Scoring the Score

The Role of the Orchestrator in the Contemporary Film Industry

Ian Sapiro

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2016
• Print ISBN: 9780415723220
• eBook ISBN: 9781317934875
• Topic: Media & Performing Arts
• Subtopic: Music

Scoring the Score is the first scholarly examination of the orchestrator's role in the contemporary film industry. Orchestrators are crucial to the production of a film's score, yet they have not received significant consideration in film-music research. This book sheds light on this often-overlooked yet vital profession. It considers the key processes of orchestrating and arranging and how they relate, musical and filmic training, the wide-ranging responsibilities of the orchestrator on a film-scoring project, issues related to working practices, the impact of technology, and the differences between the UK and US production processes as they affect orchestrators.

Drawing on interviews with American and British orchestrators and composers, Scoring the Score aims to expose this often hidden profession through a rigorous examination of the creative process and working practices, and analysis of the skills, training and background common to orchestrators. It will appeal to scholars, students, and practitioners of film music.

1
Interviews and Interviewees

This book combines information drawn from the published literature with firsthand accounts from professional orchestrators and composers currently active in the contemporary film industry. Such context is crucial to understanding the role of the orchestrator as it exists in the film-music business, not least because many of the texts that discuss the processes of film music are quite dated. Furthermore there is often an exclusively Hollywood-centric focus that largely overlooks variety in approaches and processes, and orchestration is usually not considered in detail. This chapter begins with an overview of the formulation and construction of the interview schedules used to gather data from professionals, and proceeds with a consideration of the interview participants to establish their place in and experience of the industry.

Interview Schedules

Each individual interview was designed to last around one hour, a duration intended to allow a participant to discuss aspects of their job in a reasonable level of detail, while not encroaching overly on their time. Most interviews did indeed last for about an hour, though in some cases the professional could not spare this long and, conversely, some were able to be extremely generous with the time they committed to the interview.¹ The semi-structured interview schedules offered the flexibility for an interviewee to speak at length about any topics of particular interest, and also enabled the conversation to develop organically since questions could be tackled out of sequence as appropriate. As can happen with interviews, some interviewees did not answer all of the questions put to them, though this was almost always accidental, and as a result of their train of thought moving them away from the specifics of the actual question. Where time was short some questions from towards the end of the schedule were not asked, but in most cases where this occurred it was a result of the interviewee having already spoken at length about several of the other areas of enquiry, so the interview still generated a significant amount of rich data.

There were three interview schedules used in this study, all of which are included in Appendix A. Some participants had been interviewed by the author previously as part of the doctoral project from which the present research and book have developed, and some of their views on the role of the orchestrator in the contemporary film industry had therefore already been obtained. Notwithstanding this, where availability permitted these orchestrators and composers were re-interviewed to enable an updating of their opinions (given the time that had elapsed since the original interviews), and to question them on aspects of the current study that did not form part of the doctoral research. The schedule used in the original interviews is presented first in Appendix A, followed by that for the re-interviews. The final interview schedule is that which was used for ‘new’ participants, and which was sent by email for textual responses to Brad Dechter, Bruce Fowler and Gabriel Yared, all of whom wished to participate but could not spare the time for an interview. However, given that the answers they provided were in response to the interview questions, Dechter, Fowler and Yared are all considered to be interviewees in the context of this project.

The interviews for the doctoral research were all carried out in person, most in the course of an extended weekend in late July 2008, in locations ranging from the orchestrator’s or composer’s home or studio, to coffee shops and local pubs (with varying levels of background noise). Such an approach proved impractical for the re-interviews and new interviews, not least for the US-based participants, and all of the interviews were carried out via Skype, FaceTime or telephone, with a video call utilised whenever possible to enable clearer communication between interviewer and interviewee. The only exception was Pat Russ, who happened to be in the UK at a mutually convenient time, resulting in his interview being carried out in person in a hotel in Liverpool.

