After garnering over $30,000 in sync placements in the last year, Loyola is working to teach its students how to monetize their music.
Synchronization licensing is the process of securing legal permission to synchronize music with visual media such as films, television shows, commercials, video games, and online videos. According to music supervisor and professor Jonathan McHugh, it is the best way for young musicians to get money and traction.
“There was very little conversation here at Loyola about sync, so part of my mission is to demystify how to best monetize some of the great music that our School of Music and Theatre Profession students are creating,” McHugh said.
The Studio A Library initiative builds upon Loyola’s previous endeavors in sync licensing, which have focused on educating students about the process of monetizing their music for visual media content. Music supervisors, integral figures in the industry, rely heavily on one-stop music libraries like Studio A to efficiently license music for various visual projects.
“One of the most important tools that music supervisors use to get their jobs done efficiently are one-stop music libraries to license music for our visual media content,” McHugh said.
Loyola has already had major success in past sync placements. Senior Sergio Soto has four songs featured in the series “The Freak Brothers,” and junior Kinsley Welch, along with sophomore Aidan Pilley, created a song for an unreleased movie.
“We were just given the note of ‘do the reference but better.’ So naturally we freaked out a bit,” Pilley said.
This was his first time writing for sync, so he said it was a learning curve.
“I was creating and producing restlessly at first since I’ve never tackled a sync brief before,” Pilley said. “But when I realized the power was in not overthinking, I feel like that’s when I got in the groove.”
Music industry sophomore Savannah Bergeron manages Loyola artists and assists them in acquiring sync placements.
“As we develop the catalog, we hope to get bigger and better placements for our students and alum,” Bergeron said. “Because how cool would it be to have your music in a film or TV show?”
