Research Project: Orchestrating, Arranging, and Portfolio Careers in the Contemporary Film Music Industry
Introduction
Music for Film as experienced by audiences is the product of a complex and necessary ecosystem of roles that rely on each other to thrive. It is often perceived that the only role responsible for the product is that of a composer, with very little mention of the other vital roles involved in the process. This research project will endeavour to explore the career of the orchestrator in the film music process and evaluate their significance, skills required, and how opportunities are created for this role. “An orchestrator is a highly skilled musician specialising in arranging and adapting musical compositions for an orchestra. They work closely with the composer to bring their ideas to life in a way that’s both musically and technically sound. They have a vast amount of knowledge about the capabilities of each instrument in the orchestra.” (Le Roux, 2023)
Alongside this, I will explore the role of an arranger, as it is common for an orchestrator to take on both roles. I will evaluate the nuances between these roles in addition to looking at how they can form the basis of a portfolio career in the contemporary creative industries, and the subsequent benefits and opportunities of this multi-faceted career path. Through academic texts, online articles, case studies and interviews with industry professionals, I have carried out in-depth research, to form a strong understanding of the role of an orchestrator in the contemporary film music industry and in the wider context of film score production.
Portfolio Careers in the Film Music Industry: The Many ‘Hats’ of an Orchestrator
In the context of the music industry, it is common for working musicians to form a portfolio career. A portfolio career is defined as “different jobs pursued either successively or simultaneously,” often combining jobs into a “patchwork of roles” (MU, 2012).This reflects the diverse nature of the music industry, and consequently the wide variety of overlapping skills and adaptability that is needed, needing musicians to “wear multiple hats” (Beentjes, 2021). “The music industry has changed and evolved dramatically in recent years. In the past, musicians could rely on a single full-time position to sustain their entire career.” (Danyew, 2020)
Musicians and creatives have been driven to diversify in their careers to gain multiple income streams, offering financial stability, acquiring and extending their skill sets in the process. In “The Working Musician”, a research project commissioned by the Musicians’ Union (MU) and undertaken by DHA Communications in 2012, musicians were asked to single out just one role they most identify with, and from where they earnt money (Figure 1), but when asked to identify all of their income streams, the study revealed the breadth of the roles undertaken by portfolio career musicians, with 28% being recording artists, 31% being session players and 43% composing or writing music and lyrics. This demonstrated the wide range of ways working musicians extend beyond a single core role. (Musicians’ Union, 2012)
The term “portfolio career” popularised by Charles Handy in his 1994 book “The Empty Raincoat: Making Sense of the Future”. He presented the idea that if overall income is comfortable and sustainable, a wide portfolio of jobs tailored to suit the interests of the individual is the best way to achieve job satisfaction (Handy, 1994). Portfolio careers are also often incorrectly termed “freelancing” – which is characterised by working for other people, such as independent contractors, and building a collection of work from multiple sources. A portfolio career, on the other hand, involves working for yourself, but may include elements of freelancing alongside other roles.
In the contemporary film industry, it is common for an orchestrator to adopt a portfolio career. In most cases an orchestrator will also contribute as a composer, or an arranger, and take on music preparation roles such as a copyist, as a broad skillset is needed to succeed. Due to the nature of work in the creative industries, orchestrators are also likely to be responsible for music production elements, such as midi-orchestration, mixing, in addition to self-promotion and marketing, and managing their finances, amongst others. This makes orchestration and arranging beneficial skills for a composer to have, but can stand as their own career paths, as I will explore.
