Christopher BJ Smith wrote (and thanks for the Rodgers quote!!):
While accurately used in the case we are talking about, the term "orchestrator" has been taken over in recent years to mean anything from a real orchestrator to a full arranger, or even a co-composer working off the "real" composer's basic materials. I am ashamed to say that I have been one of the latter on occasion. On the other hand, I tell myself "what's in a name or program credit? *I* know what I did, and so does everyone involved in the project whose opinion I value.
Well, I doubt anyone would be surprised to hear that credit is one thing and reality often something else. I attended a workshop given by Frank Comstock, a man with a great many movie credits and the person who created incredible arrangements to back up the Hi-Los. One thing he said was that the movie composers all knew and mostly liked each other and helped out when someone needed help. He had studied the mechanics of movie making, timing things down to a single frame and so on, and often got called to "repair" problems in scores from other composers.
He said that Duke Ellington wrote the music for a submarine movie (something I hadn't known) and did things like having the music going down while a sub was going up, and not timing things right. Frank came in and had to write music connecting the end of one of Duke's cues to the beginning of the next and make the timing perfect and the music seamless. He didn't get, or ask for, screen credit. He did it to help out, probably because it was a challenge, and because the money was awfully good. About Mancini's movie scores he commented, "Yeah, Hank writes real nice tunes."
John
-- John & Susie Howell Virginia Tech Department of Music Blacksburg, Virginia, U.S.A. 24061-0240 Vox (540) 231-8411 Fax (540) 231-5034 (mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]) http://www.music.vt.edu/faculty/howell/howell.html _______________________________________________ Finale mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://mail.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
