Music supervisors, the professionals in charge of building the soundtrack for films and TV shows, have a role that is mostly “behind the scenes and in service to a larger project,” says Gabe Hilfer, one of the top supervisors in the industry today. In fact, despite their major role in shaping the sounds of visual media, supervisors don’t even have a category for their work at the Grammys or Oscars. Instead, public praise typically comes in the form of a viral moment when a song that a supervisor commissioned or licensed becomes a breakout hit, à la “Running Up That Hill” by Kate Bush, which hit new heights after a placement in Stranger Things.

Hilfer, who has been working as a supervisor for two decades on projects like The Black Swan, Entourage and Crazy Rich Asians, has had a couple of

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