The Role of Orchestrators and Arrangers
After the music for a film has been composed, the task then falls to a team of arrangers, orchestrators, and copyists to ensure the music is tidy and ready to be played in a studio recording. They must work with tight time pressures due to the high cost of hiring and recording a professional ensemble, and the role that this team plays in the wider context of the film score production process is demonstrated below:
There is significant ambiguity surrounding the terms ‘arranger’ and ‘orchestrator’ and these terms are often used interchangeably. So, what’s the difference? Fundamentally, an orchestrator creates finished scores that are fully playable for an orchestra or other relevant ensembles ready for a recording session, starting from a composer’s rough sketch or a MIDI mock-up. The main responsibility of an orchestrator is to figure out exactly what the composer’s intentions are musically, and how best to achieve this with the language of music notation. They must employ advanced listening, transcription, and problem-solving skills to translate the composer’s ideas from a MIDI score or synthesized recording. (Berklee, 2026) Whilst some compositional elements are naturally likely to change in their translation, the role of an orchestrator remains simply to communicate and polish a composition for players. “Orchestrators will decide what instruments to use, and which instruments will play what, scoring the various voices of an arrangement without changing or adding to the melodies, counter-melodies, harmonies, and rhythms.” (AFM, 2026)
An arranger, on the other hand, will help finish, rework, and adapt pre-existing compositions by altering elements such as instrumentation, orchestration, harmony, tempo, and genre. (Berklee, 2026) Arrangers have much more freedom in terms of altering compositional element as they will be working off or reworking existing music, sometimes from very minimal sketches or composers’ ideas, such as a piano line or phrase. They can reharmonise, paraphrase and develop material so long as it reflects the composer’s intentions, the brief, and the original source material. Arrangers work across many professional music industries, not just the film music industry, and the skills are easily transferable. For example, many arrangers will work with live music performances, musical theatre, and providing arrangements for the wider music industry and studio recordings, especially in the popular music industry. This makes it an ideal skill upon which to build a portfolio career, due to its flexibility and transferability between roles. Whilst there is no set career path for being an orchestrator or arranger, many people will start out either as an assistant to an orchestrator or arranger, or even as a copyist. A Copyist is responsible for writing out, preparing and organising the finished parts for the conductor and the players for a recording session and work closely alongside orchestrators and arrangers with whom they share a similar skillset.
These roles form an effective basis for a portfolio career due to the range of complementary and overlapping skills required, and the opportunity to create multiple income streams. The rates of pay for an orchestrator or arranger can vary depending on a variety of factors, such as the project, the budget, whether a flat fee is paid for the entire project or whether the project is paid by the page. In accordance with the Musicians’ Union’s guidance, the standard hourly rate of an arranger/orchestrator is a minimum of £74.98 per hour and the rate for music preparation is a standard of £46.57 per hour. Rates can also be calculated on a ‘per bar’ basis (Figure 3)
Ultimately, this makes arranging, orchestration, and music preparation roles beneficial for anyone freelancing or just starting out as the basis of as portfolio career, especially for an individual that has one or more of these skills. Whilst some composers will also choose to orchestrate their music, such as Bernard Hermann, as a result of time and budget constraints in the modern film music industry these different roles are all required to ensure a smooth and efficient process.
Role Research
When initially undertaking this research project, I decided to start at the very foundations, looking for literature in the library on the origins of orchestration and its wider practice, not specific to the film music industry. This led me to two books outlining the fundamental musical skills needed for traditional orchestration: “Sounds and Scores: a practical guide to professional orchestration” by Henry Mancini (1973), and “Music Arranging and Orchestration” by John Cacavas (1975). However, these both only provided a very broad insight into the role of an orchestrator. In addition to this, both works were published in the 1970s, before many of the significant technological advancements in the music industry across the twentieth century. The role of an orchestrator has ultimately significantly changed alongside the advancement of technology, such as the introduction of synthesisers, the advancements of recording technology including microphones and the introduction of multi-tracking, and the resulting analogue to digital switchover in the mid-1990s.
