I'm doing a little bit of research right now and thought I would share my findings. I'm trying to push my work up to the next level. One of the things that I would like to do (and I'm sure most composers and filmmakers) is record with a live orchestra. However on the indie low-to-no budget level, this is a pretty unattainable goal, unless you've got money to play with.
I had heard that working with European orchestras (particularly those in the Czech Republic) are a good modest budget solution. It's not uncommon to have a score played by a lower budget orchestra, and then augmented with sampled instruments, electronics, percussion, etc.
Most orchestras will give you a price quote on request, but as that I don't have specific needs at the moment, I've been looking for general "ballpark figure" quotes. Among the orchestras I was looking at, I came across the Brno Philharmonic Orchestra (http://www.brnorecordings.com/). Again, they list "e-mail us for quotes", but unlike many others, they DO have some quotes for small sessions that will be useful to estimate costs. In these sessions, you can monitor remotely at an hourly rate (instead of booking a full day). Detailed information is here: http://www.czechrecordings.com/remote.htm In summation:
A normal recording session is broken up into 3 1-hour sessions (1 hour playing, 30 minute break, repeat).
You get up to a 70 piece orchestra. You can add players for an additional fee, but reducing players will not reduce the fee (they pay the musicians for the whole day).
1 hour recording will average around 5-7 minutes recorded music. More or less depending on the complexity of the cue you are working on.
This does include a conductor and recording staff, however, you get the music unedited, unmixed and unmastered (this is a good thing if you are planning on augmenting the score).
Current rate is 2,750 euro, or around $3,671.33 per hour (according to today's exchange rates).
So what does that mean for a score? Take a 90 minute feature. You'll have between 40 and 60 minutes of music (we'll split the difference and say 50), not counting any licensed incidental music (songs by bands, etc). So that means you would need between 8 and 10 sessions to record all the music for a feature. Now, if you're booking the orchestra outright for a couple days, the price might be a little lower (you can also do smaller ensembles; since you're not doing the pre-book days they don't have to have a harpist on the clock that isn't doing anything), but again, this is just an estimate. So we're looking at between $29,370.64 and $36,713.30 for a complete score, not counting the composer and any assistants, orchestrators or copyists involved (these people will all cut the time down dramatically).
Okay, real world terms. In Hollywood, music is usually 1-2% of budget (indie budgets are always different in lots of ways). So if we're paying $35k for a live orchestra, we'll be generous and give the composer and even $50k to work with (I'm not sure what, say, Howard Shore takes for his fee versus what he pays musicians and employees, that might be a good number for me to research next). If this is 1% of budget, we're looking at a $5 million film. At 2%, a $2.5 million dollar film. Yikes!
So even with a relatively inexpensive European orchestra, this is well above what most people here have to play with for a feature. Depending on the money you have, sinking that much into getting a live orchestra might be worth it...again, as well all know, budget percentages are far from standard on the indie level. I know from my own work, the more live instruments I record in a given work, the better it is received (though part of that is my own skill growth as well).
HOWEVER, there is another way to utilize this information. Say, for example, we're dealing with a 250k feature with a music budget of 5k. That could get you one hour of record time, for 5-7 minutes. Not enough for a score, but enough for a couple highlighted cues. Put one near the beginning, one at a dramatic peak of the film, and another near the end (in cases where a pop song is not licensed for end credits, you could even re-use one of those there). Starting strong to get peoples' attention, and end strong so it's what they last remember.
Another option for lower budget orchestras is student orchestras. Here in Pittsburgh there are a lot of schools with a music program (a really good one at Duquesne University), though I don't know if they perform material not by students. I'll be doing some research into that next, and let you guys know what I find out!
I had heard that working with European orchestras (particularly those in the Czech Republic) are a good modest budget solution. It's not uncommon to have a score played by a lower budget orchestra, and then augmented with sampled instruments, electronics, percussion, etc.
Most orchestras will give you a price quote on request, but as that I don't have specific needs at the moment, I've been looking for general "ballpark figure" quotes. Among the orchestras I was looking at, I came across the Brno Philharmonic Orchestra (http://www.brnorecordings.com/). Again, they list "e-mail us for quotes", but unlike many others, they DO have some quotes for small sessions that will be useful to estimate costs. In these sessions, you can monitor remotely at an hourly rate (instead of booking a full day). Detailed information is here: http://www.czechrecordings.com/remote.htm In summation:
A normal recording session is broken up into 3 1-hour sessions (1 hour playing, 30 minute break, repeat).
You get up to a 70 piece orchestra. You can add players for an additional fee, but reducing players will not reduce the fee (they pay the musicians for the whole day).
1 hour recording will average around 5-7 minutes recorded music. More or less depending on the complexity of the cue you are working on.
This does include a conductor and recording staff, however, you get the music unedited, unmixed and unmastered (this is a good thing if you are planning on augmenting the score).
Current rate is 2,750 euro, or around $3,671.33 per hour (according to today's exchange rates).
So what does that mean for a score? Take a 90 minute feature. You'll have between 40 and 60 minutes of music (we'll split the difference and say 50), not counting any licensed incidental music (songs by bands, etc). So that means you would need between 8 and 10 sessions to record all the music for a feature. Now, if you're booking the orchestra outright for a couple days, the price might be a little lower (you can also do smaller ensembles; since you're not doing the pre-book days they don't have to have a harpist on the clock that isn't doing anything), but again, this is just an estimate. So we're looking at between $29,370.64 and $36,713.30 for a complete score, not counting the composer and any assistants, orchestrators or copyists involved (these people will all cut the time down dramatically).
Okay, real world terms. In Hollywood, music is usually 1-2% of budget (indie budgets are always different in lots of ways). So if we're paying $35k for a live orchestra, we'll be generous and give the composer and even $50k to work with (I'm not sure what, say, Howard Shore takes for his fee versus what he pays musicians and employees, that might be a good number for me to research next). If this is 1% of budget, we're looking at a $5 million film. At 2%, a $2.5 million dollar film. Yikes!
So even with a relatively inexpensive European orchestra, this is well above what most people here have to play with for a feature. Depending on the money you have, sinking that much into getting a live orchestra might be worth it...again, as well all know, budget percentages are far from standard on the indie level. I know from my own work, the more live instruments I record in a given work, the better it is received (though part of that is my own skill growth as well).
HOWEVER, there is another way to utilize this information. Say, for example, we're dealing with a 250k feature with a music budget of 5k. That could get you one hour of record time, for 5-7 minutes. Not enough for a score, but enough for a couple highlighted cues. Put one near the beginning, one at a dramatic peak of the film, and another near the end (in cases where a pop song is not licensed for end credits, you could even re-use one of those there). Starting strong to get peoples' attention, and end strong so it's what they last remember.
Another option for lower budget orchestras is student orchestras. Here in Pittsburgh there are a lot of schools with a music program (a really good one at Duquesne University), though I don't know if they perform material not by students. I'll be doing some research into that next, and let you guys know what I find out!
