Soundtracking with Edith Bowman

In days gone by, it might have been considered a backward step to go from adapting Shakespeare to adapting a video game. Not anymore – with this week’s guest Justin Kurzel having done just that. Following his hugely well-received take on Macbeth, the Australian director has now turned his attention to Assassin’s Creed - a movie based on the video game franchise that has sold well over 100 million copies worldwide. Both projects are scored by his brother Jed, and both star one of the actors of the moment, Michael Fassbender. In the 21st Century, our brief here on Soundtracking applies as much to games as it does to film. Not only is the Assassin’s Creed series fully scored by the likes of Jesper Kyd and Winifred Phillips, but one of the trailers features a cover of Everybody Wants To Rule The World by New Zealand vocal sensation, Lorde. They’re more than just hackathons, too - with big ideas about morality, science, history and fate driving the narrative. Plenty, then, for Justin to draw inspiration from when transforming the games into a cinematic experience …

In cinematic terms, it may very well just be the greatest story ever told. With its ground-breaking special effects, unforgettable cast of characters and universal themes, the original Star Wars trilogy has inspired and delighted film goers ever since A New Hope blew everyone away in 1977. Among those to have felt its force is Gareth Edwards - the man charged with directing the latest addition to the franchise, Rogue One. And it goes without saying that music is central to the impact of George Lucas’s masterpiece – as are the iconic sound effects. John Williams’s score is one of the most famous ever written, while we all mimicked the noise of a Tie-Fighter or lightsaber when we played with the toys as kids. Gareth was only too aware of this sonic legacy, and reveals how he and composer Michael Giacchino acknowledged it in Rogue One. We’ll also explore his collaborations with Jon Hopkins and Alexandre Desplat on Monsters and Godzilla respectively, with plenty of examples from both scores woven into the conversation.

Having earned an Oscar nomination for his short film Cashback in 2004, British director Sean Ellis has since caught the eye with a stylistic approach that is urgent, visceral, and intense. With the help of composers Guy Farley and Robin Foster, he's delivered soundscapes to match. Following its run at the Oscar, Sean developed Cashback into a full-length feature before bringing us Anglo-French horror The Broken, both of which were scored by Guy. Then came the Philippine-set crime drama Metro Manila, which won numerous awards. His latest project is Anthropoid, which tells the true story of an unlikely assassination attempt on Hitler's second in command Reinhard Heydric - the so-called Butcher of Prague For these two most recent ventures, Sean predominantly collaborated with Robin, who we must thank profusely for his assistance in putting this episode together. Apart from anything else, we'd have struggled to identify the specific Bartok violin sonata that features in a key scene in Anthropoid without him! Interestingly, though, that sonata is one of the few cues in the film that's relevant to 1940s Prague, with Sean and Robin instead settling on a dark electronic score to evoke the all-pervasive atmosphere of paranoia that came with the Nazi occupation of Czechoslovakia ...

You have to go a long way to find someone who doesn't like Kermit, Miss Piggy, Fozzie and the gang - or Alice of Wonderland fame, for that matter. With this in mind, it's a great pleasure to welcome James Bobin into the Soundtracking family. Not only has James directed two Muppet movies and steered Alice on a recent outing through the Looking Glass, he's played a very significant hand in a couple more pop-cultural institutions too. For having helped Sasha Baron Cohen create Ali G, Borat and Bruno, he then teamed up with Jemaine Clement and Bret McKenzie to bring the wonderful musical comedy Flight Of The Conchords to our screens. Indeed, Bret subsequently lent his expertise to both of James' Muppet movies. We'll be playing plenty of tunes from these films throughout the course of the conversation, as well as some classic Conchords. We also have the joys of hearing excerpts of Danny Elfman’s majestic score for Alice Through The Looking Glass - and a Strauss polka that was all the rage in the 1870s.

