Diego. Oh my God. It's when I actually just got like my tumbler thing. It was like seven years, but I definitely stayed up to date with it and I only met you a few times because you had moved to La when I was still in San Diego, but, and I do not have, I like, love and appreciate good music, but just find a guinness so hard. That's why I think it's really cool with this new, like Netflix age and the type of stuff that's going on. People like me are able to discover new music from what you're doing for shows like dear white people where someone like me, when I hear a good song, I love it. But like where do I start to find that? So I was like, follow your blog diligently. There's actually a ton of blogs that actually made a list of blogs that you can go to and look at your milk is one that I use a lot. Hype machine, the burning ear under the radar. Music Ninja pigeons and planes. Gorilla versus bear. Those are ones that I tend to go to a lot. Um, when I'm just kinda trying to find new music also I get really lost in playlists. I feel like spotify playlist or the new radio. Um, so sometimes I just like go down rabbit holes and find new music that way. There's a lot of cool playlists, like especially like spotify, Belgium has some cool stuff that I follow and then going to shows, seeing opening acts. Um, and then just being in the job that I'm in, we get pitched a ton of music, so going through that and listening and then showcases that people will send us invites to that must be so cool. So cool to watch those smart showcases. Yeah, I mean it's a lot like on any given day we're invited to probably like three showcases, a listening session, you know, at dinner I show whatever it is. So trying to balance the time of like my free time and during my job and going to all of those things, uh, is pretty hard. But yeah, like the ability to do what we get to do and go to all of those is pretty exciting. I know that every day is really different for you, but can you just take us through what a typical day might be like for you? Yes. So it depends on the time of year and what show we're working on. So I'm working on a pilot for CBS and we actually mix the final mix tomorrow. So right now, um, we're trying to clear one of the songs that they want in the pilot that we found out that was needed on Tuesday, so it was like 3:00 AM on Tuesday, going through songs, looking for stuff, sending it over just because we don't have a lot of time to clear it. So dealing with that and when we can't figure out who owns a song, it's a lot of research, like who else has licensed the song, has this artist been licensed before, who licensed that, reaching out to other music supervisors who have licensed it, reaching out to labels and publishers to try to get as much information as possible because if they're older songs like this one was from 1952, most likely all the writers are passed on. So all of that goes to an estate who has the rights to say yes or no to this. So dealing with that this morning also we're releasing a soundtrack for dear white people. So making sure the cover art is approved, the press release, um, everything is good with that. We're also trying to create a vinyl. So today I kind of put together a track listing idea plus score and then went through all of the contracts for all of the characters on the show or the actors to make sure who has like approval on that. So like if we create ourselves, who we have to go to to get approval for something like that. Um, also if we're working on any new shows, there's a new show coming out on star, it's called the rook that I'm supervising, so we start shooting that on Monday. So I'm trying to playlist as much stuff as possible while also reading scripts and making sure there's nothing written and like a lyric or anything on camera or if I realize, okay, this is a montage, they might need a music, you know, q there. So I'll start thinking of cues just to get ahead of it. Um, and then I'm also sending music to our editors now just so they have it. So when they start editing they can put stuff in. So that's kind of what like today. So wild and indeed changes. Like next week it could be something completely different. That's what's really fun about the job is that shows changed so much and once the show is done, like we just finished the show, the royals, hopefully they'll get picked up for another season, but when that show's done and airing, I'm not really working on it as much casual is in post right now. So, so good. Yeah. If you haven't watched that show watch. Actually I love it. So great. It's honestly probably the funniest wittiest smartest scripts I've ever read. It's so real. It's so real and as original, like it's hard. I think in this day and age a lot of people are doing remakes or you know, something that's done before and to. It's really refreshing to read something that's new and real and original in the actors are so great and I'm really sad that one's actually ending the season. Oh, I know. I don't know what I'm going to do and probably just like rewatch all of them. Yeah, that's what I've been doing. I'm just like watching and those episodes are coming in. So, um, once those pop up, like they're just be a studio cut that we'll watch. And so I have to watch it to make sure no one ad libbed any lyrics or the music playing in the background is clear to find out what's clear and what's not. Um, so when those pop up initials that are in Postville, watch those as they come into. So when you're saying that, for example, if there was like an, a scene, they're playing music in the background of the car and someone driving is like mouthing the words you have to look for stuff like that. Yeah. Or if someone says something like, I'm in one of the episodes, actually yesterday someone said every rose has it's thorn. So I wanted to make sure that that was actually actual name of the poison song. And if it's just a lyric of the song and they sing it a little bit, we actually have to license