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Continued from page 52 sure that my filter is set properly. And then I’ll go back to screening. You know, it’s great. I’m always excited when I find stuff that’s on target. We were talking about the actual listings themselves. You know, they are really a road map for exactly what we need to use. Most of the time [for Film and TV listings] we’re called in at the eleventh hour [by music supervisors and ad agencies], so they’ve already had the exact song that is put to picture. The way that these listings are mostly created is the directors and producers and everybody involved in the project has already fallen in love with this particular song. Most of the edits of the picture are already done to that tempo. All the hit points are right there, so it’s really difficult to take a song like that and switch it out for a slow ballad if it’s an up-tempo piece. So the TAXI listing is just kind of giving a guideline of what we need. We need guitars; we need it to be from a male vocal perspective; we need it to be upbeat for this particular thing. You need to just read the listing like a road map. I like to print out the listing and highlight all the little things. It’s like if you wanted directions on how to get to the TAXI office in Calabasas, I could write it down for you: Go out here, make a right, get on the 405, get off the 101 and you’re there at your destination. The listings are a road map also. “We need acoustic music, not Heavy Metal, not Country. We’re looking for mid-tempo, we are looking for these kinds of lyric themes.” And if you can just follow those directions, you’re gonna have a greater chance of getting that stuff forwarded. The trick is really fooling the people that have fallen in love with the temp music. So when your piece gets switched in there and it’s kind of like the same vibe, it’s just a no-brainer and it works. They don’t have to go back into the editing room and spend days chopping up the dialogue or the picture, it’s just an instant fix. You put in the song and it’s working. Karl: Michael, can I jump in? I was just gonna say that… Back to your original question of if we roll in there having had a bad day that morning, that afternoon do we take it out on the members’ music? Actually, I can speak for these two, because I know them well. I call them friends, and we love sharing music. But I can say that nothing gets me fired up… Maybe a close analogy would be an extra-strength aspirin with caffeine as an additive towards, like, the headache, which goes right away when I hear something great. It just fires me up, and, I mean, that’s why I wake up in the morning and have trouble falling asleep at night. It’s just great music that rattles around in my head, whether it’s a TAXI member or a cut I’ve just heard on KCRW as I’m winding down, what-

ever the case may be. But absolutely not! We so much want to say “yes!” In fact, we want to jump up and say yes and cheer with everybody in the vicinity around us. We’ve made that point a couple times today, but I want to keep reiterating it. Robin: The other thing is I have a rule, and I make it clear to the screeners: Don’t screen when you’re tired; don’t screen when you haven’t eaten breakfast; don’t screen if you’re out late the night before. Take the afternoon shift and sleep in. Do not do it. You can’t be at your best when you’re tired, and you can’t be your best at coaching. One of the things I say to the screeners is “You’re a coach. You are here to help the team—all of the team. All of us get better and make us all shine.” So, yeah, definitely, I’ll send a screener home if I

see a problem. And screeners voluntarily will pull themselves off. I’ve had them come down to my office and apologize. They are 15, 20 minutes into a shift and go, “I found out that my mom has cancer,” or some horrible thing. “My head’s just not in it today; is it OK if I split?” Robin: Absolutely, I’ve had screeners leave who say, “I’m tired I can’t do it today.” It’s hard. It’s really hard to listen, verbalize, write a critique, and get it all done. It’s a very difficult job to do. It’s not easy. Some screeners have said to me, “This is brutal.” Don’t miss the final part of this panel in next month’s issue!

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Recording - November 2012

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