Help With Software Only Setup For Film/orchestra, Software, Orchestra library, etc. Options

[henryaz]

I'm a composer who years ago got tired of the distraction of technology and sold all of my synth equipment. I much prefer to work with traditional scoring. I've been lucky enough to have some of my works performed by professional bands, orchestras, and choirs.

I have an opportunity to write an orchestral score for a VERY low budget film, an opportunity I've been seeking for a while. My desire was to write the score and have the producer find someone else to realize it (hiring an orchestra is out of the question). His inquiries to his studio contacts failed to produce any takes, and he doesn't want to go the live musician direction -- even if the film was scored for chamber size.

So, I'm exploring the feasibility (from a cost & time point of view) of realizing the score myself. Here are the potential constraints and opportunities:

- Supporting a family of 4, I can not lose money on this proposition. So, what I get paid needs to cover the cost of my equipment. Once I determine what the costs will be, I will propose a contract that covers the purchases plus a little for myself.

- My priorities:
1) Quality of the final product;
2) Cost
3) Ease of use

(everybody's priorities, right?)

- I'm focused on a realistic orchestral output that I can sync to the film. I'm not interested in lots of bells & whistles. I don't even need real time output of the final product (but real time rough preview would probably be a necessity).

- Ideally, I'd like to be able to use the accumulated equipment & experience for future projects, too.

- My current (and relevant) equipment:
--- Emac G4 800MHz 512MB Superdrive with not much free hard space. OS 10.2.8 (an external fire wire hard disk is at the top of my wish list)
--- Sibelius 2.1.1
[Pretty sparse, eh? I should mention that 2 years ago I sold all my PCs and accumulated music software, too, to switch to Mac...]

- My first task is to score and realize a 2 minute trailer. If all goes well, all indications are that he'd hire me to do the 90 minute film. Therefore, it's conceivable that I could make a partial purchase of what I would need and have the trailer costs cover that, and then make more purchases once I had an agreement for the full film.

So, keeping in mind that this is a low budget film, what would be possible (and what are my tradeoffs) with, say:

- $500 (anything?)
- $1000
- $2000
- $4000

Thanks much!