âSilver Linings Playbook,â with Jennifer Lawrence and Bradley Cooper, is a movie accented by music.  WEST HOLLYWOOD, Calif. — The Guild of Music Supervisors gathered here a few weeks ago for its third annual awards. And judging by the turnout, it will need a much bigger venue for next year’s event.  David O. Russell, the director who guided the use of Led Zeppelin music to enhance the bipolar character in âSilver Linings Playbook.â  Jim Croceâs âIâve Got a Nameâ was used in âDjango Unchained," with Jamie Foxx, left, and Christoph Waltz.  Bob Segerâs âOld Time Rock and Rollâ was used in âRisky Business,â with Tom Cruise.  Jammed into a tent atop the London hotel on a blustery evening, the affair had ballooned to three times the size of the Guild’s first ceremony, in 2011, when 150 people showed up for brunch. The event’s increasing popularity served as a reminder that these professionals often act as gatekeepers in the all-important business of placing songs in movies and television shows.  Many nonsupervisors in the room — publishers, label executives and assorted catalog holders, even Oscar-nominated songwriters — were looking to curry favor with notable music supervisors like Alexandra Patsavas (the “Twilight” movies). Others simply wanted to show solidarity with members of the three-year-old organization, many of whom feel underappreciated by a Hollywood establishment that might not understand what they do.  After all, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences doesn’t consider their efforts Oscar-worthy. But the Guild’s president, Maureen Crowe, begs to differ. Ms. Crowe (“A Late Quartet,” “True Romance”) views her members as integral to a film as art directors or costume designers, who get their own Oscar categories.  “Music supervisors spend a lot of time thinking about character, time period, design,” she said. “Music used to be a marketing tool, but that is not the main purpose of the songs in a film. The main purpose is to serve the story, just like wardrobe and set design. If it doesn’t serve the story — if it’s forced into something — inevitably it doesn’t work.”  The Academy distributed statues last week for original score and song, but often it’s the found music that serves as the key accent to some of cinema’s most indelible moments: John Cusack’s holding aloft the boombox blasting Peter Gabriel’s “In Your Eyes” in “Say Anything”; Dustin Hoffman’s pining for Katharine Ross to Simon & Garfunkel’s “Scarborough Fair/Canticle” in “The Graduate”; Tom Cruise’s sliding across the floor in tighty-whities mouthing Bob Seger’s “Old Time Rock and Roll” in “Risky Business.” These scenes express devotion, yearning and freedom in a way dialogue never could.  This awards season the highlights included the mash-up of Stevie Wonder, Jack White and Dave Brubeck for the dance sequence of “Silver Linings Playbook” and the partnership between bounty hunter and slave validated by Jim Croce’s “I’ve Got a Name” in “Django Unchained.”  The best music supervisors are sought for their combination of tastemaker, curator, producer, stickler for accuracy and verisimilitude, and they filter out a filmmaker’s worst tendencies. It’s work that falls somewhere between artisan and technician, with the kind of talent-scouting ear associated with A&R executives at record labels. “A music supervisor is set designing the audio,” said Robert Kraft, who was president of Fox Music for 18 years before forming Kraftbox Entertainment in 2012.  Mr. Kraft cited Randall Poster, whose credits include “Moonrise Kingdom” and the HBO series “Boardwalk Empire.” “He has to go out and research 1920s music,” Mr. Kraft said, referring to the HBO show. “That’s when a music supervisor is really a special talent.”  Granted, these specialists can’t take sole credit for placements of music since they’re serving the director’s vision. Filmmakers like Martin Scorsese, Quentin Tarantino and Cameron Crowe are very specific in their music choices. The director David O. Russell worked with Sue Jacobs on “The Fighter” and “Silver Linings Playbook,” but he had firm ideas of his own for those films, both of which used Led Zeppelin music. For “Silver Linings,” about a bipolar lead character, he wanted “What Is and What Shall Never Be,” describing it as “a perfect bipolar song because it’s very quiet and then it’s extremely loud, and it keeps going back and forth.”  That music supervisors share responsibility with the director might give the Academy pause, even though that collaborative dynamic is no different for cinematographers and production designers. It’s also not uncommon for the Oscars to reward team efforts. But tasked with keeping the telecast tight and avoiding the Grammy syndrome of too many laurels, which could dilute their importance, the Academy doesn’t exactly institute change with urgency. When animated features were added to the mix for the 74th Oscars in 2002, it was the first new category in 20 years.  Besides, music supervisors don’t exactly create anything.  For Charles Fox, chairman of the Academy’s music branch, Oscar consideration is pretty cut and dried: if it ain’t original, it ain’t eligible, period. “The key word is ‘original,’ ” he said. “In all of our categories — best song, best score — music has to be created specifically for that motion picture. If the song was written prior to that and used in the film, it’s not eligible.”  Such an argument doesn’t account for the complicated nature of the profession. “Some music supervisors are tremendously curatorial,” Mr. Kraft said. “They’re surfing the Web, they know a lot of indie bands that are up and coming, and they put together a cool soundtrack.”  Any discussion of films and music inevitably winds around to money. Most features allot 1 percent to 2 percent of production costs for all music, but would a bigger percentage (like the 10 percent Steven Van Zandt was given for the music for “Not Fade Away,” budgeted at $20 million to $25 million) provide a competitive advantage for an award? The most bang for the buck is a challenge all filmmakers face.  Mike Knobloch, the president of film music and publishing at Universal Pictures and one of the winners at the Guild’s Feb. 20 event, noted that on his studio’s box office hit about competitive a cappella, “Pitch Perfect,” the music supervisors Julianne Jordan and Julia Michels dealt with many genres that had to be stacked together and manipulated while staying within about 5 percent of the film’s $17 million production budget.  “Whether it’s from a purely creative side that involves research or intimate knowledge of a genre, being able to broker business deals or just having the vision in more complicated scenarios,” he said, the work of music supervisors is “a huge component of the movies being made. I don’t see how it isn’t as valid or worthy of recognition as all the other crafts and trades that go into making a film.”
Music supervisors â the folks who help select the existing music used in film and television shows â have gathered in a guild and seek more recognition for their tone-setting work.