# Composer vs. Orchestrator vs. Conductor



## Bdurox

It always bugs me when I see a movie and it says "Music by ___" and then towards the end of the credits there is a separate orchestrator (or more) and a separate conductor, and even in the case of some, "Additional music by". So I guess my question is, what is it exactly that the composer does? Do they approve the final output before giving it to the director? It's not really fair that they should get an oscar when there are all these other people doing all this work on it that only get their name in it at the end.

Example, according to imdb:
Original Music by Hans Zimmer
Lorne Balfe .... composer: additional music
Bruce Fowler .... orchestrator
Rick Giovinazzo	.... orchestrator
Nick Glennie-Smith	.... conductor
Kevin Kaska	.... orchestrator
Penka Kouneva	.... orchestrator
Atli Örvarsson	.... composer: additional music
Carl Rydlund	.... orchestrator
Geoff Zanelli	.... composer: additional music
And yet Hans Zimmer gets all the credit.


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## Argus

What film are them credits from?

Hans Zimmer doesn't get all the credit otherwise those other people wouldn't have been named in the credits. I would expect that he wrote the main themes in the film and the orchestrators would have just helped him organise the parts among the orchestra.. Zimmer's an in demand film composer maybe he didn't have the time to perfect everything himself. The additional music composers could maybe write the less memorable 'atmosphere' music and therefore not really supply the more memorable parts of the soundtrack. Those other composers (after a bit of googling) are part of his Remote Control Productions film music company so he will have an agreement with them that they work for him and he get's his name in the movies and the Oscars.

Hopefully, another member here will know more about exactly how much Zimmer would writes in each of his films. I will say he doesn't really strike me as a particularly outstanding film composer considering how popular he is. Looking through his filmography he has worked on a few films I've seen that I thought had pretty good music, like Black Rain, Crimson Tide and, oddly enough, Toys but he hasn't got an ultra distinct style like Elfman, Morricone, Williams or even Vangelis.(Actually Morricone has changed slightly over the years to me, but his post 1970's output has a distinct flavour about it).


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## Bdurox

It's from Angels and Demons. I was afraid that this might be seen as Zimmer bashing. I'm really just wondering about composers getting credit and awards when they don't seem to do a lot of the work.

To add to my argument, of the 9 tracks on the Angels and Demons soundtrack (according to itunes), Hans Zimmer is given "Composer" credits on 2 tracks, Atli Orvarsson gets 2, and Lorne Balfe gets 5. Plus, the "Artist" is given as Hans Zimmer.


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## Tapkaara

I know that Danny Elfman has had others orchestrate his film scores in the past. I believe Batman was orchestrated by someone other than Elfman.


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## Rondo

Good question. To add to that, are there any _living_ film composers who compose, orchestrate _and_ conduct all their scores? John Williams may be one (at least for the most part).


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## Bdurox

Howard Shore did with LOTR.


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## jurianbai

It maybe similar to the case in building design? Head Architect, Junior architect, then all the drafter helping to do the "paper works". Maybe the composer is like an architect, they create a main theme. While all the orchestrator just a "nice" title for editting and make the main theme works.


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