Select the image to access the YouTube video of the Doug Martin song “Kafka Was Here”
When the American independent film Anora swept the 2025 Academy Awards, with five wins, Doug Martin was 4,500 km away in Ottawa… and speechless. “I guess my initial reaction was amazement and disbelief,” he says. “Then it kind of dawned on me: ‘Oh, this is for real.’”
The jazz saxophonist and composer could now lay claim to having his music in an Oscar-winning Best Picture. But how did the indie artist, a working local musician with a teaching gig on the side, score multiple song placements in the year’s hottest film? The path from his home studio to “Hollywood’s biggest night” involved the coming together of three creatives: Martin himself, music supervisor Matthew Hearon-Smith, and Chris SD (Shreenan-Dyck) of Sync Songwriter.
Director Sean Baker’s Anora, a romantic comedy-drama about a sex worker from New York who marries a Russian oligarch’s son, is described as “neo-realist” in style. Hearon-Smith, who’s worked with Martin on several feature films, explains how the filmmaker’s approach informs the music.
“We need music to sound exactly like it would in real life,” says Hearon-Smith. “Anora is a film that takes place in many exciting locations that are very different. We have a Brooklyn strip club, a billionaire Russian son’s mansion, Las Vegas, [and] a church in Russia, all of which require something very specific and unique. That’s why artists like Doug are such a great resource, because it doesn’t get much more authentic. This is very much an artist who could easily be playing his sax in a quartet in one of these locations on any given night.”
Martin has indeed long been a regular at jazz clubs in the Ottawa area, as a solo act, or with his Doug Martin Quartet (Jeff Asselin on drums, Tom Denison on bass, Yves Laroche on keyboards). He’s performed numerous times at the Ottawa Jazz Festival, as well as at festivals in Cuba. Around 2021, Doug started looking into music licensing. “I had all this jazz music which I believed was good enough to find its way into film or TV,” he says. After trying out music libraries, Doug signed up for Art of the Song Pitch, a program developed by Toronto’s Chris SD.
With a background in producing, and a JUNO nomination for Engineer of the Year for his work with Jim Cuddy, Chris SD launched his Art of the Song Pitch program in 2017, to help the indie artists he was working with land film and TV placements.
“Nothing makes me happier than being able to send a cheque to a real, genuine artist.” – Music Supervisor Matthew Hearon-Smith
“A lot of musicians go to music libraries,” says Mr. SD. “The problem for indie songwriters is that they’re a needle in a haystack. There are sometimes millions of tracks in these libraries. I can introduce indie songwriters to music supervisors directly. I literally take someone like Doug, and someone like Matt, and put them together and see what magic can happen.”
Hearon-Smith had worked with Sync Songwriter for multiple projects (“It’s absolutely one of my top resources for day-to-day work,” he says) before meeting Doug in a one-on-one pitch session. He was impressed by his well-produced jazz music and when it came time to find authentic jazz tracks for Anora, he went straight to the source.
“I really, really liked the guy, and he was front of mind,” says Hearon-Smith. “I think I just called Doug up and said, ‘Hey, can you send me these tracks? These are the terms, da, da, da.’ It was the one of the easiest syncs, but also one of the most fulfilling ones I could possibly do. There’s really nothing that makes me happier than being able to send a cheque to a real, genuine artist.”
Hearon-Smith placed three Doug Martin tracks in Anora: “Kafka Was Here,” “Monday in Utopia,” and “The Shadow Lounge,” which was just eight seconds in the background – but the music supervisor cites that as an example of the importance of every single piece of music. (The film had more than 70 syncs.)
Select the image to access the YouTube video of the Doug Martin song “Monday in Utopia”
“Some of these syncs might not be the big montage track, or the end credit song,” he says. “But they’re equally important to setting the tone, and making sure the vibe is right. Doug’s tracks, they live in locations in Brooklyn that our characters are going in and out of. Maybe there are pots and pans clanging, and you can’t quite hear it, but it has to be there; it’s important.”
Sync Songwriter doesn’t take a percentage of any deals that come from the relationships it fosters. Rather, it charges for Art of the Song Pitch and a more advanced program for graduates called Sync Club. (Doug is a member.) And while there are no guarantees (“I can’t control what happens, but I can let you in the door,” says Chris SD), Doug Martin’s success with Anora is an illustration of what’s possible when you put artists and music supervisors together.
“I call it vindication,” says Martin of Anora’s Oscar wins. “Like, I did the right thing for once, you know? I felt a lot of gratitude, not just to Chris and Matthew, but also to my musicians for doing such a great job in the studio. They called me up to say, ‘Hey, we’re in an Oscar-winning movie, you know.’ I said, ‘Yeah, we are.”