Impact on your composition from needing to show directors a midi mockup....

[paulwr]

Hi David, and thanks for taking the time for all of this.

In my work, I must turn in midi mock-ups that are to be broadcast. But of course, yours are just to illustrate your ideas to the director prior to committing to full orchestra in most cases (I imagine).

To my ear, I sense some film composers have a live orchestra trying to emulate a midi mock up that was done in a way that plays to the strength of orchestral soundware for the mock-ups. Very backwards thing to do, if that is the case. Missed opportunities at wonderful live player orchestration techniques, making some film music just not as dynamic or 'deep' as it would otherwise, perhaps, have been.

While I gladly have never thought your composition/orchestration has had that sort of influence, can you share with us what, if any, impact having to turn in midi mock-ups has on your final composition/orchestration choices?

I would hope most directors would 'get' a midi orchestration that falls short due to software limitations, and trust the ideas would fully blossom when performed live.

Thanks,
-Paul

[David Newman]

I have had a lot of training so I have a fair sense of how things will sound. However, orchestration is a "magical" art that can never be really mastered. If you are adventurous (as you should be in film scoring), you will try new things - sometimes they work, sometimes they don't. It's the nature of the 'beast". I don't worry about mock ups vs live scoring as you can always adjust the live players to fix what you didn't do correctly. That's the great thing about live players, you can fix stuff. Mahler keep re-orchestrating his symphonies until they were, to his mind, perfect. He didn't get it right every time, the first time. And they sound great!!!