'BREAKING BAD' Into 'BETTER CALL SAUL'
A discussion with the entire music team behind both AMC's 'Breaking Bad' and 'Better Call Saul' and how they approached working together again on a spin-off that features an entirely new soundscape.
Featuring: Melissa Bernstein (Executive Producer), Diane Mercer (Producer), Dave Porter (Composer), Kelley Dixon (Editor), Jason Newman (Music Editor), and Thomas Golubić (Music Supervisor) - Moderated by Manish Raval ('Girls', 'Neighbors', 'New Girl')
MELISSA BERNSTEIN
(Executive Producer)
Melissa Bernstein graduated cum laude from the Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Pennsylvania. She started her career working in documentary television on National Geographic’s “Explorer” series and The Learning Channel’s “A Wedding Story.” From there she transitioned into public relations, working for one of the leading global public relations agencies, Fleishman-Hillard, on accounts including Onvia, The Webby Awards, The Body Shop Digital and Sony PlayStation. Following that, Bernstein produced a number of award-winning short films. Presently, she works with Mark Johnson under his Gran Via Productions banner, overseeing television development and production. Bernstein was a co-executive producer on the Peabody, Golden Globe, and Emmy® Award-winning series “Breaking Bad,” which she was with since the pilot. Bernstein is currently an executive producer on AMC’s original series, “Halt and Catch Fire,” Sundance TV's Peabody Award winner, "Rectify," as well as AMC and Sony Picture Television's “Better Call Saul,” which is currently in production on its second season. Bernstein lives in Los Angeles with her husband, Jordan, and their son, Lee.
Diane Mercer
(Producer)
Diane Mercer began her career working on late night comedy shows in New York, later moving to Los Angeles in pursuit of her dream to produce episodic television. After stints on shows such as “Politically Incorrect with Bill Maher” and the late-90’s Hollywood satire “Action,” she landed a job as a post production supervisor and found her calling. She has now been a post producer for over a decade, currently for “Better Call Saul.” Her past credits include “Breaking Bad” and the original FOX incarnation of “Arrested Development.”
Dave Porter
(Composer)
Dave Porter is a Los Angeles based composer for tel evision and film. He began his classical musical training at the piano at age five, but it was his interest in electronic music as a teen that led him to start composing his own music. He studied both classical and electronic music composition at Sarah Lawrence College under John Yannelli and started his professional career as an assistant at Philip Glass' studio in New York City.
Dave is best known as the series composer for the Emmy-acclaimed drama "Breaking Bad," scoring all 62 episodes and creating its iconic theme. Actor/Producer Bryan Cranston stated: "With his music, Dave Porter has created another character for Breaking Bad.
Evocative and meaningful, Dave's work is an essential part of the storytelling." For his work on the series, Dave was awarded the inaugural ASCAP Composer's Choice Award by his peers as Best Television Composer of 2013.
Since then, Dave has become a sought-after composer in Hollywood. He currently scores NBC's massive hit "The Blacklist" starring James Spader as well as "Better Call Saul," the Emmy nominated prequel to "Breaking Bad." He also reunited with fellow Breaking Bad alum Moira Walley-Beckett for her limited series "Flesh and Bone," which details the gritty underworld of professional ballet and is set to premiere on STARZ this November.
In feature film, Dave recently completed work on the crime drama "Term Life" distributed by Universal Pictures and starring Vince Vaughn, Hailee Steinfeld, Terrence Howard, and Bill Paxton. Previously he wrote the scores for the indie horror film "Smiley" and the Sundance Festival feature documentary "Bigger, Stronger, Faster.
Kelley Dixon
(Editor)
Kelley Dixon grew up with a single mom who taught school on Chicago's south side. With her sights on a copy writing job in advertising, Kelley graduated from Colorado State University with a degree in Technical Journalism concentrating in Business and Public Relations.
Arriving in Los Angeles after college, she couldn't get her foot in the door in any of the cool ad firms of her dreams, so with a cousin's help, she got an interview for MGM's mailroom. It all started there!!
A big TV exec's assistant who knew another TV exec's assistant hooked Kelley up with a PA job on CBS's "thirtysomething" where she spent 2 seasons running around for producers BUT also hanging out with, learning from and bugging the editors!! Those were fun years!! Spring-boarding Kelley into an extended, ridiculous and embarrassingly long period of assistant editing.
