The Europe In Synch Podcast

EP07: Lisa Humann (BMG Rights Management) - An Inside Approach to Creative Sync In The Streaming Era.

• Season 1 • Episode 7

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Welcome to Episode seven of the Europe In Synch podcast.

This time we are talking with Lisa Humann, Senior Director Creative Synch & Music Supervision at BMG Rights Management, based in Berlin.

We hear how BMG's integrated global system, which combines the roles of both publishers and labels, has created a more efficient and responsive sync team. Lisa shares insights into BMG’s impressive catalogue of over three million songs and how a global collaborative network enhances music placement opportunities.

We explore the evolving landscape of TV music sync and the transformative impact of streaming services on the German market. From budgeting and hiring composers to negotiating licenses and contracts, Lisa walks us through the creative and logistical aspects of her role. We also take a closer look at groundbreaking music placements in local German productions like Netflix's "Dark," understanding how innovative music concepts can elevate storytelling and set new industry trends.

We recorded this conversation at the BMG offices in Berlin on 14.06.2024.

We hope you enjoy the episode and thank you for listening!

Find out more about our guest:

If you have questions, ideas, requests, recommendations, or general feedback, feel free to contact us at feedback@europeinsynch.net.

Europe In Synch is created, managed, promoted, and driven by several European organizations and companies and is a truly cross-border collaboration.
The goals are to bring together professionals from the music sector with decision-makers from film & advertising to provide a real-life, hands-on, learning experience, and to promote European music in the complex field of synchronization, through communication, knowledge-building and networking via focused mentoring and peer training sessions.


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Intro/Outro music is an instrumental edit of "Gimme" by Daffodils.
They're on Soundcloud.

Europe In Synch is co-funded by the European Commission.

This podcast is a SuperSwell production.

Paul Cheetham

Welcome to the Europe in Sync podcast. We're talking today with Lisa Homann, the Senior Director Creative Sync and Music Supervision at BMG Rights Management. Hello, lisa.

Lisa Humann

Thank you for having me.

Paul Cheetham

We're talking here at the BMG offices in the centre of Berlin. It's lovely here.

Lisa Humann

Thank you for coming by.

Paul Cheetham

No problem, and it's one of my favorite parts of Berlin Gendarmenmarkt. It's a very historical cultural center of the city, isn't it Got? The Berlin Concert Hall usually has a great Christmas market.

Lisa Humann

That's true.

Paul Cheetham

I've been to the open air classical concert series they do in the summers Very nice, but my favorite thing about here, though, is this chocolate shop on the corner.

Lisa Humann

Oh yes, I've never been.

Paul Cheetham

I go all the time and it's why I can't work for BMG, because I would be in there eating chocolate and there's a cafe upstairs with the best cakes in town, so that's why I can't work here.

Lisa Humann

Yeah, that's really true, because you would be over there, not here.

Paul Cheetham

So, starting with BMG, if we can, we'll talk about your career and everything, but quite a lot of that has been at BMG, hasn't it? Yeah, but the modern version of BMG started 2008 and it's become a huge global player offices around the world, and it was the first company that offers musicians the kind of services generally provided by publishers and labels all under one roof.

Lisa Humann

Yes, and I think that's one of the things that are really special about BMG and special for the sync team as well, because we are the only sync team that handles both recorded and publishing.

Lisa Humann

That really makes a difference for us and I feel it's really exciting for us and for our job to do both. We do have one-stop repertoire, so one-stop repertoire is where we represent the recording and the publishing rights. Of course, it's really convenient if we represent both, because we can move much quicker. If you're representing a publishing catalog, you can do bespoke work, for example, because you represent the writers writers but we also work on the label side so we could actually release that song as well if we wanted to. I think an advantage for us as well as representing writer clients and artists. If there are requests coming in for a song and they want to know more about the profile of the artist attached to the song, I can give that information because we are the label as well. So I think it's just the variety of pitches I can reply to is probably bigger as we represent both.

Paul Cheetham

And also creates more possibility of synergies inside the company. As you've said, If a song does an amazing job in a particular production, you have the option of releasing the track as a single on the label side.

