Rozsa and Williams have also been significant modern classical composers, though their music for the concert hall has been played less because it is mostly modernist and does not resemble their film music at all. Each of the two composed an excellent viola concerto, in fact.

Two Japanese composers best known for their film scores were arguably better modern classical composers than film composers. Akira Ifukube became famous for scoring the Godzilla films, but his two best works are probably his Sinfonia Tapkaara (a symphony that incorporates Ainu dances) and his Symphony Concertante for piano and orchestra (similar inspiration to Antheil's Ballet Mécanique). Yasushi Akutagawa was also best known as a composer of film, TV, and radio scores, but was also a prolific art music composer with eclectic influences that included everything from Prokofiev to Indian classical music.

The disappointing thing about most film composers is that, for some reason, very few of them are string players. Sometimes the string players in studio orchestras have to edit their parts to make them playable. I took a few classes in UCLA Extension's film scoring program while I lived in Southern California. In my orchestration class, I was informed by the instructor that I was the first string player in four years to enroll. The breakdown of primary instruments among the 16 students in that class: 7 pianists, 7 trumpeters, 1 clarinetist, 1 violist (me).

It does matter, though. I'm referring to parts sometimes being extremely awkward or even physically impossible to play, which is why the studio musicians sometimes have to change the notes. It happens much more often with string parts than with other instruments. No composer knows everything about every instrument, and all composers write for instruments they don't play. But if they want their music played as written, composers should at least know enough about each instrument to be aware of what each instrument is capable of playing.

John Williams is an exception. He's one of the few famous film composers active today who know string instruments well. He wrote for the concert hall before he became a film composer, his father played in the Boston Symphony Orchestra, and both of his brothers are professional orchestral musicians.

Hans Zimmer is one of the good guys too, even if he's not that familiar with strings. He not only hires people to do the orchestration but also credits them as co-composers, sometimes at the cost of forfeiting eligibility for some awards due to having too many composers on a film score. He's willing to go to that length, and give everyone appropriate credit, to make sure all the parts are playable without extra editing by the studio musicians.