Intrada Soundtrack Forum

This is a loaded subject to bring up, but, who do you think, and why? Apologies if this has been debated ad nauseum. Obviously, criterion is up to the individual. I ask because this is a tough one for me.

John Scott and Bruce Broughton are two that immediately come to mind. I feel that they don't get discussed nearly enough relative to their immense talent.

Scott and Broughton are hardly underrated . . . just underemployed.

Cliff Eidelman deserves more attention, in my view. Also, Rachel Portman doesn't get enough attention - even Cynthia Millar deserved more work. Beltrami has had some shining moments. Joe Renzetti did some great synthesized work in the 80's and 90's. And many more.

With no definable set of parameters to help refine what "underrated" is here, I could easily name off four dozen or more composers stuck in television world.

_________________
"Questions are a burden to others; answers a prison for oneself"
"Unlike me, many of you have accepted the situation of your imprisonment and will die here like rotten cabbages."
"Everyone votes for a dictator."
THE PRISONER

David Bell.

_________________
My Intrada wish list:

The Outfit (Fielding)
The Other Side of the Mountain I (Charles Fox)


and extremely unlikely, but...
Junior Bonner
Thunderbolt and Lightfoot

John Debney & Randy Edelman

I must go with George Fenton. Now wait. I do understand he's won a bloody Oscar and written a raft of scores. I just feel lately he's been sidelined to light comedy and nature films when we need his prodigious talents squarely in the middle of the void left by Barry and Bernstein. I think he's just that good, and he's still with us and in the prime of life. Give this man some meaningful work!

_________________
Randy Wilson
Dallas, TX

I'd say TIM KROG - his Boogey Man Score is just great 80s Horror Synth work. In the same category I think JON McCALLUM and JONATHAN NEWTON is very underrated (and unreleased).

OK, enough exotica - - from the better known maestros IMO Gil Mellé is dangerously underrated. It's not just talent, but versatility. His work from ANDROMEDA STRAIN to ORGANIZATION differs very much and yet has spledid compositions and arrangements.

I find that Trevor Rabin comes up with some catchy stuff. Not sure if he would be underrated considering some of the big assignments that he has been involved in.

Laurence Rosenthal does not get anywhere near the attention his work merits, in my opinion. I put him in the top rank of film composers.

I certainly think Shirley Walker was underrated in her lifetime; she was absolutely brilliant, and deserved far more and higher-profile assignments than she tended to receive. I suspect her career might have looked very different in a less prejudicial society.

The prejudice was only percieved here -- Walker was in a business where for every one male composer that gets all the glory, I can name you 20 that don't, but should. There are more men who never get the higher assignments than TV movies and crappy animated children shows, for example.

And let us not forget half her career was not exactly "nothing". Top notch composers during the period were hiring her to orchestrate: Band, Elfman, Fiedel, etc.

She got noticed conducting (as I recall) and was recommended by Elfman (something that happens very often from male composer to male composer) for "Batman: The Animated Series". Also, as a side note, take a look at her pride -- while today so many composers choose to score every single episode of a TV series they get, she decided to mentor and let others have at it. She could have bogged herself down and done them all, but she did't -- very kind of her tp give people shots.

She scored the "Final Destination" films (until her passing) -- a horror/suspense genre loaded almost exclusively by men.

There were any six dozen "hot" composers at the time that could have been called in to re-score scenes in "Mystery Men", but she was chosen.

She replace Jack Nitsche on "Memoirs of an Invisable Man". Considering that period, had they been prejudice, there's no way she could have done that.

Every single Superman film, TV series, animated series, you name it, has been scored by men. Yet when Timm moved from B:TAS to "Superman: The Animated Series", she got that, too, and this time no Elfman to do the theme, not even Williams.


And others. And I shouldn't have to say anything about other female composrs during that period, like Wendy & Lisa (replacing Isham of all people, one time) or Rachel Portman.

_________________
"Questions are a burden to others; answers a prison for oneself"
"Unlike me, many of you have accepted the situation of your imprisonment and will die here like rotten cabbages."
"Everyone votes for a dictator."
THE PRISONER

I've talked to many, many composers, producers, directors, music editors, musicians, etc., etc., and I just haven't found this prejudice against women. I've found some liberals, but not evil massive plot against women. I even read an interview where Quincy Jones, a flaming lib, described his passed experiences with the industry and black people back during his early scoring days.
I think what we got here are some isolated incidents. It's like saying a few managers are differetn grocery stores chains are denying women, and then proclaimg all grocery store chains have a prejudice against women.

How would you describe litterally a dozen different famous to know female composers making it and taking big assignments?
Or dozens of lesser known ones in lesser TV and film assignments over decades, even before Walker?

And the "choke and die and not finish" a score, well that would be the respective composers' faults, unless it was a producer or director who made the opinion on their own. But then again, I assure you there are plenty of men who have trouble finishing scores.


Work is work, you either get it or you don't, and there's a massive amount of men who don't when it comparrison to women. You have to prove the work was denied because of their sex, otherwise you taken offense means nothing.

_________________
"Questions are a burden to others; answers a prison for oneself"
"Unlike me, many of you have accepted the situation of your imprisonment and will die here like rotten cabbages."
"Everyone votes for a dictator."
THE PRISONER

Please don't suppose that I'm trying to stake out an extremist position here regarding the prevalence of gender discrimination. I am only trying to say that it was present enough and pernicious enough -- particularly several decades ago -- to have had a real, negative impact on people's lives. Whereas you SEEM to be arguing that, while there is such a thing as gender discrimination, it has been confined to such "isolated incidents" that it could not have affected anyone's career. It seems as though you're saying to anyone who claims to have witnessed or experienced discrimination (such as Shirley Walker, veteran music editor Dan Carlin, etc.) but wasn't able, for whatever reason, to "prove" it, that it was all in his or her head? If this is indeed your position, then I guess I have nothing more to say.