Lisa Humann

If it's not released. We could do that definitely. I think another advantage of the synergies probably is the different jobs we have. So we have creative, we have licensing. We do have a music supervisory in-house. We do have a bespoke team focusing just really on tailor-made music for films and sing. We do have a music supervisory in-house. We do have a bespoke team focusing just really on tailor-made music for films and commercials. We do have a brand partnership team in-house and we do have a production music team as well. So I think that's really a luxury to have so many people working with our repertoire but also working with the clients. So, yeah, I think that's a really big advantage of working in a bigger company, because in a smaller company, you probably will be doing all that jobs in one person.

Paul Cheetham

BMG does have a pretty significant library of production music in-house for using films, tv advertising. Is it right that you have three million songs to work with?

Lisa Humann

advertising. Is it right that you have three million songs to work with? Yeah, we do have. I think, even more than three million songs to work with on the BMG core side. So that's the hit repertoire we're working with on the BMG side. And then we, in addition to that, have a production music library as well. So that's two separate libraries. And I'm working on the core repertoire side. So I'm working with the established bands and artists, household name writers and our hit repertoire.

Paul Cheetham

So that's the music I'm working with mostly, it must be like me in the chocolate shop, you being here with all this amazing material.

Lisa Humann

Exactly.

Paul Cheetham

But that's a heck of a lot of content. How do you even start to manage something at that size? Do you feel like you're sitting on a huge pile of treasure?

Lisa Humann

Yes, definitely, definitely. We can discover a new song every day that you might have had in your catalogue for quite some time and you didn't know about it. We, of course, have to rely on help to find the music, so we have our systems in place that help us discover music. We are a global team, so we heavily rely on the other sync staff that we have globally, because they are all music lovers and every one of us probably knows a different corner of our repertoire. So this is really what I like most about working with such a great team and having so many people dig in the repertoire all the time. So when I get a brief or a pitch, I just share it with my colleagues and I get ideas from all over the world and everyone has a different perspective or maybe just discovered a different song or found a gem from the catalogue. So that's how I try to know the catalogue.

Paul Cheetham

Of course, this is a global organisation and you have regular conversations with colleagues around the world in different offices. And you have regular conversations with colleagues around the world in different offices. How's that work on a practical level and how does it benefit your day-to-day work as well?

Lisa Humann

Yeah, I think working in like a global company like I am the really big difference to working in a smaller company is that there are a lot of resources that you can rely on. We have a really big team working globally. So I think, for example, when streaming came to our market, that was new territory for us, so we weren't really aware of what are the proper fees, which rights do they need to acquire? What are the ins and outs, Just what do we need to know about streaming? And back then I remember just reaching out to my colleagues in the US, because that's something they've been doing all this time, and asking them okay, what do we have to be aware of? What's a proper rights setup? What is your experience? So it was really good to be able to ask experienced colleagues how do you do that? And, of course, working with a global repertoire this is such a big advantage just to be able to work with so many amazing songs. This is something that's really different to working with a much smaller catalog in a smaller market.

Paul Cheetham

When you started here? It is a while, it's 2013,. I think you started at BMG.

Lisa Humann

Yes, I just celebrated my 10-year anniversary last year, so that was quite nice.

Paul Cheetham

Yeah, the company has expanded so much in that time, it must have been a perfect time for you to have started here.

Lisa Humann

Yeah, the company really started to grow a lot. From being three people in the beginning and I think there are a couple of things that came together the company grew but on the other side, the market grew as well. So for us it was a really interesting time to see the changes that came, especially in the sync market. Almost two years ago we decided to split into creative and licensing because we really wanted the opportunity to, on the one hand, really have this artist-facing role and really be in dialogue with all our artist and writer clients and improving their sync careers and, on the other hand, just really pitching our catalogue, because we have such a huge catalogue with amazing songs in it and we just want to find more opportunities to grow our business of course.

Paul Cheetham

I just want to find out a little bit more about the differences in the roles you've had, then working in music supervision and licensing, and then more on the creative side.

