If you’ve been on the festival circuit this year, it’s likely you’ve heard about Sirât. The bold, tragic and unforgettable film by Spanish director Oliver Laxe was the winner of the Jury Prize at the 2025 Cannes Film Festival. And while it was collecting praise and laurels, composer Kangding Ray (aka David Lettelier) received the award for Best Original Score. People will, fairly, relate this to Mad Max: Fury Road, but it’s more apt to say this walks among other dour narratives like Wake In Fright, Valhalla Rising, and The Mosquito Coast. A two-hour visual and auditory trance, Sirât is incredible. Laxe gives us a world full of grit and…
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Interview…Composer Benjamin Wallfisch on Predators, Aliens and Clowns
It’s a good bet that if a film sticks with you, it’s because of the score. While it doesn’t do all the heavy lifting, a theme can pump a narrative full of so much intangible energy that it is basically a character in the story. So when a composer taps into the feature at hand, they can deliver some of the most impacting sounds you’ll ever hear. And those notes don’t just hit you in the feels, they echo in eternity. Benjamin Wallfisch is one such artist whose sonic blankets literally bring films and television to life. We chatted with him years ago to discuss A Cure For Wellness as…
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Interview…Dave Porter Gets Into Mysterious Musical Headspace with ‘Pluribus’
Composer Dave Porter brings his orchestral, rhythmically intricate, and emotionally resonant sound to Vince Gilligan‘s mysterious new series on Apple TV+. Porter, Gilligan’s longtime collaborator, crafted a score that mirrors the moral ambiguity, psychological tension, and humanity at the heart of the story. With a career spanning landmark television, feature films, and innovative orchestral projects, he continues to redefine the possibilities of scoring for the screen. The score for Pluribus (which premiered on November 7) emphasizes the stakes and shifting dynamics of the shows characters. The score blends orchestral textures with a small-scale choir to highlight the series’ unpredictable narrative. Porter’s work is incredibly essential to the nuance of Gilligan‘s…
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Interview…Laura Karpman on Maximalism, Making Her Own Brand of Music, and Letting the World Catch Up
If you’re a film score fan, you are sure to have your favorite composers as well as a collection of soundtracks that mean a lot to you. Over time, if you listen to any musician’s output you’ll notice grooves and rhythms that some refer to as a calling card. Whether it is the repeat use of an instrument, a style of music they play or the “Horner snarl”, a Goldsmith score is a Goldsmith score, a Williams score is a Williams score, and so on. Now what perks up our ears is when the music we hear is not easily discernible. Is that Doyle or Jackman, is that Shapiro or…
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Interview…Andrew Gordon Macpherson Talks Heavy Sounds and Heavy Metal in ‘Into the Void’
Composers are our jam, and we love getting in the weeds to find out how certain sounds and themes are made. Inspiration can literally come from anywhere. Sometimes, it’s the more obscure and unexpected muses that yield the most memorable themes. While these musicians work with picture (as well as discussions with filmmakers), many times their gut reactions are all it takes to bring amazing sounds into existence. I’ll always cite this example from Patrick Doyle to remind myself that anything is possible. So enter Canadian composer, Andrew Gordon Macpherson, who has tons of experience with all sorts of sounds and styles. His work on Dark Side of the Ring…
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Interview…Blitz//Berlin on Forging Friendships, Unique Sounds, and Genre Titles Hitting Theaters This Year
Blitz//Berlin is a group of three Juno Award winning film composers. The trio is best known for a variety of projects that border on strange an unusual, but their sound is so fitting for the likes of Jordan Peele’s “Scare Tactics”, “Blade Runner 2036”, “The Void”, and “Psycho Goreman”. They have numerous other films, television shows, video games, and film trailers to their credit…in fact, you might not even know they worked on some of your favorite things. Members Martin Macphail, Dean Rode and Tristan Tarr first met in high school, forming a Canadian punk band before beginning their film composing careers and relocating to Los Angeles in 2018. They…
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Interview…Will Bates On the Sound of ‘Stiller & Meara: Nothing is Lost’
Many times, the most difficult creative process is going to be the most personal one. This year, filmmaker Ben Stiller is offers up a documentary about life behind the scenes in his family. To be clear, this isn’t about what went into Zoolander, Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story and There’s Something About Mary. This goes back one full generation to focus on his famous parents. The duo of “Stiller & Meara” laid the groundwork for many comedians coming down the pike. But this profound, personal look at the Stiller family shows that it wasn’t always smiles and laughs bringing up two children all while headlining night clubs and other ventures…
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Interview…Composer Dan Deacon on Creating Symphonies in the Mundane in ‘Task’ on HBO
There’s an old saying that the object of any art is the transfer of emotion. That is true, regardless of the medium, the artist, or the exhibition. Now the art we love most on this site is the art of entertainment, specifically the alchemy created when making music for moving pictures. Over the years, we’ve been very lucky and honored to have spoken to dozens upon dozens of creatives who craft sonic atmospheres for film and TV. And because music can take any shape form, duration, style, etc., you never know what’s going to move the mercury of your soul. That brings us to today’s show. One of the absolute…
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Interview…Jeff Russo Brings Method and Mythology to Noah Hawley’s ‘Alien: Earth’
A few weeks back, we got to share an exclusive “first listen” of composer Jeff Russo‘s themes for Alien: Earth. It really set the stage for what Noah Hawley and the rest of the team would give us with this stunning addition to the Alien universe Ridley Scott built. Now that the show is out in the world, fans and those new to the franchise are loving every acidic drop of the expanded mythology. You can credit a lot of the success to the auditory component. We’re not talking about the ooey-gooey sound engineering, but the deft and complex sound palette Russo assembled. Russo is used to scoring varied and…
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Interview…Composer Stuart Michael Thomas Digs Deep For ‘The Cut’
Life-long musician and composer Stuart Michael Thomas has amassed over 100 feature film and television credits during his time in Hollywood including international blockbusters such as Mission Impossible: Dead Reckoning Part 1, Iron Man 3, and The Dark Knight. He was also one of the featured guitarists on Top Gun: Maverick. Imagine getting to shred out that theme for the world to enjoy. Yeah, that’s just one of Stuart’s many super cool stories about his “day job” working on these sensational projects. Over his 20-year career he’s developed a unique and versatile style blending elements of Classical orchestration with modern techniques resulting in a sound that is both timeless and…
