It can be easy to forget sometimes that film is a collaborative effort. It’s common to think of the director as the ‘author’ of a piece, which discounts the creative contributions of the editor, the cinematographer, even the actors or screenwriter.
An important first was achieved by Delia Derbyshire, who is responsible for the first full song to be recorded with exclusively electronic instruments, the theme music for the then-new science fiction serial Doctor Who. The piece was composed by Australian composer Ron Grainer, but the responsibility for putting it together was given to Derbyshire, who at the time was working with the BBC Radiophonic Workshop.