Lisa Humann

I think if you're working as a music supervisor, you are hired by the production company usually, so your role oftentimes is to build a bridge between the creatives on the film side and the music side. The tasks of a music supervisor on the film side are much broader, like budget calculations, look for composers. They might even hire the instruments that are played on set. So the job of a music supervisor on a film or a series can be involved with everything that has to do with music in the whole project, and you will probably be working on a film for two years until it's released. If you're on the licensing side, you will have many, many, many projects on your desk day after day, because it's just such a high volume of license requests coming in that have to be handled in a timely manner, that have to be cleared, that have to be handled in a timely manner, that have to be cleared, that have to be negotiated, of course. So it's a lot of negotiation, and then you do all the contract work as well. So that's a lot of really detailed work, a lot of paperwork as well.

Lisa Humann

The creative part of sync is working proactively with the music you represent. So I am trying to create sync opportunities for our catalog at BMG in the media we work with. So I just really try to find opportunities for our music in upcoming projects. I have a strong network in the music supervision world. I really work closely with the music supervisors out there. Some of them really involve me early on into their projects. Sometimes I already get to read the script or they just give me a call and ask hey, I'm working on this series about the 90s, now what 90s music do you have? And then I'm sending over a first playlist and we're just going to be in conversation about this project.

Lisa Humann

So that's the perfect world being involved really early on and being like a partner to the music supervisor, just like giving them input from what we can do with our roster so when you started bmg, that was before streaming it was before streaming, yes, and I think I really always discovered music from watching television series and films, shows like the OC, grey's Anatomy and stuff like that and I saw my favorite bands on TV and I felt this was really, really amazing. And when I started working in sync, I always thought I have to move to the US at one point to really get exciting projects on my table and work on shows like that. But now it's here. I didn't have to move and this is probably for me the biggest change in the market that came with streaming and with the big global players producing locally in Germany and in continental Europe and us having much more opportunity to pitch a big variety of music.

Paul Cheetham

So it's the best of both worlds that you're working in a global company where you have access to the markets you dreamed of.

Lisa Humann

That's true, but I usually only work on local shows or local films. But I learn a lot about how the US works and I, of course, pitch for shows that the US team is working on as well, because they share the pitches, and sometimes we get really for shows that the US team is working on as well, because they share the pitches. And sometimes we get really lucky and have the possibility to place a local song in a US series. This is what everyone really wants. But, yeah, we have as interesting productions over here now we used to only have in the US before.

Paul Cheetham

Well, you said about the market changing so dramatically and I guess that's a very noticeable change. With German TV productions, Netflix came along and started to produce shows locally. They even did that in Germany with a program that was wildly successful in Germany but also internationally, called Dark.

Lisa Humann

Probably still my favorite project I've ever worked on, because it was such a big change for us. Netflix was the first global streamer that came to Europe, and to Germany especially, and started producing locally, and Dark was the first series that they produced over here. It is an amazing program, in my opinion. I really loved it. It was really just such a big change for our work because we could actually pitch different music. Tv is all blanket license, so we are not involved in that as a sync team. They usually don't have a music supervisor on board for a TV series and music oftentimes not always, but oftentimes is an afterthought and it is just mixed in in the cutting room. So you don't really approach a project with a music concept in mind, and that's what was really different with Dark. I think it was probably the director and the screenwriter who came with a really big vision for the music. It's about time travel, so we have different settings in different decades. The setting in the 80s is really important, so a lot of 80s music.

Lisa Humann

We were able to license a couple of songs from our catalog and I think one of the most meaningful licenses probably was Nina's Irgendwie, irgendwo, irgendwann, which is a really uplifting, positive track that is used in one of the cruelest and most horrific scenes probably of the series and throughout the three seasons you will always come back to this song and even if you only hear the song playing you, you start shivering and it's just yeah, it's amazing to me and I really think it's such a great use of music and having the juxtaposition between a really uplifting, positive song but something horrific in the picture, and this is something that dark did many times.