Each interview began with a brief verbal introduction in which the participant was given information about the present author and the project. Consent was gained to make an audio recording of the conversation for the purposes of transcribing the interview, and also to associate the interviewee’s name with their comments and use them in the book. The main interview schedule was broken down into seven distinct sections (the sixth of these was not present in the original doctoral interview schedule), though depending on whether a professional works principally as an orchestrator or a composer either section 4 or section 3 was omitted. The sets of questions were designed to address the aspects of the orchestrator’s role outlined in the introduction to this book—on which the following six chapters are based—and were ordered to reflect the different phases of film-score production as presented in the literature on the subject (cf. Sapiro 2013, p. 70; Davis 2010, p. 76; Karlin & Wright 2004, p. 11; Kompanek 2004). The interview questions and structure were, therefore, designed to investigate the role of the orchestrator across the complete film-score production process—rather than only when orchestrating—and to enable professionals to present the process from their own perspective as the interview progressed. It was necessary to gather information about aspects of the composer’s role in the creation of a film score (section 4 of the interview schedule) in order to contextualise the whole production process, though the data obtained through that part of the interview fall generally outside the focus of this book, and are therefore only discussed where appropriate.

The opening section, ‘Background Information’, was designed to ease a participant into the interview. The questions in this part of the schedule offer interviewees the chance to talk freely about their musical training, education and experiences while establishing a level of comfort and trust in the interviewer and the interview process. The transition from here into ‘Role in the Industry’ (this section is called ‘Orchestrating and Arranging’ in the re-interview schedule) is made seamlessly by shifting the focus slightly from general music to film music, which most participants did themselves through their responses. This allows the potentially difficult issues surrounding orchestration, arrangement, composition and creativity to be challenged directly once the interview is properly established.

‘The Process’ (section 3 for orchestrators and section 4 for composers) deals with an individual’s place in the scoring process, and covers the period from being brought onto a project to the recording of a score. How and when a professional becomes involved in a scoring assignment, the materials that an orchestrator receives from a composer, and the roles of the composer and orchestrator at recording sessions are all covered in this central part of the interview schedule. Indeed, the breadth of this section led to the various professionals focusing on different aspects of their roles and the processes involved. The semi-structured nature of the interviews allowed the most time to be devoted to this section and each participant commented fully on all of the key areas, albeit not necessarily all in the same order. ‘Doing the Job’ includes a consideration of technology and aspects of working practices, as well as investigating orchestrators’ relationships with two other key members of the music team: copyists and music editors.

In the new interviews section 6 investigates ‘Process Differences’, and contains questions aimed towards professionals working across the American and British industries, and those who are regularly involved in the production of music for television as well as film. These questions were not included in the doctoral interview schedule, but a section on ‘UK/US Differences’ was included in the re-interview. All interviews were concluded with ‘General Thoughts and Feelings’, where participants were given the opportunity to comment further on any aspects of the subject they felt required more consideration or that they thought had been overlooked. Several interviewees used this time to discuss parts of the process that they had spoken less about during the interview, and information from these closing thoughts permeate this book. A verbatim transcript was written up following each interview, and this was then put into prose to enable the interviewee to read through it more expediently, and so that quotes taken from the text could be used more readily. The interviewee made any necessary amendments to the prose transcript, and returned the approved text to the author for use. Each participant was interviewed once for this project (in addition to the interviews done for the original doctoral research), and where there were any follow-up questions these were dealt with by email. Elliot Goldenthal and Heitor Pereira requested further Skype conversations to discuss parts of their interview testimonies, but in both the discussion was led by the composer, not the interviewer, who only asked further questions where clarification was needed.

Presenting the Data

Unless otherwise stated, quotations from the participating orchestrators and composers are drawn from the personal interviews conducted by the author (the date of each interview is given in Appendix B). Where evidence comes from a doctoral interview the citation given includes the year (2007 for Alexander, Eshkeri and Jones; 2008 for Butt, Butterworth, Dunkley, Fenton, Heffes, King and Shearman); no date is given for testimony from a participant’s re-interview or from a professional who was not involved in the doctoral research. Furthermore, if a comment can be readily attributed to a specific individual within the flow of the text then no citation is provided.