Following this, I aimed to narrow down my findings to that specific to the contemporary film music industries. This was initially difficult, due to the limited literature outlining the separate and distinct roles involved in film score production, aside from pedagogic guides for aspiring composers and publications about the history and aesthetics of film scores. I found one useful book on the topic, “Scoring the Score: The Role of the Orchestrator in the Contemporary Film Industry” by Ian Sapiro (2017), however this was the only relevant literature I could find. This led me to direct my research online, to websites, blogs, videos, and finding orchestrators currently working in the industry. This proved far more valuable to gain an insight into the role of an orchestrator in the contemporary industries. My research led me to a three-part video series doing a deep dive into the job of professional orchestrators for film scores (Dern, 2021)
The series, made by composer Anne-Katherin Dern, featured orchestrator and composer Andrés Montero and was a very helpful overview of the role of orchestrators in the contemporary film industry. They discussed how the role has changed, especially due to advancing technologies and how this has affected the role now. For example, in the past composers would write scores out by hand and the role of an orchestrator was very different, involving organising rough concepts and broad ideas for musicians to play, which ultimately took more time and money to do everything by hand. Today, composers compose directly into sequencers, such as Cubase or Logic Pro, which has changed the way that orchestrators work. As outlined by Montero in the video, mock-ups tend to be far more detailed and orchestrated, but they still need to be translated to musicians when working off a MIDI file rather than a score, especially when composers have taken a production based approach to composing with sample libraries, not necessarily regarding whether it will sound as intended in a recording session or will be playable by musicians. For example, an orchestrator may need to dovetail woodwind runs so they’re playable or write in pedals for a harp part so is playable. They may also need to balance the orchestra according to how the mock-up sounds.
This series led me to reach out to Andrés to ask him some further questions, and thankfully he was happy to chat.
Email Conversation with Andrés Montero:
Talking to Andrés was especially helpful to gain an insight from someone working directly as an orchestrator, arranger and composer instead of relying solely on secondary literature, which didn’t provide an accurate view on the developing nature of the film music industry.
The Importance of Marketing in Creating Opportunities for a Career in the Creative Industries
In order to create opportunities as a musician in the contemporary film music and score production industries – or any modern creative industries – it is vital to consider personal marketing, due to the competitive and dynamic nature of these industries. This is especially relevant due to the collaborative elements that many roles rely on – where working styles and sound are assessed to build compatible working relationships. In addition to this, there can be some challenges faced when marketing a portfolio career, as individuals may need to market range different skills as opposed to just one, which can be difficult to balance. There is particular emphasis in the creative industries on the importance of networking and ‘knowing the right people’, which can be very effective, however it is futile without evidence of your skills – a portfolio. When creating opportunities as a creative, these things must be symbiotic – in isolation neither are completely effective, however in combination, a strong portfolio and a pro-active approach to networking can create opportunities.
Initially, I sought examples of current working professionals’ websites (Figure 4, Figure 5) to see how they marketed themselves and presented a portfolio of multiple skills. For example, in both Anne and Andrés’ websites, there was clear, easy access to their previous works, credits, and showreels, a short effective biography, and a direct summary of their skills.
When researching marketing strategies, I considered the effectiveness of video showreels, and what makes a good showreel. A showreel can be defined as “a short video that shows a selection of clips of your very best work. It can also be a website, where you can show a more comprehensive portfolio by including audio tracks and text.” (ScreenSkills, 2026)
I also spoke to Danny West, who is a producer at Universal Production Music and asked him about the showreels he sees in his work, what he believes makes a good one, and how to market oneself in a portfolio career. I asked him about the approach to marketing a broad skillset, such as in a portfolio career:
“[the people we work with] can do three things extremely well. The people that fall down with me immediately are people that say, “I can do everything” – be good at a few things or be good at one thing and understand that the person you’re contacting needs the one thing that you can give them.” (West, 2026)
When asked about what makes a less effective showreel, he responded “the tricky thing with video [showreels] is that if it’s unclear what you did – I’ll probably turn it off” (ibid.) He also highlighted the importance a good pitch in a high quality marketing approach– you can have a high quality portfolio or showreel, but the initial pitch needs to be strong to effectively support the material and for it to be looked at. “A decent pitch doesn’t have to be too long, it doesn’t have to be ‘I’m the best’, it doesn’t need to be too much selling – it just needs to be ‘I can do this.” (ibid.)