Lisa Humann

I think the nina example is probably the one most recognizable, because you just come back to that scene over and over again, but this is just one of the things that they really did so well and it became a big trend, actually in sync. I don't know if dark started it, I don't want to say that but, for example, killing Eve, they really based the whole music concept on juxtaposition and I think it's really, it's just really powerful.

Paul Cheetham

I agree, I've never seen any German TV or film like it. It's a game changer, yeah, in viewing and also, as you're explaining, in working on the project as well. Completely different approach. It's brilliant TV and it's great that Germany produced something as thrilling and as brilliant as that, but how did it come about in your case, then, in terms of getting music into this? Where did that start from?

Lisa Humann

I think we've been approached pretty early on, because there's one song in the first season that's Pleasure to Kill by Creator, which is not an obvious sync song at all, and there was a use of the lyrics or there was a use of the showing the record on screen.

Lisa Humann

So they had to clear that really early on in the process, before they were shooting the scenes. So that's when we came across Dark, probably for the first time. They back then worked with an international music supervisor, so it was not a German team working on it, which was really interesting as well, because they of course they're aware of how Germany worked in the past and that there's so much blanket license over here, and it was a completely different set of rights. It had to be cleared for dark and for Netflix, something that we usually weren't really used to like clearing rights in perpetuity and all that stuff. So it was really open on the creative side so we could pitch a lot of interesting stuff. But from the clearance and licensing side, it was a really big change for us as well. At that point I handled both, so we had extensive negotiations to find contracts that worked. So that was a really interesting time on both sides on the creative end and on the licensing side.

Paul Cheetham

What were the biggest difficulties?

Lisa Humann

I think really coming to an agreement between someone who's used the rights they could acquire in the US than what we are able to license over here, because the collecting societies have a different role here in continental Europe compared to the US. In the US you can do a mechanical buyout, for example. We can't do that here because the mechanicals are exclusively with the collecting societies. But it weren't big things at all, it was just really the smaller things that you have to work out to find an agreement. But yeah, that was a lot of time and you see that with every new streamer coming into the market, so over the years we've worked with other streamers like Apple, disney+, paramount+. So other players came into the market and they had to, of course, adapt a bit.

Paul Cheetham

Interesting that they're prepared to adapt. They learned lessons.

The Impact of Music Sync Trends

Lisa Humann

Well, I think we all learned lessons in the process. I think we as publishers and labels learned lessons and we've became probably a bit more open to adapt and the same on the other side. You have to find an agreement to make it work, and I think producing locally over here is really a big advantage as well. There are many shows coming out of continental Europe that have been super successful and there are really different shows that have made an impact globally, so it's worth producing here.

Paul Cheetham

What kind of impact do you think he had on your work? Did he give a boost?

Lisa Humann

I think it gave the whole market a really big boost. So with Dreamers coming into a market, there was an additional outlet added to the industry. The market was already a strong market, but with streaming there was just another outlet on top and a lot more content produced. So I said before, our team really grows since I started in that, of course, partly to streaming coming into the market. We had Dark, we had Babylon Berlin, which was really successful. There was the Deutschland series, which was successful outside of Germany as well. So it was like a golden age. It was incredible. Before you were mostly pitching mainstream for the big feature films and then it really opened up and you can pitch a much wider variety of music. It changed for me personally in my day-to-day work, but it also was a big impact for the whole industry.

Paul Cheetham

You talked about the fact that unusual tracks can be used as well. It seems to be just all around more creativity, more risk-taking. Regarding the Nina track, this uplifting track that goes over the most brutal parts of the TV show, whose idea was that? Was that something they requested? Hey, we need an uplifting track and you just went to look for one. Did you know what it was going to be used for?

Lisa Humann

That's something that was, I think, on the creative side, decided already. I'm not sure if it was already written into the script. I could imagine that actually For Dark, especially, I think, for the key scenes. They knew what they wanted already. If music really is such a backbone of a project, they will have had their really strong ideas and probably a music concept already before they even started hiring a music supervisor.

