ABSTRACT
This chapter draws on information gathered from interviews carried out by the author with professional orchestrators and composers working in screen music in the United States and the United Kingdom to disambiguate the question of creativity in the orchestration of music for the screen. It discusses the degree to which creativity plays a role in it and what form any such creative input might take. Most comprehensive study of the role of the orchestrator, which draws heavily on the industry experiences of the professional orchestrators and composers whose views are included in the chapter, all of whom are active in the contemporary industry. The role the orchestrator plays in forming the sound of the finished score raises questions regarding the level of creative input orchestrators have, and the extent to which orchestration might be considered a craft or art, rather than merely a process.
