Hi Gianna,
I think the point I was trying to make is that there are people who express the opinion that there is only one style of composition (i.e. their's) which is the right way to compose film music in 2010 and that traditional classically based orchestration is dead. Conveniently (based only on my experience) the style they propose (using drum loops, off the shelf midi files, synth drones, Symphobia ( a product incidentally I often use myself for the brass ensemble patches), 'cinematic ambience effects' CDs and so forth) take way less time and skill to programme than something like VSL. If you've taken a look at any of Guy Bacos' tutorials it's a pretty good illustration of the amount of layering and programming required to replicate an orchestral sound.
I'm not saying that this style of production takes no effort or does not take time and practice to get a good result - but that the relative time taken is different to a considerable degree. I guess it is also a question of what you're used to and feel comfortable with - I can remember early in my career spending two days in the studio with a band who'd asked me to write a string arangement for one of their tracks, and being driven nuts (compared to working with orchestral musicians as I was used to) that no-one could read music and nothing was written down. I spent the first day just transcribing what they played so I had something to take home and work on. I can see how in reverse having a 'classical cat' who can't jam without having something written down for them would be equally frustrating from the band's point of view.
I guess this is a a similar argument to - 'which is easier to become competent on, the electric guitar or the violin'. I would argue that after 5 years of dedicated study, a violinist can still be painful to listen to but after 5 days it would be possible to get away with smoke on the water on the guitar. That doesn't mean I think Itzhak Perlman is an artist and Hendrix wasn't.
Programming a convincing rock track (and it wasn't rock I was referring to as 'sound design' of course - see description above) or a JW score involve similar processes of learning (listen to a lot of examples of the genre (both in terms of sound and how that style of composition works) and tweak the composition, programming & mix until it sounds the same as your examples. But just as the guitar has a long finger friendly neck with frets [ and a lod of different amp, pedals & effects to change the tonal quality) and a violin has a short one without frets or electronic assistance - one takes a lot more work to be basically competent on than the other. As a listener I can enjoy the results of both without needing to know the player's CV - but as a composer there's a big difference in time & complexity between recreating the two.
My bottom line of course is that neither approach (classically based or sound design) is right or wrong - the test is whether the chosen genre is right for the project. A heavy rock score for Raiders of The Lost Ark (seen that one ? [;)] ) or a JW-type score for Resident Evil wouldn't have been good choices, no matter how skillful the programming.
Cheers,
David.