Paul Cheetham

It sounds like a brilliant project to work on. Do you have other favourites that you can think of?

Lisa Humann

Yeah, it is a feature film, a coming-of-age love story that is an adaption of a novel. It's called Dem Horizont, so Nah, Close to the Horizon. It's one of my favourite placements because I love the song that we were able to place in that show so much. It was a cover. That is just really unique. I feel the song is a cover of Sign your Name, a really recognisable song from the 80s.

Paul Cheetham

Terrence Trent.

Lisa Humann

Darby yes exactly.

Paul Cheetham

Okay, I haven't seen this film, but I know the song.

Lisa Humann

Yeah, the song. It's in our catalogue and we've not really been actively looking for someone to do a cover. We've been working with May, an amazing singer, and she just came in one day and said ah, I just want to play you a song I recorded with my friend Jeffcat and they recorded their cover version of Sign your Name and it's a really modern, more minimal or stripped down version. It creates a really intimate feeling instantly and it just gives this iconic song such a new twist. I instantly fell in love with that version of the song. Later that afternoon, the music supervisor of that film came in and talked about this new project she's working on and she's looking for a really, really great love song. That's new but you have heard it before, so it is familiar. And I was like, yeah, I have that song.

Paul Cheetham

That's unbelievable.

Lisa Humann

It's unbelievable Same day.

Paul Cheetham

Yeah, it was really meant to be, and brilliant because that is a classic song that's underused. Yes, absolutely, it's a great song.

Lisa Humann

It's absolutely underused and this song really. It really helps to have an alternative version that is so different, and many times when I'm looking for a love song, I don't want to want something that's too in your face, especially if you have a romantic scene already. You want something that's maybe underlining that, but it's not overwhelming the scene, and I think having such a cover version is a really good thing. It it's not new, it's been a trend for many years and we always get this briefing I want something instantly recognizable but never heard before, and basically there are just a few ways to do that, like with the cover version.

Lisa Humann

For example, it was not on my list to do a cover of that song, but having it and listening to it that day day, it's just a really good cover and the music supervisor fell in love with as I did. She played it to the film team they fell in love with and in the end it was released with the film start and it was yeah, it was just a really nice thing to do, because it's a bit more than just a sync. The original rights holders really loved it as well, so we played it to them. Of course, in the licensing process Then we have to clear this new cover version with the original rights holders as well, and they really loved it too.

Paul Cheetham

These songs from both these projects so far. They're very intergenerational.

Lisa Humann

Yeah, and I think that's exactly what we and the film teams are aiming for. Basically what we and the film teams are aiming for, basically, we of course want to have music that speaks to a younger generation and an older generation as well, because usually you have the whole family watching a program or you just want to have the music speak to a wider audience, and these audiences usually are multi-generational. So it's really great to have such a connection between an upcoming young artist and, like an iconic song. Or another example that I'm happy to talk about is a thing that we just recently did for the film Chantal im Märchenland, which is the most successful German film since the pandemic. It's a really big success.

Lisa Humann

It's a spin-off of the Fuck you Goethe trilogy, and one of the songs I pitched was a single re-released, I think, in 2023, by rita aura. It's rita aura praising you, feed fat boy slim. It's a rita aura song with a re-interpolation of praise you by fat Slim, and for this particular film, it made it into the trailer and has an in-film use, which is just the dream for us, of course, and I think for this particular film, this is such a good fit because it speaks to the young audience the film is targeted towards, but it also makes people from the parents' generation oh yeah, I know that song and I think that's really interesting to just have such a connection between the different generations and speak to everyone. Basically.

Paul Cheetham

What's the word you used?

Lisa Humann

Reinterpolation.

Paul Cheetham

Is that an industry word for it?

Lisa Humann

Yeah.

Paul Cheetham

It's like a reimagined cover version.

Lisa Humann

I think it's even more Because it's not really just a cover version. She just uses parts of the song. You have a standalone song using parts I would maybe say more like sampling If there's even some original recording in it. I don't think so. There are people who say, oh, the original is much better, but actually the younger generation, they don't know the original. So this is a way to really open up the song to a whole new audience as well.

