Jeff Heller
Suzanne Coffman is a film and TV Music Supervisor with more than 30 years of industry experience. Coffman founded the company, Music Rightz, with the intention to build a business offering the best music clearance, music supervision and creative services. Her credits include the Roku Comedy/Biopic Weird: The Al Yankovic Story (reviewed here by Joey) starring Daniel Radcliffe and Evan Rachel Wood, for which Suzanne earned a 2024 Grammy nomination for Best Compilation Soundtrack For Visual Media, Netflix and Funny or Die’s Between Two Ferns: The Movie, starring Zach Galifianakis, and the 2015 documentary The Wrecking Crew!, for which she won a Guild of Music Supervisors Award for Best Music Supervision for a Documentary. Other notable music supervision credits of Coffman’s include the CW docuseries, March, and season 2 of The UCB Show with Amy Poehler.
Additionally, Coffman has done music clearance on a number of projects, including the Kevin Smith comedies Dogma and Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back; the Michael Moore political documentary Fahrenheit 9/11, and the George Clooney-directed comedy Confessions of a Dangerous Mind.
Coffman got her start in synchronization licensing, which involves granting permission to release a copyrighted song in a video format, though she was pretty green to the industry. “I didn’t even know what synchronization licensing was,” she said. “I didn’t even know what music publishing was. I was still in college, and a dear friend of mine, who was in marketing at the time for A&M Records, connected me with the publishing arm. I got very lucky to work for Herb Albert and Jerry Moss’s publishing company, just leading up to the sale of it to Universal. With such a small company, it was run like a family. You really learned everything that was tossed at you. It set me up to be able to lean into the creative as my career progressed. The moment that I got my foot in the door and started doing it, I realized what an amazing industry it is.”
In 2000, Coffman opened Music Rightz, though it wasn’t decision that came to her lightly. “I’d been a relationship with a woman who had gotten ovarian cancer,” she said. “I’d been offered a really good position at Universal on the label side and soundtracks, and I was also working with Rhino Records. But I was at that point in my personal life where I felt I needed to be able to have some flexibility to be a caregiver. So, opening up my own business was really driven by my personal needs at that point. She did end up passing away shortly thereafter, but at that point, I had so many wonderful friends and colleagues who really wanted to see me give this a go and wanted to see me be successful.”
Success with Music Rightz came early, with a key connection opening the door for the company. “Two months after going out of my own, a dear, dear friend of mine, Wendy Christensen, connected me with Fox Broadcasting and that’s the moment that my business started leveling up,” said Coffman. She has since accumulated an impressive list of clients, including, Roku, NBC Universal, Warner Bros. Discovery, Paramount, Mercedes-Benz and Funny or Die. Coffman attributes her success to her lack of ego. “I’m just as happy if I’m in the lead on something or if I’m in a support role to somebody. To me it’s, ‘Let’s just get this done and come together and put together something that’s absolutely amazing.’ If I’m hired to music supervise, I’m thrilled. If somebody calls me and says, ‘We’ve already got a supervisor on board, but you are a great music clearance person. We’d love to be able to hire your company,’ I’m just as excited.”
In working on Weird: The Al Yankovic Story, Coffman found there were specific challenges to overcome, specifically obtaining the rights to Weird Al’s iconic song catalogue. “Al and [director] Eric [Appel] were very clear that we had to get certain songs, because they were written right into script,” she said. “There was no way around that. The challenge there was the budget. We really were working on a shoestring budget. If it wasn’t written specifically into the script, then Al was very receptive to my creative input. But again, I had to deliver his music. That was crucial. Then beyond that, it was just getting the best deals that I could for everything. Even the Doctor Demento music. But Al’s music was the priority.”
Coffman also found that she needed to work with multiple record labels to obtain the rights to Al’s music. “I ended up doing about 15 different deals,” she said. “I relied a lot on Universal Music and Sony Music Publishing. I was able to knock off a lot of deals there. Then it just came down to money.”
As far as her Grammy nomination is concerned, Coffman is just enjoying the ride, despite facing such stiff competition as Barbie and Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3. “This is so much fun,” she said “But the competition is definitely tough. I guess we’ll just see how it all turns out. Win or lose, I just think we’re all winners here. Just to be able to be in in the same company, to be able to work on something that’s just been so well received and people enjoy. I mean, just good luck to all of us.”
Weird: The Al Yankovic Story is currently streaming on Roku, and the 66th Annual Grammy Awards will air on CBS and stream on Paramount+ on February 4, 2024.
You can watch our full interview with Suzanne Coffman, including conversations about the role of a music supervisor, working with Michael Jackson’s estate, and finding out about her Grammy nomination, below.
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