UK Music in Hollywood Films, TV, L.A. Sync Mission: ‘Alien: Romulus’

If you were grooving along to Sophie Ellis-Bextor’s “Murder on the Dancefloor” in that now-famous scene of the movie Saltburn or humming along to Kate Bush’s “Running Up That Hill” in the series Stranger Things, you have already felt the power of U.K.-created music in soundtracking Hollywood hits.

But those are just two high-profile examples of the success of U.K. creatives with sync, or synchronization, deals that place music into TV shows, films, video games, advertising and other content, which have been energized by the rise of streaming video services, among other things. In 2023, sync revenue for the global recorded music business grew by 4.7 percent to $632 million, according to the IFPI Global Music Report.

As in world politics, the U.S. and U.K. have long enjoyed a special relationship in the sync space, courtesy of, among other things, some annual sonic diplomacy. After all, to ensure the continued use of U.K. music and sound in Hollywood blockbuster films and shows, British industry executives and representatives go on the so-called L.A. Sync Mission, a government-backed trade mission run by the BPI, the country’s recorded music industry association, and the Music Publishers Association.

And as veterans of the trip tell it, the annual mission, whose 20th edition took place this year Sept. 9-13, has brought not only sector biggies but even smaller British music companies huge success in Hollywood.

After all, the mission, which typically kicks off with three days of panels and other sessions at the iconic EastWest Studios in the heart of Hollywood, where the Beach Boys and Frank Sinatra recorded, enables British record label and music publishing executives, songwriters, composers, artists, and managers to meet key players and gain insight into the sync licensing market in the U.S. Recent successful placements resulting from the trip have included tracks used for Dune: Part Two, Wilderness, Star Wars: The Acolyte, Alien: Romulus, and Beverly Hills Cop: Axel F. Among the video games that have used U.K. music are the likes of Assassins Creed, FIFA, Forza Horizon 2, and Rainbow 6.

This year, the mission brought representatives from 40 U.K. companies to Hollywood. “About 50 music supervisors spoke to our U.K. panelists across a range of subjects and every type of sync media,” Chris Tams, who leads the mission as director of independent member services at the BPI, tells THR. “And then on Thursday and Friday, we did some site visits, including at Disney, Warner Bros., Netflix and Riot Games.” For evening entertainment, the mission includes a pub quiz and an evening reception at the British Consul General’s residence in L.A., among others.

Chris Tams, BPI

“Everybody, literally, has briefs sent to them from day one,” Tams says when asked if he expects much deal activity to result from the latest trip across the pond. “The mission has become such a feature of the sync calendar in Los Angeles that a lot of music supervisors will go there with briefs because they know they can have almost instant reactions. Some of the supervisors come to us saying ‘nobody will ever have this kind of music.’ But we can always guarantee that somebody within our delegation will have something in their catalog.”

Last year, one of the sync supervisors was looking for medieval music, he recalls. “Two people in the audience put their hands up straight away,” Tams says. “And I think they did a deal within 24 hours.”

Jode Steele, composer and owner of The Horror Vault, a two-person British outfit that focuses on trailers and promises “music & sound design for your nightmares,” was on the 2023 mission and had a great experience. “One of the cool things is you get to go to the different studios, such as Disney and Sony,” he tells THR. “The cool thing from our perspective was that we already sort of knew the marketing departments of some of these places. But now we met these people face to face. In some instances, we hadn’t worked with them, but kind of knew them, and they knew maybe a little bit about us. But us getting to meet them face to face and have a chat was the crux of it that really made the difference.” He concludes with a quip: “I guess they got to meet us and fall in love with my good Yorkshire charm.”

The trip to L.A. led to a range of new work for The Horror Vault. “We got Alien: Romulus directly through the Disney guys,” he shares. “There was Venom: The Last Dance, which is coming out. And then Nosferatu we got earlier this year. We did brilliantly with the mission.” The company has also worked on trailers for the likes of Dune: Part Two, with a focus on “anything horror, freaky, horrible sounds,” Steele explains. “That’s what we love doing. It gives us the space to be creative in a really tight field of this really fast-moving industry.”

The Horror Vault has even had to say no to some great-sounding project, Steele mentions. “We were offered to get involved with quite a big spin-off TV project from HBO. But we turned it down because we are so busy and involved with just doing music for motion picture trailers,” he says. “It was a really cool offer, but we ended up having to turn it down because we wanted to focus on our [core] work.”

