Hopefully this is an OK forum in which to post my query. I figure as composers you all might have suggestions and/or opinions.

What can one do when interested in obtaining a score for something for a piece (from a movie soundtrack in this case) that appears to have never been published? The piece is "The First Kiss" from "Ever After", by George Fenton.

Theoretically it could be worked out by ear, but this would likely take me a lifetime given my current skills -- particularly for the strings. I hope to improve over time and with diligent study, but in the interim... what can one do?

Ideally I would like to get the orchestral score and then figure out a piano arrangement from there. I just have no idea how to go about finding it since I can find no evidence that it was every published. This is based on Google searches, but there must be more specific databases of published film scores, but I don't know what those might be.

Is it possible that there were only a few dozen copies used by the orchestra for the recording session(s) and those are gathering dust somewhere or have been tossed out, and really it's only Fenton himself who could reliably be counted upon to possess a copy of the score at this point?

Is it nuts to think "might as well just contact him and ask"??

I've wanted to get this for a long time, and it seems like an impossible task, but hopefully some folks here have ideas given that you may be on the other end of the equation -- having written pieces in which some people might be interested, but there isn't enough of a market to warrant publication. What happens to this sort of music? I'm guessing Mr. Fenton is not in the habit of mailing off scores in reply to random inquiries. Is this basically orphaned forever, or is there some way for someone with a keen interest to get at this sort of music?

Unfortunately, it seems only a fraction of movie scores ever get published as sheet music.

My suggestion is to search for a midi arrangement. My guess is that there are dozens of them out there, done by ear by people of varying skill level. With a Midi file and some MIDI software you can print out a score and an arrangement and edit it as need be. Quality will vary and some may not be close.

Another option is to pay a more talented person, perhaps a local music student to do a transcription for you. Technically, this might be considered pirating (some consider the Midi file sharing to be pirating as well), so a person needs to use their own judgement.

Thanks, I hadn't thought to check for MIDI files, but I'm not finding anything there. It's kind of a house of mirrors though (like looking for mp3 files back in the day) so maybe there is something there amidst all the clutter and I'm just not seeing it.

However... I did find sheet music for "The Proposal" from the same movie. I had seen this sheet previously, but it occurred to me to see who the rights holder is, which turns out to be Fox Films. As luck would have it, Fox Films has a very nice website which lists all of their holdings and offers them for sale as downloads, or via licensing for movies, public performance, and so on:
http://www.foxmusic.com/#/track/MzE3Mzc2LTc5YjhjZA/

So, from that I at least know that it's in D-Major, that's a start, right?

It also says that it's not danceable, but I say they're just not dancing slowly enough then.