Interviewees

The professional film-score orchestrators and composers interviewed for this project represent a broad cross section of those working in the industry in the United States and the United Kingdom. Twenty-three of the forty-four participants are orchestrators, and though some also compose the majority of their current mainstream film and television work is in orchestration.² The remaining twenty-one professionals are composers, and aside from those who do some or all of their own orchestrations, none are active as orchestrators.

Orchestrators

Between them, the orchestrators involved in this project can boast orchestration credits running into the thousands and working relationships with a significant number of leading screen composers. This group comprises some of the most experienced orchestrators currently active in the American and British industries— both in terms of the number of films orchestrated, and the time spent working in film music—and they can therefore be seen as representative of the contemporary profession. A breakdown of the participating orchestrators categorised by the number of scores on which they have worked (regardless of whether or not they received a screen credit) is shown in Table 1.1.

A relatively small number of orchestrators are known outside the industry, and even those held in the highest esteem by their colleagues are unlikely to be household names, in stark contrast to ‘A-list’ composers. Bruce Fowler comes into this category though his partnership with Hans Zimmer, which comprises more than 100 films, makes him one of the few orchestrators whose name might be recognised by the film-watching public. Fowler is one of the four most prolific orchestrators in this study, having completed over 200 projects as orchestrator or lead orchestrator since his first assignment in 1989, and the establishment of a long-term relationship with a leading composer is fundamental to his extensive filmography. Pete Anthony and Jeff Atmajian also entered the business in the late 1980s and have each orchestrated on a similar number of projects to Fowler, though in their cases the workload has been spread across a number of composers. Both work extensively with James Newton Howard, for whom Brad Dechter also provided orchestrations over a twenty-three year period from 1986, and Dechter has also worked on more than 100 scores with Mark Isham. Although he was not the first of the orchestrators interviewed to enter the film-music industry, he was the first to start working in orchestration, in 1982.

Table 1.1 Breakdown of participating orchestrators by number of screen orchestrations

Screen Orchestrations (Credited and Uncredited)	Orchestrators
200+	Pete Anthony, Jeff Atmajian, Brad Dechter, Bruce Fowler
100–199	Steve Bartek, Matt Dunkley, Robert Elhai, Alastair King, Jon Kull, Ladd McIntosh, Conrad Pope, Pat Russ, Tim Simonec
50–99	Geoff Alexander, Stephen Coleman, Tim Davies, Julian Kershaw, Penka Kouneva
Fewer than 50	David Butterworth, Jessica Dannheisser, Teese Gohl, Nan Schwartz, James Shearman

Only Steve Bartek—another orchestrator who has achieved a measure of public recognition, in his case owing to his work with Danny Elfman—started in the business before Dechter, gaining his first screen credit as a ‘music arranger’ on Forbidden Zone (1980). Indeed, the Elfman/Bartek partnership is the most extensive involving an orchestrator or composer interviewed for this project, currently standing at over 130 scores and making up the vast majority of Bartek’s filmography. Pat Russ has amassed a similar amount of orchestration credits to Bartek over his thirty-two ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Dedication
• CONTENTS
• List of figures
• List of tables
• Foreword
• Preface
• Acknowledgements
• Introduction
• 1 Interviews and Interviewees
• 2 Orchestrating and Arranging
• 3 Becoming an Orchestrator
• 4 The Impact of Technology
• 5 Involvement in a Film-Scoring Project
• 6 Working Practices
• 7 Local Differences in a Global Industry
• 8 The Role of the Orchestrator in the Contemporary Film Industry
• Appendix A Outline Interview Schedules
• Appendix B Interviewee Details
• Appendix C Information on Software Packages
• Index