The broad lineup of British music being showcased during the L.A. Sync Mission has meant that the reps traveling to the West Coast can often help Hollywood even with very tricky requests. “Authenticity has really come to the forefront in the last couple of years,” Tams tells THR. “We’re working with companies that are, for example, putting a scene in a film that is set, say, on the first of December 1972, so they want to make sure that that piece of music that is licensed for that would have been available on that day and not 10 years later. So it’s about ensuring that real authenticity that sync people are looking for. It’s not just about the accurate costumes and props and the appropriate mannerisms of the actors, but also about authentic music.”

Rob Wells, Orfium

Whatever the needs of specific productions, sync has emerged as a key focus for creatives in the music space. “This is becoming an increasingly important source of income for music creators – as long as the metadata is managed and the music is reported accurately,” Rob Wells, CEO of Orfium, which tracks music use for rights holders via the creation of cue sheets, or detailed lists of music used in a piece of content, tells THR. “Music has always played an essential role in the success of hit shows, and this holds true for current fan favorites like Bridgerton, Ted Lasso, and Stranger Things. With new streaming services and FAST channels emerging, the demand for quality music is growing. On top of that, new formats —such as podcasts, web content, social media, and games— are all using more licensed music, which generates royalties for creators.”

The growth has led to increased demand for tracking and reporting music usage accurately to ensure accurate payments to composers and rights holders. “Orfium is solving these challenges with its AI-powered technology, ensuring that creators and rights holders are paid for every second of music usage,” Wells explains. “Over the past 22 years, Orfium’s Soundmouse audio recognition and reporting tools have processed over 230 million music cues from 32 million cue sheets, with nearly a third of those processed in 2023 alone, demonstrating the surge in content production and music usage.”

And he shares: “Orfium has been actively involved in cue sheet management for several successful placements resulting from the mission, including Disney’s Star Wars: The Acolyte” as it does for all major releases by Disney-owned studios, including the likes of Inside Out 2 and Deadpool & Wolverine.
Universal Pictures’ Oppenheimer and Focus Features’ Back to Black have also used Soundmouse.

The executive estimates that the L.A. Sync Mission each year generates “millions in revenue for U.K. record labels and music publishers.”

Ros O’Neill, sector director for North America: Creative, Media and Sports Economy – Trade &
Investment at the British Consulate General in Los Angeles, echoes that, sharing that the aggregate value of L.A. Sync Mission export wins over the last four years, not including 2024, have come to more than £14.86 million ($19.74 million).

“The sync wins that have resulted are game-changing for these independent companies,” she tells THR. “Creating one major event, hand created in partnership with the L.A. creative industry, is quite unique. We are endlessly grateful that when we raise the conversation of the L.A. Sync Mission, U.S.-based music supervisors leap to create panel discussions on the industry and the projects they have worked on, and they are so open to meeting and hearing U.K. music offerings.” 

She also touts the longer-term “relationship building” the mission enables beyond deals, emphasizing: “Talent has been spotted and new partnerships have led to creative content.”  

O’Neill’s team also organizes U.K. House at SXSW in Austin, “where we bring to market emerging creative technologies, advertising, branding and immersive experience creators, along with the British Music Embassy – where we host over 40 UK bands, often as their first time playing in North America. ”

The BPI’s Tams says that music has long been strong suit and leadership sector for the U.K. “We just have this sheer variety of genres, feels and types of music that we can showcase on the mission,” he tells THR. “There is also lots of music that is from or influenced by places around the world, whether India, Japan or elsewhere, that comes to the U.K. through people who have settled in the U.K., sometimes two, three generations ago, who are now mixing traditional English sounds with the music of their ancestral homes. It makes for such a varied music industry. And lots of the Hollywood sync agents know that they can turn to the U.K. to find a massively wide variety of music, from old, traditional, classical to the highlights of the ’50s, ’60s and ’70s through to now.”

Despite many streamers having become more selective about their original content investment, experts are bullish on the outlook for British creatives.

And there also regularly seem to be new trends emerging in the sync space. “We have heard people come to us and say: ‘We have the idea of licensing this track. Can you trailerize it?’ They call it trailerizing, meaning work with it and put slams in, or do a horror version of it, but use the vocal,” Steele tells THR.

Jode Steele, The Horror Vault

Is he concerned about the impact of AI? “I’m not really worried,” he says. “Hey, that might come back to bite me. But I don’t think so. I’ve not seen any issues that would make me concerned, because what we do is so weird and crazy.”

Tams also mentions that there was much talk of “trailerizing” on the latest L.A. Sync Mission. “We did hear a trailerized version of Jack White’s ‘Seven Nation Army’ that blew everyone away,” he says. And the BPI expert is bullish on the outlook for British music players in Hollywood, telling THR: “The sheer volume of productions that are being made at the moment means that there are lots and lots of opportunities for U.K. companies and composers to get their music placed.”