that. So yeah, it's comes up a lot. It's a lot of people will ad Lib stuff, especially in dear white people just because it's so ingrained in pop culture. There's a lot of lyrics that they're saying as jokes, um, which is great, but we also have to license those because those are copyrighted. Wow. Yeah. So I have to read all the scripts, watch all the episodes to make sure that. And it's me and like five other people doing it just to make sure nothing falls through the cracks in that one. I mean the music is just so good. Do you have a list of songs or artists on deck that you go to? Yeah, whenever we start a season or start a show, I just start creating playlists. So a dear white people beginning, just kind of creating as much or putting as much music on there. That is I guess music of the now things that maybe aren't necessarily big right now, but be back in five months because both. We actually finished shooting in December and we finished production and post in February and it doesn't air until May, so you have to think about what will be big in May as well as like what's big now in February. I guess that makes sense. Um, so we kind of just start putting stuff together and then our creator, Justin also does the same. And because this show, every episode is different characters point of view. We have character playlists, so every episode would be like a Lionel episode. His music is different than a Joelle playlist. Um, so when we get to those, we'll actually look at the place, we'll send those to the editors and they kind of put in what they think works. And then based off what ends up being in the first cut or two cuts, that's when we'll start clearing stuff. And if things don't clear, if things are too expensive, then we'll look at alternatives. I guess when we first start getting scripts in and get an idea of like, okay, this is what the character's journey is, he's going to have a love connection. And how's that love connection going to work? So you're going to find more songs that have to do with love more than the character that's dealing with a crazy troll all season and like her internal identity and who she is in this world. They're gonna have a completely different playlists lyric wise than the person that's falling in love this season. Um, so that it changes. But I, I mean, I have playlists for every show we work on and then as I, as those seasons come up, I'd go through them and kind of delete, add new depending on like what's in and how the music scene is going. I guess. It seems like it's evolving so quickly. These two, I mean I was just talking about because I was at coachella like five years ago, it was Edm and now you go to the, I guess the Sahara tent, which was like the big one for the kids. And it's the crowd for me goes. Or like the crowd for Cardi B was insane. Had never seen so many people at the main stage. And she played 30 minutes because she was pregnant. Oh my God, but I mean it would have been the same way for like a dip or a Calvin Harris, you know, four or five years ago and it's just changed so rapidly. It's just so wild because like people will pop up and then it just explodes. Even. So someone that you put on the show, dear white people, Kyle, he's from mentor and so as his manager and they both went to my high school and they were younger and so it was so fun watching that song built up and then like when it was on the show, it would had just started. I feel like really being, you heard it. Yeah. And so that was so special because I like it still had that India enough feel. I think it wasn't. I mean now it's so crazy. People are still playing it, but it seems like before um, songs used to have a little bit more of a buildup, but now it's just like, oh, it caught on, like, yeah, the Internet everywhere. Crazy. The Internet is wild. Yeah. And like I was actually just, we were talking to a band that was here and talking about how one of their songs that they are working in the US now had been working in Australia already for months because they only work songs for a couple of weeks there as we do like three months here or song. Their song that was first released here last year is now only being released in the UK. There's just like so many things that are involved with what songs get released, how the radio gets played based on what's working I think, I guess through the Internet for that artist, um, what's being streamed the most in certain countries. I always look at that when I go on spotify. Like what the countries are streaming this artist the most or like go to like if you go to countries you go to their viral lists. I like just to look at like what songs are big in each country. Who is there like a go to country you have where if it's viral in a certain country you kind of are trend spotting and saying, okay, this is going to be big in the US soon. I think like I, I always look at like for some reason like Sweden and Belgium and the UK, um, I think music wise there, it's mostly the same. It's the bigger stuff, but I just like looking at that stuff. They're just very creative over there. I feel like fashion, like Scandinavian fashion and UK fashion music, everything, they just don't. It just seems more creative and individual. So music sets the tone for a TV show or movie or anything. So much. So being in charge of that, do you just feel responsible for the writers of the show? Yeah, there's a lot of stress involved, especially because we're on federal deadline for certain things and tv because you have an air date they have to hit on like film necessarily. Um, sometimes like our film department will be working on a movie for a year, year and a half and they'll have like five or six songs for like that one movie where we have 15 songs in one episode of Jerry White people and we have 10 episodes of that and it's every two weeks we have to deliver another episode. So there's a lot of stress when it's, you only have two days to clear all the songs and find alternatives or find something