film scores

Variety
“There has been a tremendous devaluation of music,” said former Society of Composers and Lyricists president James DiPasquale. “Respect for composers has diminished. Technology has marched forward, and our income has plummeted. At the rank-and-file level, it’s very hard for anyone to make a living.” In response to these rough times the SCL is considering unionization. SCL statistics show that in hourlong TV, composers on average must write twice as much music as they did 30 years ago — hourlongs today require twice as many minutes of music — but the salary drops are astonishing: According to their website, for each score, they’re averaging just 14% of what they did then, adjusted for inflation. In films, it’s even worse, with fees dropping precipitously even as composers must now write more than twice as much music while also absorbing technical costs (engineering, mixing, editing) that were once handled, and paid for, by studio or network personnel.

Variety
Until fairly recently, it was difficult to find a symphony orchestra willing to play movie music in concert. Conductors generally dismissed the form as commercial and unworthy (that is, unless the composers were known classical figures such as Aaron Copland, William Walton or Sergei Prokofiev). Now, however, symphony orchestras are gradually accepting the idea that some film music is strong enough to stand on its own — and, more to the point, it lures audiences eager to hear material that is familiar and evocative of the movie going experience. In other words, say longtime classical observers, it puts patrons in the seats, and that means money at a time when orchestras everywhere are hurting. In the Emerald City, the Seattle Symphony will play Bernard Herrmann’s “Psycho” score live to the Hitchcock picture Oct. 29-31 in Benaroya Hall.

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Seattle Film and Music Blog

COMPOSERS CONSIDER UNIONIZATION

A CONCERTED EFFORT FOR MOVIE MUSIC