What program do TV and film people use?

Recommendations concerning notation and publishing software in a non-partisan environment.
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jrethorst
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Joined: 09 Apr 2016, 18:48

What program do TV and film people use?

Post by jrethorst »

Fred makes a good point in the Steinberg Dorico thread about functionality necessary in the initial release to give a good first impression:

> By "professional users" I'm guessing you mean professional copyists, composers, and publishers who never do any jazz, commercial, pop orchestra, Broadway, Nashville, pop solo piano/lead sheet, or any film/TV work. What percent of the total music notation market could that possibly be? 1%? Less than .01%? Whatever it is, it is a tiny fraction of the market, and even then these aren't guaranteed sales, they will have to convince users to make the switch. It just seems incredibly short-sighted to release it with such a crucial bit of functionality missing.

which reminded me of something I read on the publisher's site of the program I use. Not to advertise that (I'm not affiliated other than a user), but out of curiosity:

> "Most of us in the industry use Overture for our charts." --Jerry Williams, Donnie and Marie Show Orchestra

> "We use your programs to write all of our charts." --Alan Chez - Trumpet, Late Show with David Letterman

Maybe these are just impressions, or maybe these two sources have counted up all the professional users (as in the other thread, not meaning academics but rather 99% of pro users, the film and TV musicians who have to output quantity at speed). If not, who knows what programs, F or S or SCORE or other, these professionals use. Has anyone done a survey?
John Rethorst
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Fred G. Unn
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Re: What program do TV and film people use?

Post by Fred G. Unn »

Just saw this. Everyone I know in the industry uses Finale or Sibelius. Even almost all of the SCORE users I used to know have moved on, mostly to Sibelius since that's mostly what B&H and Schirmers moved to. I did a 9 hr recording session (as performer, not copyist) in NYC last week for an upcoming TV show that Baz Luhrmann is producing for Netflix and all of it was done in Sibelius.
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Fred G. Unn
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Re: What program do TV and film people use?

Post by Fred G. Unn »

BTW, I'm good friends with Frank Greene who played trumpet with Letterman for the last 3 years or so of the show. I'll ask him if he knows if they were really using Overture or what they used.
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Fred G. Unn
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Re: What program do TV and film people use?

Post by Fred G. Unn »

jrethorst wrote: > "We use your programs to write all of our charts." --Alan Chez - Trumpet, Late Show with David Letterman
Ok, I just texted Frank who replaced Alan in the band. Frank said, "Tom used Finale and Sibelius but maybe a random chart somebody brought used the other software." I asked him if Tom did all the writing for the horns and he said, "Tom did - some other charts were also in the book - transcriptions of cool and the gang tunes and things like that but I would say 85% were just Tom! $$$$"

Maybe Alan used it though, or maybe the band was a paid endorser or something, but it doesn't sound like they actually used Overture.
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OCTO
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Re: What program do TV and film people use?

Post by OCTO »

I know many people using MOTU's Digital Performer, which has somehow enough good notation possibilities. Some music makers use Logic Pro X, which has a better notation capability than DP.
But we are here talking about just having "some kind of usable notation editor", not engraving HiQ publishing application.

What they both excels in is time snapping, so virtually you can apply any sound/score to the film frames.
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