that works that not only works budget wise but also fits the scene and our producers are happy and the networks happening in the studio is happy. It's a lot of cooks in the kitchen to make happy. I'm a positive side. I think of Los Angeles being so competitive is it sparks competition with yourself and growth within yourself. So you're in a company in a position now that you can keep on growing and evolving and like the caliber of shows you're working on, the people you work with, like you've been in a room with Oprah, you know. And so I just, I feel like you've set yourself up to tie in your passion of music, but you can just keep growing with this and challenging yourself and just being able to do, like you said, not every day is the same. And I think as creative people we just need that we need, we need to evolve or else we just feel empty. And I think the community in the music supervision world and the TV and film is a great community. There was an article I read and you were mentioned in it, I want to say it was the composer of dear white people, like the classical part. Is that correct? Yeah. Chris bowers. Amazing. So things like that. So you have a team of people placing the music and then when you're talking about a composer, is it someone like that? And he's writing the original scores in music based on the picture. Is that one? So for every show we hired a composer and they write all the original music for the show. Some shows it's 70 percent score, 30 percent needle drops or source. Sometimes it's 50 slash 50. Um, with dear white people, it varies depending on the episode, but the originally because it was a movie before and we had talked about kind of staying with the same theme, but when our producer was talking about what he was looking for, Chris bowers name popped up. He was young up and coming, probably one of the best young pianists that I've ever seen and I just thought this would be such a great fit. Like he can also do the jazz stuff, but he could do the cool contemporary stuff. So he does all the original music. So anytime we sit down it's called a spotting session for every episode will sit down with the composer of the music supervisor, the producer, the editor, and we'd go through an entire episode and we go through each spot where there's music and say this should be score, this is the type of score we're looking for. This should be a source cue. I kinda like what's in there now. But maybe we find something that's a little cooler or a little bit more upbeat or you know, maybe instead of putting like a source cue here, like Chris, can you create something here? Um, so it's very collaborative of like all of us coming together. He's probably one of my favorite composers that's up and coming now. He actually just won an emmy last year. He actually just played keys for Kamasi Washington. I coachella, which was pretty cool to see him up there and play keys for your like that. We collaborated and worked to create this show together and now I'm watching you. Yeah. Coachella. And he also has an artist's project too, so I've gone and seen him play like his own stuff, which is completely different than what we do for our show. But that's probably like, to be honest, my favorite part of the job is finding the right composers for the projects. When we start every project will, the first thing we'll do is we'll get scripts in and we have to budget them. So I'll read scripts and all kind of mark up everything. Like, you know, if it's a lot of action, it feels like it's more score heavy or for something that's more young and there's a lot of montage is maybe that's a more source have and we'll kind of figure out our budgets from there and then once we talked to the producers to get an idea of like their music tastes and what they're thinking, then we start brainstorming of composers that we would like to use and then we start collecting reels from them and their agents and sometimes they'll create stuff just to pitch and so we sit through and listen to all the score that they've created and kind of find like our favorites that we'll pitch them to producers and then from there they'll listen and then have meetings and we'll hire someone. But I love that process. I know this might be, I mean you get to work with inspirational people all the time, but can you talk about a few people that you've worked with and just had an out of body experience? Like, I cannot believe I'm doing something with this person. I mean, Oprah was pretty crazy. Yeah, we do. The show green leaf, um, which was on own and um, I remember the first phone call where she had popped off at college. He's like, hello, it's oprah. And I was like, oh my God, that's actually oprah on the phone. And I wasn't necessarily talking, but I was just on the line listening and we were talking about music and, and just hearing her on there, I was like, this is crazy, this is totally her. And then she came in for a meeting and she like, grabbed my hands and she was like, hello, my name is oprah. We sat in a meeting and played her a bunch of end credits for the show so she could go through and find stuff that she liked and, and I was kind of hesitant to say anything because it's oprah and there's a lot of big people like our directors and our producers are all in the room. And I made one suggestion and she turned to me. She's like, that, that's a beautiful idea. And I just melted. And I was like, that's it. That's it. I've made it. She said, why I do is beautiful and I'm good to go. I feel like you should get that tattooed on you. That's a beautiful idea. Dash Oprah. To me that was. That was really great. I mean, I know there's probably so many like on, I don't even know how often. You're probably in a room with people in by now. It's maybe you're more used to it, but is there any other like artists or anything where you've been in a room and just maybe when you first started? Tim Armstrong of rancid. I was a big fan and that was probably one of the best