Associated Composer

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A subtrope of Production Posse; when a director or other influential individual in the creation of a movie/show/game is intrinsically associated with a particular composer who scores all or most of his/her projects. Artists and musicians in this type of business relationship are frequently friends, and have been known to feed into one another's creative processes.

This does not include examples where a composer and director work together by being both associated with a single franchise, such as Star Wars. This also focuses on creators as specific individuals who have ongoing relationships with composers, rather than studios.

Examples of Associated Composer include:

Frequent Partnerships

Anime

• Hideaki Anno and Shiro Sagisu
• Hayao Miyazaki and Joe Hisaishi
• Mamoru Oshii and Kenji Kawai
• Yasumi Matsuno and Hitoshi Sakimoto
• Suda51 and Masafumi Takada
• Makoto Shinkai and Tenmon
• Koichi Mashimo and Yuki Kajiura (starting on Eat Man going through the Girls With Guns Trilogy and so far ending at Tsubasa Reservoir Chronicle)
• Shunsuke Kikuchi and Akira Toriyama
• Satoshi Kon and Susumu Hirasawa
• Kenji Kamiyama and Kenji Kawai

Film and Western Live Action

• Charles Feldman and Burt Bacharach.
• Eduard Artemyev and Nikita Mikhalkov.
• Carmine Coppola and son Francis Ford Coppola.
• Lalo Schifrin and Clint Eastwood.
• Angelo Badalamenti and David Lynch.
• Federico Fellini and Nino Rota.
• Blake Edwards and Henry Mancini, to the extent that Son Of The Pink Panther was the last film for both of them.
• Mel Brooks and John Morris, from The Producers up to Life Stinks.
• J.J. Abrams and Michael Giacchino.
• Gerry Anderson and Barry Gray
• Busby Berkeley and Harry Warren, largely but not entirely due to both being under contract to Warner Bros through much of the 1930s.
• Christopher Nolan and David Julyan or Hans Zimmer.
• Russell T. Davies (writer/producer) and Murray Gold
• Bill Lee composed the music for Spike Lee's first four movies and Terence Blanchard scored the rest.
• Ishiro Honda and Akira Ifukube
• Darren Aronofsky and Clint Mansell
• Matthew Vaughn and Ilan Eshkeri
• Ivan Reitman and Randy Edelman.
• Michael Bay and Steve Jablonsky (Starting with The Island the three Transformers films as well as the Bay produced horror remakes)
• Elliott Goldenthal:
  • Joel Schumacher.
  • Neil Jordan.
• Miklós Rózsa:
  • Billy Wilder.
  • Zoltan Korda.
• Maurice Jarre:
  • David Lean.
  • Peter Weir.
  • Jerry Zucker
• Bernard Herrmann:
  • Alfred Hitchcock collaborated on less than a dozen movies, but this collaboration marked the height of both their careers.
  • Orson Welles.
• Randy Newman:
  • Barry Levinson.
  • John Lasseter.
• Thomas Newman:
  • Frank Darabont.
  • Sam Mendes.
  • Jon Avnet
• David Newman:
  • Danny DeVito
  • Stephen Herek.
  • Donald Petrie.
• Carter Burwell:
  • The Coen Brothers.
  • Spike Jonze
  • James Foley.
• Howard Shore:
  • David Cronenberg.
  • Peter Jackson.
  • Martin Scorsese.
  • David Fincher.
• John Williams:
  • Steven Spielberg, starting with The Sugarland Express.
  • Chris Columbus.
  • Oliver Stone.
  • Irwin Allen.
• Jerry Goldsmith:
  • Franklin J. Schaffner.
  • Joe Dante.
  • Sean Connery (Connery even sported Goldsmith's iconic ponytail as tribute to the veteran composer in Medicine Man.)
  • Michael Crichton.
  • Stephen Sommers.
  • Paul Verhoeven.
  • John Mc Tiernan.
  • Curtis Hanson.
• Elmer Bernstein:
  • John Landis.
  • John Sturges.
  • John Wayne.
  • Martin Scorsese.
  • Ivan Reitman.
  • Charles & Ray Eames.
• Alan Silvestri:
  • Robert Zemeckis, starting with Romancing the Stone.
  • Stephen Sommers.
  • Gore Verbinski
  • Donald Petrie.
• Hans Zimmer:
  • Ridley Scott.
  • Tony Scott.
  • Gore Verbinski
  • Christopher Nolan.
  • James L. Brooks.
  • John Badham.
  • Barry Levinson.
  • Zimmer and his associates work on most of the films produced by Jerry Bruckheimer.
• James Horner:
  • James Cameron worked together on Aliens, Titanic, and Avatar.
  • Ron Howard.
  • Mel Gibson.
• Danny Elfman
  • Tim Burton (except Ed Wood and Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street).
  • Sam Raimi.
  • Gus Van Sant.
  • Barry Sonnenfeld.
• Ennio Morricone:
  • Sergio Leone.
  • Dario Argento.
  • Giuseppe Tornatore.
• Pino Donaggio:
  • Barry Levinson.
  • Brian De Palma.
  • Joe Dante.
• Bill Conti:
  • Sylvester Stallone.
  • John Mc Tiernan.
  • John G Avildsen
• James Newton Howard.
  • M. Night Shyamalan.
  • Barry Sonnenfeld.
  • Lawrence Kasdan.
  • Joel Schumacher.
• Marc Shaiman:
  • Barry Sonnenfeld.
  • Rob Reiner.
• Christopher Young:
  • Jon Amiel.
  • Sam Raimi.
  • Curtis Hanson.
• A. R. Rahman:
  • Danny Boyle.
  • Mani Ratnam.
  • S. Shankar
• Rachel Portman:
  • Douglas Mc Grath.
  • Jonathan Demme.
• Philip Glass:
  • Barry Ptolemy.
  • Godfrey Reggio.
• Brad Fiedel:
  • James Cameron.
  • Rowdy Herrington.
• Michael Kamen:
  • Richard Donner.
  • John Mc Tiernan.
  • Terry Gilliam.
• Basil Pouledoris:
  • John Milius.
  • Paul Verhoeven.
• Mark Isham.
  • Frank Darabont.
  • Alan Rudolph.
  • Robert Harmon.
  • Paul Haggis.
  • Scott Hicks
  • Gavin O'Connor
• William Ross:
  • Christopher Cain.
  • Jay Russell.
• John Debney:
  • Garry Marshall.
  • Donald Petrie.
  • Jon Favreau.
• John Powell:
  • Paul Greengrass
  • Blue Sky Studios Studios

Video Games

• Masato Kato and Yasunori Mitsuda
• Shigeru Miyamoto and Koji Kondo (along with other musicians associated with Kondo, such as Hajime Wakai and Mahito Yokota).
• Hironobu Sakaguchi and Nobuo Uematsu
• Ron Gilbert and Michael Land.
• Tim Schafer and Peter Mc Connel.
• Koji Igarashi and Micharu Yamane.
• Bungie and Martin O'Donnell.

Filmmakers who tend to compose scores for their own films

• John Carpenter
• Robert Rodriguez (a protege of John Debney, who's collaborated with Rodriguez on several projects)
• Clint Eastwood, since Mystic River
• Victor Schertzinger
• Alejandro Amenabar
• Mike Figgis