Paul Cheetham

Yeah, exactly, but that's an example of it being an international artist. So how was that different for you? Because it's not a local artist.

Lisa Humann

Yeah, but it's an existing song. So the song Praising you wasn't done for the film Reed Aura, is signed to our UK office Fatboy Slim as well. So for me it doesn't really make a difference if it's a local artist or if it's an international artist.

Paul Cheetham

Right.

Lisa Humann

It's just our catalog, basically.

Paul Cheetham

Okay, so you'd pitched it to the film, had you already got permission from your UK colleagues.

Lisa Humann

No, we discuss the music, the repertoire we're representing a lot and when new music's coming out or when we sign someone new, we discuss within the sync team or we are made aware of if there are no goals, if there are things they really want to happen. If it's a local artist, I'm going to have a conversation with the management or with the artists themselves and ask, okay, is there anything you don't want to happen? Are there any and is there anything that can help with it? Is there a like a director that you want your music in their films, or is there a brand you really love or something like that we just like really have a conversation about their wants and their no-goes and, of course, we share it within the team.

Lisa Humann

Usually, when pitching for film, you don't have to be that cautious, because most of the repertoire that we represent really wants sync in film and TV, because of course, when I pitch music, I'm making a promise to my client that we can clear that as well. If I have the budget or if I have the scene and if it's something that I'm like, okay, I don't know if that really will work out, I'm going to pre-check that, but oftentimes I'm going to pitch and then it's likely to clear. Usually.

Paul Cheetham

Do you think that gives you an advantage in that you go into an original pitch already with quite wide boundaries of how far you can go when you're discussing things that are available? Maybe other people pitching for similar projects might have to go back and clear things still?

Lisa Humann

We still have to go back and clear as well. So I think the process is pretty similar all across the industry. I think it's something that if you want to be a great creative, you should not overpromise and you should be able to clear the songs that you're pitching because otherwise you probably won't be called again. But I think what really helps is that I have a really solid background in licensing, so I am really aware of the whole process.

Lisa Humann

I know the budget, I know the fees, sometimes have experienced the clearance process with that particular team already. So I know okay, yeah, they take a bit longer to respond or the fees are a bit on the higher end for them. So I can flag that with my client and already give them as much information I can to make them aware, because usually I'm not working directly with the director. I'm working with a music supervisor who's probably then is pitching to the producer or the director or not, maybe not even to the final decision maker, so it is a long chain of people involved until the final decision is made. So I have to be as clear as I can about where we are. What's the ballpark fee that we need for that, to clear If there's anything we have to be aware of beforehand. So I try to really do my homework and be as aware of all the problems that might occur, because I want to make the process as easy as possible for my client, of course.

Paul Cheetham

The other thing I picked up listening to the examples of the campaigns you gave, was in two of the cases especially, you were very hands-on with the artist. Is that typical?

Lisa Humann

I think it is really important to be aware of the artist and the music, because the music supervisors come to us, because we are the music experts.

Lisa Humann

We are really close to the artists, we are close to the writers, we are the ones that probably know what's coming up, probably have unreleased music already, probably are aware of the plans for the next year, and music supervisors, I feel, really want our input when it comes to the unreleased music. The next big thing discovering some new music. That's where they rely on. Discovering some new music. That's where they rely on. Of course I'm not that close with all artists but I try to give that additional background information to my client and, on the other side, to the artist as well, because I'm representing their music. I am probably their door to having a sync happen, especially if they are not super well-known, established artists with a big sync hit history. So, especially for the local artists signed here to BMG, I try to be their point person in the sync team because I'm one of the creatives and I'm just trying to really find opportunities for their music.

Paul Cheetham

We've heard three really great examples of successful work you've done. Are there any less successful attempts, or are there examples of work you've done where you've learned an important lesson?

