Staff Spotlight - Dondi Bastone

Music Supervisor
http://www.dondibastone.com
Biggest contribution to KMF: Giving folks a little peek into the world of music supervision, providing insight on the process and lending guidance on how you might best position yourself to get your music used. If you see him roaming the grounds, feel free to stop and say hi!

Recent projects and accomplishments:

• "Scrapbook moments" that accompanied a Grammy nomination for The Descendants soundtrack and attending the festivities with his daughter, Ella.
• Working on Low Down, a biopic of legendary jazz pianist Joe Albany, alongside his old friend and fellow jazz enthusiast Flea.

Dondi Bastone is a true music lover. Though different projects lead him to different types of music, he is always searching for "a record that has elements that elevate it beyond just a background source cue," he said. "Something that can help underscore a desired emotion." 

For Dondi, music supervision combines music and film, his two passions. "It gives me the opportunity to be creative in my own way, have a meaningful impact on a film, while working directly with the filmmakers," he said. He loves what he does, though he said his level of involvement and the people he works with make each project different. The biggest challenge he comes across working with music is dealing with budgets that are getting tighter and tighter all the time. "Working with independent labels, publishers and artists is a boon to the process," he said. 

He and his daughter, Ella, are both joining us at KMF for a second time. After their first visit, he said his favorite thing about Kaua'i was hands down "the people, the people, the people." His biggest highlight since we saw him in 2012 was seeing Ella graduate with honors from UC Berkeley in May (congratulations, Ella!!)

Dondi's advice for artists:

• Plant as many seeds as you can and move on.  It can take some time for them to germinate so be patient and stay the course.  
• Remember it can often be as much about the relationships as the music.
  

Source: Dondi Bastone

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