FAQ

Reality Club is a creative and cultural strategy consultancy rooted in music, here to dream with creators and institutions who have ideas about how they’d like to use music, and to help them get there efficiently and legally. It works with museums and cultural institutions, brands and agencies, film and TV, and independent labels and artists, helping them make the creative calls that depend on getting music and culture right: What a project should sound like, what it can clear, what it owes the people and history behind it, and how to tell its story honestly. Reality Club comes from music supervision, and music is the edge it brings to every engagement. What it doesn’t do, and who can help instead, is on the Services page.

With a short note, through the Contact page or to goodpeople@realityclubforever.com. If it’s a fit, Reality Club comes back with questions, then a written proposal that sets out scope, deliverables, timeline and credit. Work begins under a signed agreement.

What the project is and who it’s for, what the music needs to do, the goal and the dates that matter, where the work will live, and a brief and a budget to work with. A rough brief is a fine start, and even a rough sense of budget helps Reality Club suggest the right scope. There’s more under Before you get in touch, on the Services page.

Gladly, as consulting. Picking Reality Club’s brain for ideas, or an open-ended chat before there’s an end goal, is consulting work, and Reality Club offers it as a fee-based service. If that’s what would help most, say so in your note, and Reality Club can set up a session. For a project, a first call works best once there’s an end goal, a brief and a budget, and that call is simply how the work gets scoped.

The earlier, the better. Before the script, the cut, the campaign or the exhibition plan has set, music can still shape the work instead of being squeezed into it. Early is when a team can plan music moments, build a realistic budget and flag rights issues before anyone falls in love with a song that can’t be cleared. Waiting until post-production narrows the options and can lead to expensive surprises. Reality Club does its best work brought in early, as a strategist and a sounding board, and it can move at campaign speed when the calendar calls for it.

Plan for two lines: A licensing budget for the music itself, and a separate budget for supervision or strategy. Share a rough sense of both in the first conversation. Real numbers make for better ideas, and this is not a profession that runs on exposure. A limited budget doesn’t rule out good music: A good music supervisor helps a team prioritize the money it has, is honest about what it can buy and finds ways to stretch it without shortchanging the story.

Yes. Reality Club offers retained engagements for teams with a steady run of work: Campaigns, releases, exhibitions or a slate of productions. A retainer puts a music and cultural strategist in planning before briefs and budgets are set, which means fewer surprises, faster answers and music decisions that build on each other instead of starting over each time. It is scoped in writing to the calendar ahead and can cover music strategy and direction, licensing guidance, research and interim departmental support. Starting with a single project is a good way for both sides to see how the other works.

Every engagement is led by Reality Club’s founder, from the first conversation to close-out. For bigger jobs, Reality Club brings in collaborators it trusts, such as clearance partners, composers or a music production house, with the client’s agreement. Reality Club takes on a limited number of engagements each year, so each one has its founder’s attention.

No. Reality Club doesn’t produce social posts, videos, photography or other campaign content, and it doesn’t run ads, social channels or other day-to-day digital marketing. It works on the strategy, the story and the music, including choosing and clearing the music that goes into campaign content. Music-forward writing, such as liner notes and bios, is part of its work too. When a project needs content or digital marketing, Reality Club is happy to suggest friends and partners who specialize in that work, and to make a referral where it can.

Reality Club is based in Los Angeles and works with clients wherever they are. It works remotely, or on-site in major cities with at least two weeks’ notice.

For supervision and licensing work, a reconciled record: Master and publishing for every cue, with links to each agreement, plus final credits and cue sheets where the project needs them.

Yes, when it’s planned for. Raise promotion at the start, and the museum will know what it can do before the show opens.

Reality Club protects the opening date. While clearance runs, it lines up creative alternatives in case a track turns out to be out of reach.

Yes. Research comes first, so each request reaches whoever actually controls the music, whether that’s a label, an estate, an archive or the institution itself.

Yes. As project manager for exhibit production, Reality Club keeps timelines, approvals and partners moving from early planning to opening. It is the project manager for exhibit production on Tangible: Blacktronika Artifacts and Archives at the African American Museum in Philadelphia, opening in November 2027.

Yes. It can start with a defined project, such as a release plan or a catalog review, and continue on retainer through the release: Positioning and story, release and campaign strategy, short and long-term planning, catalog strategy, licensing guidance and a sounding board on offers. Reality Club is the strategist, working alongside an artist’s manager, label and distributor.

No. Reality Club isn’t a third-party pitching service: It doesn’t represent catalogs or pitch songs for placement in film, TV or advertising. On film, TV and campaign work it sits on the other side of the table, searching for, choosing and clearing the music a project needs. For labels and publishers, it can help shape catalog and licensing strategy, while the pitching stays with the team or with a sync agent who represents the music.

No. Reality Club isn’t an artist management company, and it doesn’t book shows. It works alongside an artist’s manager and label as a strategist and a sounding board. When an artist is looking for a manager or an agent, Reality Club is glad to suggest friends and partners where it can.

No. Distribution, metadata, registrations and the other administrative tasks around a release are artist services, a specialty of their own. Reality Club works on the strategy and campaign around a release, and it’s happy to suggest a distributor, a label services company or a publishing administrator for the rest.

A music supervisor shapes a story through music and sound. Working closely with directors, editors, producers, showrunners, curators and creative teams, a music supervisor finds the right songs, or the composers who can write them, to carry emotion, set tone and ground a moment in a specific time, place, culture or feeling.

The job is part creative, part logistical and fully rooted in the story: Choosing music that fits a moment, then clearing it, so the tracks a team falls in love with can actually be used, as close to budget as possible. Good supervision isn’t just about taste. It’s about intention.

For a full overview, see the Guild of Music Supervisors’ guidelines.

Clearance is getting legal permission to use a piece of music. A single song can have several owners: The writers and publishers behind the composition, and the label, artist or estate behind the recording. Each has to agree, in writing. Without proper clearance a project can be pulled from distribution or face legal action, so it isn’t a step to skip or try to do alone.

A music supervisor is still worth having, especially to use those songs legally and as close to budget as possible. Knowing what you want is a great start, but clearance is complex: Outreach to a network of rights holders, negotiation and legal coordination. While that runs, a good supervisor is already lining up creative alternatives in case a track turns out to be out of reach, financially or logistically, with the production calendar in mind.

There’s no honest quick answer. It depends on how many versions of the song exist, how many writers and publishers are involved, which media it will appear in, where that media will live and for how long.

One rule of thumb holds: The more famous the song, the more it will cost, wherever you plan to use it.

Composers write original music for a project; that’s the score. A music supervisor shapes the overall sound of a production, mostly with existing recordings, and often works with the composer, independent artists or music production houses to get the best result. Think of the composer as crafting original emotional cues, and the music supervisor as curating the whole sound world.

Absolutely. It’s foundational to how Reality Club works. Telling a story well means handling music, cultural context, time and place with care and accuracy, and that means digging past the obvious playlists. Research into the artists, the culture around them and the communities that cherish them is standard here, not premium.

No unsolicited tracks or music, please. Music supervisors receive more pitched music in a day than anyone could listen to, and a file with no artist name, song title or contact details can’t be traced back to anyone.

The best way to reach any music supervisor is through a label, publisher or sync agent who has the right to pitch your music and is as passionate about it as you are. That will always be the best way.