meetings we've ever had. He was just super creative and fun to work with and randomly will call my cell phone like every couple of months to check in. I was in vegas like a year ago and I got a call. I was like, who's that gets tim, Tim Armstrong. It's like, oh, hey, Kelly curry was pretty cool to deal with on. I mean she did Solomon, Louise, um, which is a big one. And she created Nashville. That was her idea on dear white people. Stephanie Lane Bray. Uh, is one of the producers who I love and she did hustle and flow, um, and she's just a big producer in that world. So you are so busy. I'm so excited that you sat down and talk with us today. Aside from that, you took the time to link up my cousin with some people. She has a couple of interviews next week. She's so excited. Um, I want to get some advice for someone like her, but really speaking to whoever is listening and wants to get into music, but what's some advice you would give her? Just starting off on this journey? I think just be open to talking to as many people as possible. Um, you don't really know yet starting into what avenue you want to go into unless you really know, find a mentor. Um, I was lucky enough that, you know, I had two amazing bosses that have really been there for me and anytime I any advice I go to them, but finding someone who not only that you feel that you can be open with and talk candidly to, um, but also go to for questions that you know, that, that will be true in there for you. Also going to a lot of events, there's always events going on in la, going to shows, meeting people, networking events. There's so many opportunities here that I'm just meeting the right person at being the right time or the timing is right. You know, someone just leaving or making sure you're still on people's radars. Um, people checking in constantly, like every day like that can get annoying to people. So making sure you know who you're emailing, who you're calling and what it is that they do. Sometimes I'll have people like, hey, I work here. I'm an intern. I'm trying to get into this. Like, do you have any openings there? I'm like, no, if there's no openings here, like, okay, can you let me know when there are openings, you know, at Lionsgate and like I'm not going to go out and my weight. So like this random person that emailed me anytime there's an opening here, there's tons of people like trying to get into it. Just form a relationship with me first. Like let's go get coffee, you know, it, let's meet, let's, I'm really open to and my bosses too, which is great. And that's how his assistant now got the job as someone just emailed him and was like, Hey, I'm like looking. Same with me. I guess I just emailed him, um, and finding people that are open to talking, getting to know you and sharing their insights because then they can introduce you to someone else and they can introduce you to someone else. So I think just really being face to face with people. Also just knowing what's going on in the industry, reading deadline and variety, knowing what shows are popular, knowing who's supervising those shows, reaching out to those supervisors. There's a lot of classes that you can take two just to get more of a background on it. Has Music supervision classes. There's like legal music and business classes. There's publishing classes, especially if you didn't go to school for this stuff and then what I did is I just interned the hell out of everything in college just because I didn't really know and I just kind of figuring out and once you kind of figure out what it is you want to do, then kind of focus on that and find the people that are doing that and those are the people you reach out to. But intern intern for free. Ask people like, Hey, like are you making any student films? Like can I help supervise? Like what can I do to help you find your friends that are doing that and work with them just to build your ros or build your resume. I guess just so you can like, hey, you know, like I haven't really done anything major but I've done all these students. Bumps, you understand the process at least because a lot of times when people are hiring for entry level jobs, they want some sort of background, if it's not like in school, if you've done something that you have an idea and there's so many people and there's a lot of competition, so just having something that you can show them that you've done, um, or just creating something yourself, you know, like finding, taking a TV show or a movie or a couple scenes and stripping it of music and putting in your own music. People do that often. That's what they do. And like a lot of the classes they'll take like scenes from shows and like now what would you do with the music here? Um, and then just like reading, there's a lot of books out there that Kinda can give you an idea of at least the legal and the nitty gritty stuff of like, you know, there's two sides to a song. There's the master side and the sync side. And just knowing that it's just so basic. If you come into it just already knowing that that's huge because a huge advantage or people that don't know that because I didn't know that coming into this and I had to learn our fly and I think that's, there's a lot of simple things you can do. I agree that reading, honestly interning and reading are like my two biggest things. I did six internships and I had such a moment right now like walking up to you and I look up to you so much interviewing today and um, my first internship was at mtv and when Viacom, they must have moved but it used to be street. Yeah. Yeah. And I um, got stuck in the elevator the first day and everyone was too busy so no one could let me out and I like didn't want to pester people. So a few hours later someone from a few hours later, someone from lionsgate came and let me out of there, Nigel, like climb out and was like, alright, so I guess I need to make friends all of this because I'm in this for myself. Stuck in an elevator. But um, I mean that