I utilised my research on marketing and showreels, taking my findings into consideration to create my own showreel to make opportunities for myself as an orchestrator and arranger and start to build my portfolio career. I decided to create a video showreel demonstrating my experience arranging, as most orchestrators will also have experience arranging, especially when starting a career and freelancing. I aimed to make the arranging showreel short and effective, only showing key moments from my experience working across a range of ensembles, but maintaining focus on arranging as the main skill. To ensure the showreel was as clear as possible, I edited it smoothly, for example creating cross-fade transitions to give a polished feel. I also aimed to make my role in the projects as clear as possible, following advice from Danny. My intention is that the video would be on my professional website, making up part of a wider portfolio. I intend to have separate sections on the website to demonstrate my experience as a film score composer, orchestrator, arranger, as well as instrumental player.
Arranging Showreel:
Conclusion
To conclude, through my research exploring the skills and roles of the orchestrator and the arranger in the process of film score production, I have found that a portfolio career aligns with my intended approach for building a career in the contemporary film music industry. This is ultimately due to the vast opportunities that can evidently be created from developing a range of marketable skills.
Bibliography
AFM. (2026) Music Preparation. American Federation of Musicians of the United States and Canada. Available online: https://www.afm.org/recording-and-digital-media/music-preparation/ [Accessed April 2026]
Beentjes, D. (2021) Portfolio Careers: The Many Hats of a Music Producer. Abbey Road Institute. Available online: https://abbeyroadinstitute.co.uk/blog/portfolio-career-the-many-hats-of-a-music-producer/ [Accessed April 2026]
Berklee. (2026) Arranger: What does an Arranger do? Berklee College of Music. Available online: https://www.berklee.edu/careers/roles/arranger [Accessed March 2026]
Berklee. (2026) Orchestrator (Film and TV): What does an Orchestrator (Film and TV) do? Berklee College of Music. Available online: https://www.berklee.edu/careers/roles/orchestrator-film-and-tv [Accessed April 2026]
Cacavas, J. (1975) Music Arranging and Orchestration. Belwin-Mills Publishing Corp.
Danyew, A. (2020) What Is a Portfolio Career, Really? Three Things Musicians Should Know. DBA Musician & Company. Available online: https://musicianandcompany.com/blog/what-is-a-portfolio-career [Accessed April 2026]
Dern, AK. (2021) Orchestrators. [Video] Available online: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b-GNfySgpqA [Accessed April 2026]
Handy, C. (1994) The Empty Raincoat: Making Sense of the Future. Hutchinson.
Le Roux, K. (2023) How Does a Film Composer Work With an Orchestrator? Cinemagic Scoring. Available Online: https://www.cinemagicscoring.com/post/how-does-a-film-composer-work-with-an-orchestrator [Accessed April 2026]
Mancini, H. (1973) Sounds and Scores: A Practical Guide to Professional Orchestration. Northridge Music Inc.
Musician’s Union. (2025) Arranging, Music Preparation and Orchestration Rates. Musicians’ Union. Available online: https://musiciansunion.org.uk/working-performing/composing-and-songwriting/arrangers-and-copyists/arranging-music-preparation-and-orchestration-rates [Accessed April 2026]
Musicians’ Union. (2012) The Working Musician: A major research project by DHA Communications, commissioned by the Musicians’ Union. Musician’s Union.
Sapiro, I. (2017) Scoring the Score: The Role of the Orchestrator in the Contemporary Film Industry. Routledge.
ScreenSkills. (2026) Build your film and TV sound portfolio: How to create a showreel to show off your skills in sound. ScreenSkills. Available online: https://www.screenskills.com/starting-your-career/building-your-portfolio/build-your-sound-portfolio/ [Accessed April 2026]
West, D. (2026) Interview with Danny West on 3rd March 2026
