Anne Litt on Music Supervising “Youth in Revolt”

KCRW DJ Anne Litt served as both music supervisor and soundtrack producer for the new movie “Youth in Revolt,” working closely with Director Miguel Arteta and star Michael Cera. She gives us a little insight into the “making of” below.

“Every music supervising experience is totally different and this one was highly enjoyable because everyone working on the film is a huge music fan, including star Michael Cera. One of the great pleasures of working on this film was collaborating with Michael, Miguel, and John (Swihart, the film’s composer). They all have such impeccable taste and vision that the film really found it’s way musically very quickly.

It was also great to have artists Miguel loves participate in the film. Fleshspot, Petra Haden, Beulah (a beloved San Francisco band who’ve sadly split up) just to name a few. I was very pleased that I got to add Jacques Dutronc, since he’s like the French Beck from the ‘60s!

For those who’ve seen the movie, one of my favorite funny musical moments of the film is the scene when Nick and Vijay escape from the matron at the boarding school in nothing but their boxers. We really wanted to find something to make an already funny scene funnier. The Brigitte Bardot track (“Ca Pourrait Change”) that’s in the scene is one of the first we temped in. It cracked us up and still cracks me up when I see the film.

During post-production, Michael couldn’t be in the cutting room for a large portion of the time (he was at first) because he was in Canada shooting another film. Suffice to say, he was, basically in between takes, sending us great ideas for the music on the film. Some were song ideas like the Funboy Three track over the opening credits or he just sat down and wrote other score pieces. He was a huge part in crafting the sound of the film and is such a creative mind.”

(You can sample some songs from the soundtrack HERE)

RR