Today, most composers just sketch their ideas briefly on the piano (or the instrument they
prefer) and their orchestrator has the task to write out and transcribe this for the required
voices or instruments. Therefore he must know exactly how the composer wants his cues to
sound in the end. (Sometimes he's even conducting.) It's a job that became popular when
(score-) composers accepted more assignments than they could fulfill.

A very good description can be found at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orchestrator

coma, May 14, 2006; 12:39 AM

Thanks for that. Sounds like they do most of the work!

venu71, May 13, 2006; 6:35 AM

Well, it depends on the composer really. If you're talking about guys like Williams, Goldsmith, Poledouris, etc...then in most cases the orchestrator is something of a glorified part copyist. That's not to say the work they do isn't important and often necessary, but it is what it is. Williams sketches in particular are nothing of the sort, they're nearly fully orchestrated to begin with. If the opportunity ever arises, you should check our Steve Smalley's orchestration class that he holds a few times a year. He hands out dozens of samples of sketches from film scores as examples. Some composers do just use four or five staves, but others, particulalry the older guys, really do do the hard work.

Then there's the Media Ventures guys. Ever notice that they usually have 6, 7, 8 occassionally even 10 orchestrators. I'm willing to bet that in those cases, the orchestrators are actually something closer to "ghost writers". "Tears of the Sun" is a classic example of where a single composer received the credit, but the "orchestrators" did a sizable chunk of the cue writing.

shehan23, May 14, 2006; 11:03 PM