was like, okay, the, I was like, Hey, I'm stuck in the elevator. They're like, all right, all right, I'll call you when I'm out of the meeting. I was like, okay, well I guess I'm going to stay here and die slowly without oxygen thinks. And when it, when it opened, it was like halfway up. So they literally had to like pull me out, just strangers. And I was like, all right, there's a one, the entertainment industry is aggressive, but other side there's people that'll help you out. Like a stranger that's very busy finding lives gainful too. Like I've been here for seven years. I've had to learn who are the people that are going to a email my boss over me because he is a man and they'll just never email me straight because I'm a female, which happens a lot. And the people that know how hard I work and they know that I've information over my boss, so they'll email me like straight. Um, and those are the people that I go to when I need help. One of the craziest thing I from an outsider I think in your position is how like your professional life and your personal life can be so intertwined and the things you do socially or actually for work. So like when we were at south by southwest and you were networking and like meeting up with people. Can you talk a little bit about what it's like to have that balance and how you can create your own like true free time? Um, it's definitely something that I'm working on. I'm shutting off is really hard for me. I'm always working. I'm, I say all the time, like even I was at Coachella last weekend and I worked the entire time. It's something I struggle with for sure. And I think my friends and family sometimes you're like, can you just put the phone down or like get off the phone. Like I can't, like this is like my job and I have to do it because if I'm not doing it someone else will. And I think just coming home from work and just putting my phone away for at least a couple hours is something that I have to do for my sanity, just so I can focus then like real time, like hanging out with my boyfriend and hang out with my dog, like make dinner, just like have that real connection as opposed to hanging on the dog. Oh wait, now I'm like on my phone for like 20 minutes like working. Um, so that's something that I definitely struggle with and I think that I take a lot of that stress home with me too. Um, and just, I think that's like at least like that was like one of my like, resolution this year was to try to separate church and state a little bit better. Um, I love that my personal life and my work life collide like south by or like going to Coachella and also like, you know, being able to meet up with managers or people there that are also, you know, our bands that I love or you know, I'm going to shows, you know, and being able to bring friends is my plus one, so that's great. And that's also my job and like bringing my friends too. That shout out Portugal, the man. I know. Thank you for that. That was so fun. We actually, I kind of see them in Denver going, oh my gosh, that's amazing. Yeah, it's figuring out how do I incorporate what I love and maybe a way that isn't so obvious and right in my face like same like me, I'm so passionate about business and for so long I thought that meant I have to run my own business. But the customer service part, having employees, that whole part didn't speak to me. So now I'm figuring out like, okay, maybe my idea of loving business and inspiring people and entrepreneurship might not be so obvious. And in my face I have to like work for this and get back to the drawing board and figuring out how to incorporate it like doing this podcast and different elements like this. So I think music and the creative industries, it's um, I love seeing people be able to incorporate their passion and not give up on it. Not like grow up writing music and playing music and then say, now I'm going to go be a doctor and I'm giving up on this. Yeah, no, that was huge because I thought, you know, if I'm not playing music, that's, that's what it is. Then they're not going to be in the music industry and finding there's so many small niches have different jobs or different career paths. You could be a blogger, you could be a photographer, you know, there's so many things that will bring you into the world that you want to be in that's not necessarily playing the music or owning the business or whatever it is. And so much of it too is like being around the type of people. I think why we're drawn into certain industries or certain elements of creativity is like the people around it and we just want to be around that and so now you get to work with all these artists, get to do all that and you can speak to them with like you grew up with this passion, you know, it's not just like, oh I'm, I went to work in TV. Like let's just like close my eyes and pick a job like this. I feel like looking back, it was very calculated to get to this point and there's a reason you've been here for seven years. Yeah, totally. I think that was. I think the biggest hustle of it was I have a goal, how do I get to that goal? And it was just like this to this and connecting the dots and finding like, alright, if I work house of Blues, maybe I can get an internship there. Like if I start working at summit, maybe like somehow I could figure out how to work in the music aspect and then I can meet these people and then if I go here it's. So it's a lot of that for sure. Um, yeah, I mean the, the not playing music part I think has, has, it felt a little like I felt was like hey, you know, maybe um, this is not where I'm supposed to be. Everyone else around me has been doing this for way longer and in better. But then when I sit in meetings and I realized that I'm actually saying things that the other person that had been playing music forever didn't know about or there's, you know, we can help each other out. Like maybe my boss didn't know, you know, this up and coming artists, you know, a song or just like something