Lisa Humann

Yes, of course I have many of those examples. There's one that still haunts me in a way. It's been quite a while back. We've been working with a singer-songwriter back then who wanted to do more bespoke music for film, and I've been working with a producer directly there wasn't a music supervisor involved in that case who was working on an upcoming film project and they were looking for a song for the final scene of the film and for the end credits.

Lessons Learned in Music Sync Market

Lisa Humann

That's usually the biggest sync placement in a film the end scene and the end credits. And you want something powerful in that scene so that the audience leaves the theater with that song in their head and just, yeah, want something really powerful to close the film with. We met up in person the singer-songwriter, the producer and I and we had a really great meeting, great conversation. I think the two of them bonded, immediately, went to the show of the artist and then, yeah, they talked about the end scene and he was really stoked and wanted to write a song for it. He did that the same evening, I think in the tour bus, and send us a really lovely demo version of a song that fit the brief exactly. So it was on point and everyone really loved that song.

Paul Cheetham

So far, so good.

Lisa Humann

So far so good. So far, so good, big success. But yeah, then later in the process of course that was super early on in the process and later on, like everyone, had this demo version on the end scene. Everyone really loved it. And then we came to the point where for post-production, of course you needed a high resolution version of that song, the final song, and not the demo anymore. Yeah, and then we came into a really big situation because the artist wasn't able to recreate the exact sound from the demo anymore, because it was it was recorded on the road, just on the phone, and he didn't have the separate stems, so it couldn't be mixed to what we needed it to be. And, yeah, we weren't able to recreate the sound from the original demo and it just we lost the placement. In the end they went with another song, which is absolutely understandable. You can't have a demo version. It will just not work.

Paul Cheetham

I learned not pitching demos it's about that impossibility of recreating a certain ambience, isn't it? Yeah, very important lesson to learn, huh yeah, super important lesson.

Lisa Humann

I knew that. But of course in that process, yeah, you always have to really be aware, if you do bespoke work, that you have the stems that you record, like in a setting where you can recreate things and just yeah, have your ducks in a row.

Paul Cheetham

Basically, yeah, yeah, important lesson we're not going to name the artist or the project. Of course we're not. No, you said earlier that you just loved finding music from tv and films. When did you realize that you could actually get a job from music and TV and films?

Lisa Humann

I think I realized that I could actually work in music when I was studying. I studied publicity and communication in Vienna and I think most of my academic research the thesis I had to write were about music, film, marketing, something in that area. So with my first bachelor's thesis I started really looking into how does viral marketing work and I did interviews with bands and music industry professionals back in Vienna and after I finished my bachelor's degree I had the theoretical view into the industry. I really wanted to see how the day-to-day was and if what I was researching on the academic side was actually true. And then I started my career with an internship and it was already from day one clear that I should look into sync. I started at Inc Music back then a booking agency, publisher label in Vienna, a small company doing all that.

Paul Cheetham

But a really good company.

Lisa Humann

A really good company, yeah, with an amazing roster of artists. And, yeah, I just thought like the first day I came in there they were like can you just really look into Sync? This is something we have to tap into. And I knew what sync was before from my research, but I didn't really think about it as a possible job. But I looked into it and back then in Austria things were only happening by accident. I'd say like someone knew someone in the band and just something like that.

Lisa Humann

But I found out that in the UK and in the US you had proper sync agencies in the market. There were music supervisors existing. That's something that was not really there in Austria at that point or in Europe. And we came up with the plan to found Austria's first sync agency swimming pool. It was a sync agency for the Austrian indies, because most of them were really small labels, like one or two people working at doing the label side and the publishing side under one roof, and we basically represented their catalog for syncC in Austria but worked with other agencies across the globe as well, and we did music supervision for films in Austria too. So it was a really interesting time and it was a good way to start my career.

Paul Cheetham

And then you moved to Berlin and to BMG and you're describing there like the very early days of the importance of sync and the realization that there could be serious business in this field. And of course, we talked about streaming as something that's had a huge impact and a big change in the market. What other things do you think have had the biggest impact to make the markets change?