"I had some great mentors during that time, though." Being able to hop from Film Assisting to Video Assisting, features to TV was unusual. Kelley worked in multiple capacities on the features "Reservoir Dogs" and "Good Will Hunting" as well as TV's "Without a Trace", and "Revelations". "There were very few assistants who could crank film, sync dailies and read changlists as well as be good digital assists and hack crashing software."
Winning the Assistant Lottery in 2007 when her editor, Lynne Willingham cut the "Breaking Bad" pilot, Kelley ended her record-length assisting stint and became the series' 2nd editor. She's been nominated for 4 ACE awards and 6 Emmys - winning 1 Emmy in 2013 - for her work on "Breaking Bad".
Kelley has also been editing on HBO's "LUCK", Showtime's "Shameless", AMC's "The Walking Dead" and "Halt and Catch Fire" between BB seasons. And she's currently working on the Breaking Bad spin-off, "Better Call Saul".
Jason Newman
(Music Editor)
Jason Tregoe Newman is a music editor, engineer, composer, producer, and founder of JTN Music and Tregoe Enterprises Inc. Specializing in music for film and tv, Jason began his career in Boston, Massachusetts where he graduated Magna Cum Laude from Berklee College of Music with a dual-major in Film Scoring and Music Business.
After Graduating, Jason moved to New York City, where he became a staff recording and mixing engineer for industry leading jingle house North Forty Music. Jason quickly began making a name for himself in NYC, and was presented with the opportunity to expand from commercials to tv & film in Los Angeles, CA.
In 2002, Jason relocated to LA where he currently resides. There he teamed up with David Schwartz Music and began working on the critically acclaimed series Arrested Development as a recording/mixing engineer and music editor. Jason's success with David Schwartz propelled him into the television and film industry where he expanded JTN Music into what is now Tregoe Enterprises Inc., a union music editorial company servicing award-winning projects all over the world. Equally versed in comedy and dramatic genres, Tregoe Enterprises provides the best in all things music - whether it’s Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul, to Community, Brooklyn 9-9, Cosmos and more.
Thomas Golubić
(Music Supervisor)
Thomas Golubić is a Los Angeles-based music supervisor, DJ and Grammy-nominated record producer. His music supervision credits include the AMC series Breaking Bad, The Walking Dead, Better Call Saul, TURN: Washington’s Spies, Halt and Catch Fire, the HBO series Six Feet Under, and the Showtime series Ray Donovan, among many other film & television projects. He is a founding and board member of the Guild of Music Supervisors, and is currently the head of their education committee. The Guild twice awarded Thomas with “Best Music Supervision in a Television Drama” for his work on Breaking Bad.
He was twice nominated for Grammy awards for producing volumes 1 and 2 of the Six Feet Under soundtrack album, and with former partner Gary Calamar was responsible for the use of Sia’s “Breathe Me” in the final scene of the series. It is considered one of the most memorable uses of music in television, and launched Sia’s music career in America. Thomas is also responsible for producing four soundtrack albums for The Walking Dead, the Breaking Bad soundtrack, and has assembled various remix projects for EMI-Capitol Records and MGM, including reinterpretations of Peggy Lee, The Beach Boys, Henry Mancini’s Pink Panther theme and EMI’s Christmas Classics remix compilation ‘Merry Mixmas’.
Manish Raval
(Moderator)
Over the last 20 years Manish Raval and Tom Wolfe have established themselves as one of the top music supervision teams in film and television. Their long collaborations with Judd Apatow, Jake Kasdan, the Farrelly Brothers and Joe and Anthony Russo continue today.
Their Emmy nominated television credits include HBO's hit series Girls, as well as Community and New Girl.
They have put together soundtracks for hit comedies like Trainwreck, Neighbors and There’s Something About Mary. They oversaw all aspects of music on Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story, which garnered Grammy and Golden Globe nominations for Best Song. Their past feature film credits include Kingpin, Jackass Number Two, and Donnie Darko. Raval was also music editor on the films Bad Teacher and the Sandra Bullock/Melissa McCarthy comedy, The Heat.
They are currently working on Judd Apatow's “Love” on NetFlix and New Line Cinema’s “The House” starring Will Ferrell and Amy Poehler.