that I had known that he didn't know, but he played bass his whole life I guess like different, like characteristics of everybody like comes into play and that's what makes our team like a, a great team to work with on the fly. Like I just learned how to use pro tools so I can start cutting songs like into like scenes I can send those stuff. Like things like that. I'm like, okay, this is a skill that I should know and then I just learn it, you know, like I took guitar lessons for a year and a half and I pretty much told the teacher that I wanted to learn more about music theory, but using the guitar to help me because I feel that would help me more in my job, which totally has. Um, so finding like, okay, I'm slacking in this, like take a class, learn instrument, find, you know, learned on your own, whatever that it that is. Um, I think that's super helpful and I think would, we'll shoot you above other people that aren't necessarily trying to learn as much as you are. The most important thing, especially in competitive industries, is figuring out how can I be indispensable? And it's actually, I mean it takes a lot of hard work but it's not as hard to figure out as you would think. So I think like laying out all the skillsets you would need and saying like, okay, how can I tackle these in a way that I'm not spreading myself too thin? And what's the plan of attack? I'm putting myself up for success and I have like the tool set on my own and I think that's so important to being a woman and any form of business at any time, if someone needs something, they can call on you being like a version of the Jane of all trades. Exactly. Or like instead of, you know, having to send, you know, music to our music editors to cut it in like, oh, I can do that for you. And I could do it really quickly. Um, that was like a big thing was for awhile. I was like, okay, I needed to learn pro. I need to learn how to do this myself so I can have that skill set and just do it on my own and I can audition these songs to these scenes and then send them. So I know that they work, you know, with the scene as opposed to like, here a bunch of songs, editors do it for me. Um, the fact that I could do it now myself is a huge help and my boss recognizes that and so he'll come to me and like, Hey, I need these songs and these scenes and I'll help cut them from school. Other people recognize it and just for yourself knowing like you don't need to be depending on other people. I think there's a level of that that we always need to exercise and then at some point obviously like other people need to be doing those things. But figuring out what can I take on myself and feel true independence and then that confidence just shines through and not needing to call every single person every time you need something. That's what I liked to do. Anytime I need to know something, even if I don't have time to become an expert, it's just like I have to know that one thing, you know, when I interned at National Lampoon, they, um, I just really wanted to intern there and like see the production background because I wanted to do special effects in movies originally. Like movies, like transformers and things like that. I wanted to do the design and create the bonds, so I was like, I don't know where to start in. And I went in and called and soft. They needed anyone in the department and thought like maybe I could just learn it there. And he brought me in and there was no position, but he was like, yeah, I mean we can, if you can just start in a few weeks. And I lied and said I already knew it. Um, if you can start in the few weeks we have a radio show downstairs and videotape it and you can just like line up the voice in the video and cut it back and forth. It was really simple but then I could have final cut pro. And so, um, I had three weeks to learn final cut pro without having it. So I printed out a 700 page thing and my school library and read it and highlighted it. So the first day I was like, when he was like, okay, can you do this? I just like opened up my book and it's practiced on paper and was like, okay, I'm in a cut a clip like full to that section, but just that little bit of work when such a long way and I set myself up to just in anytime they needed something with someone in like a really simple video thing. I was called on and I kept on getting to learn and to me that's all I wanted. I wanted all these guys in these positions to just ask me for the help and see like I'm willing to do it, but also you can trust me. I don't care how small or minor it is. Like I just, no matter what I did, I always wanted to know how to do something else, you know, so um, and then it can be the person that people go to exactly. Like it's hard work, but it's just, I think where everyone's going one way, figuring out how you can like add those extra elements and there's always going to be someone that knows how to do all those things too. So you want to be able to compete with them. Exactly. You can't just do bare minimum because I'm, yeah, if you do, you're not going to be able to succeed. So now there's youtube, so I'll just go to youtube for like, hey, how do I do this on Photoshop? And then they'll show me like, oh no, I know how to do it. There's always someone with a video teaching you. So this is John Smith and I'm going to teach you how to take the home out of your has like less than a thousand views and I just think like, I want to like write you a thank you letter and say like, like you don't understand how much you've helped me. So many likes. So many likes. Oh well thank you so much for sitting down and talking with me today. I'm so excited about this episode. Thanks for coming in. Thanks so much for tuning into our season premiere. Jen took the time to curate an awesome playlists for us available on spotify, Girl Gang, the playlist. We also included a link directly to it on our website, Girl Gang. The label.com tune in every Wednesday for new episodes of season two.