Lisa Humann

I think the pandemic really had a big impact as well. In the beginning of the pandemic we thought actually that it would probably slow down and that we would probably have less sync business going on for the coming months. But actually when the pandemic hit, there was just more hunger for content, streaming numbers went up and I think at this point film productions only had a really short period of time where they were not filming and actually we did as much business as before, if not even more. So. The beginning of the pandemic really was surprising to us that there were so many requests coming in, so many shows produced. So in the beginning it was a really positive impact, I'd say. But then, of course, with the theaters being closed down for a really long time, we had many, many films who were just not starting and were just like postponed and postponed and postponed.

The Future of Streaming and AI

Lisa Humann

So I think the dip the market made we didn't really see it during the pandemic but after the pandemic so we could really see that there weren't really that much films produced locally. I'd say there was lots of production going on for streaming, because everyone was just like watching Netflix and Amazon all the time, but for films and theaters, for quite a while we saw that not that many films produced. I think we're up to a pre-pandemic standard there now again. So we see a lot of films in production. So the market is back up again. But I think the pandemic really had a big impact on the market.

Paul Cheetham

Where do you think that we're heading with streaming?

Lisa Humann

Well, we've seen the golden age of streaming, if you will, I'd say, during the pandemic, and we've also seen the number of productions for streaming being a bit lower now. We had many streamers come into the market, so we had Netflix, we had Amazon, we had Paramount Plus. Sky was producing a lot locally, just to name a few. I think last year and the year before we really saw the involvement in the market change a bit. Sky stopped producing locally. Paramount+ is not producing locally anymore. That might have to do with the pandemic. That might also have to do with the writer's strike in the US, which I think also had an impact on the global streamers, because of course, it's a global market, so this is an impact on them. Still, we're seeing Disney still in the market.

Lisa Humann

Apple is currently producing the first German originals. Netflix has again said they will continue and I think they are bringing more originals to the market. There's a huge success with Maxton Hall and Amazon Studios at the moment, which is, I think, the biggest international original streaming on Amazon ever coming out of Germany. So that's a huge success. I think we had this high and now we're coming to a really solid standard. Probably that could just go on like that for years to come. I think streaming will be really important, because that's how we all consume most of the content. I'm really happy about seeing that there are many films coming to the theaters again, because I was a bit afraid of that, so I think that's really good. I think what will have the biggest impact on Sync and the market will be AI in the coming years.

Paul Cheetham

What role is AI playing in your work and in Sync in general at the moment, and can you even imagine where that might be going in the next few years?

Lisa Humann

Yeah, I think currently AI is already playing a role in our business. Of course, I think everyone is already using AI tools for searches, for tagging, similarity search, so they come in really handy, honestly. So I think it's really good to have tools that use AI for our business, but there are pros and cons to that as well, of course. I am hoping for AI to bring more support to all the manual work we're doing. That could be done much quicker by AI basically.

Lisa Humann

I think it can be really helpful to have good tools to support your work. Of course, there are people fearing that AI will replace us To some extent. That might happen, of course, but we're seeing currently that having a person listen to the results, scan the results, see what really fits the brief this is something, this stage, we can't replace that. I'm using the AI tools we have, I'm using my personal knowledge, I'm using what the rest of the team thinks, the input they have, and I'm using a lot of playlists. We've created briefs we worked on before that have been similar and things like that. So for me it's a really good combination.

Paul Cheetham

I saw a quote the other day. I can't remember who said it. It was something like I want AI to do the cooking and cleaning so I can be creative. I don't want it to be creative and just leave me to do the cooking and cleaning. That's what we're all hoping for, isn't it?

Lisa Humann

That's what I'm hoping for, yeah.

Paul Cheetham

It sounds like you've got a heck of a lot to go away and get on with. You've got a lot of pictures to make, lots of work to do. I've got a lot of chocolate to go and buy from the chocolate shop, of course. So I think we should wrap it up there, but I think we've shown some new elements to this conversation about sync than we've had in other episodes, which has been really nice and helpful. Thank you so much for talking to us for so long.

Lisa Humann

Really appreciate it thank you for having me. Thank you.

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Paul Cheetham

Host