Monthly Archives: August 2008

The spotting session is when a director and composer get together to watch the film and decide where the music is going to be and what it’s going to do. This occurs before the composer starts writing the music. People present should be the director, the composer, the music editor and perhaps the producer. Many [...]

The conductor is the guy who waves his baton in front of the orchestra to get them all to play together and with the right musical effect. Some composers conduct their own music, but many prefer to sit in the booth where they can focus all their attention on listening to the music as it [...]

An orchestrator is called upon to take the musical notes written by the composer and assign them to available instruments, adding some notes here and there to provide the musical effect imagined by the composer. But in film, the orchestrator’s job is much more varied than that, sometimes taking on the role of composer. Here [...]

The music editor is part of the composer’s support team. The music editor will prepare notes taken during the spotting session. Based on the decisions made during the spotting session, he/she will provide detailed timing notes for each cue. The music editor might be called on to make changes, or edit the music when last [...]