When you're invited to direct a movie adaptation involving one of the most-loved literary creations the world has ever known, you can be pretty certain you won't get a second chance if you mess it up. Thankfully, that's not a fate that befell David Yates. Not only did David take charge of the last four Harry Potter films, he was also asked to make JK Rowling's official spin-off Fantastic Beasts And Where To Find Them, which has been greeted with hugely positive reviews. With the budgets attached to the Potter franchise, it is of course possible to secure the services of the best composers in the world. David has taken full advantage of this privilege, variously employing Nicholas Hooper, Alexandre Desplat and James Newton Howard. He also collaborated with Rupert Gregson-WIlliams on The Legend Of Tarzan. You'll hear plenty of their work throughout the conversation, as well as that of John Williams - who provided scores for the first three Potters. We also find out a little bit about his earlier work, and get a blast of Mongolian throat music, which he used to great effect in his BAFTA nominated short film, Rank.

Routinely cited as one of the funniest movies of all-time, This Is Spinal Tap is much imitated, oft-quoted, and as fresh now as it was when it first appeared in 1984. If you haven't seen it, you must buy it immediately. Directed by Rob Reiner, it takes the form of documentary following a shambolic heavy metal band as they tour North America. Though the band is, of course, fictional, their songs are very real, and very funny. One of the men behind both these songs and the razor-sharp script is writer, actor, director and musician Christopher Guest. As we'll discover, Christopher's musical background stood him in good stead for Tap, and also A Mighty Wind, his affectionate parody of the folk world. His latest directorial project is Mascots, in which he appears alongside Parker Posey, Jane Lynch, Chris O'Dowd and Ed Begley Junior among many others. As with all his films, there's no traditional score - with the tunes the mascots perform to provided by CJ Vanston. But he is a fan of film music, and in particular the quirky orchestrations of Italian legend, Nino Rota. Expect plenty of music from Tap, The Folksmen and Mascots, as well as the odd trip-down-memory-lane clip too.

As subject matter goes, it doesn't get much more rock and roll than Joy Division, New Order, The Happy Mondays, Ian Dury, The Stone Roses, Coldplay and Oasis. But, in one way or another, all these artists have featured in the work of British director Mat Whitecross. As we'll discover, Mat got his big break from Michael Winterbottom while working as a runner on the set 24 Hour Party People, which tells the story of Tony Wilson and Factory Records. The pair went on to direct Road To Gauntanomo together, before he flew solo on the Ian Dury biopic Sex And Drugs And Rock And Roll and Stone Roses-inspired comedy, Spike Island. Coldplay are among his illustrious list of music video clients, while he's also worked with composer Ilan Eshkeri and Tim Wheeler of Ash on more than one project. Indeed, Ilan and Tim have very kindly supplied us with some of their favourite compositions for their film and TV work with Mat, which you'll hear throughout the show. And as if you needed more, there are excerpts from Rael Jones' score for Mat's Oasis documentary Supersonic too, amid the more familiar fare served up by the band themselves.

In his relatively short career, writer and director Derek Cianfrance has produced a body of work that has not only been critically lauded, but also wildly contrasting in its sonic demands. For Blue Valentine, his celebrated breakthrough feature, he collaborated with American folk-rockers Grizzly Bear, who provided him with a dreamy hybrid of source music and score. He then worked with Mike Patton of Faith No More, Mr Bungle and Fantomas on The Place Beyond The Pines, before securing the services of composer Alexandre Desplat for his latest film, The Light Between Oceans. Each project had very different musical requirements, which Derek outlines in fascinating detail here. He's a great raconteur, too - with splendid anecdotes about his lifelong obsession with Mike Patton and the sneaky way he got Ryan Gosling and Michelle Williams to sing and dance for him in Blue Valentine. Expect plenty of Alexandre's score for The Light Between Oceans, Mike Patton's diverse back catalogue, Grizzly Bear and, of course, the dulcet tones of Mr Gosling!

Few filmmakers at work today can claim to have more visual flair than Nicolas Winding Refn. From his debut thriller Pusher to Drive, Only God Forgives and The Neon Demon, he has always served up a feast for the eyes. Invariably his themes are downright dark and sleazy - with tech-noir soundscapes and cinematography enhancing the mood. Whether using source music or score, the Danish director is most accomplished when it comes to sonic dressing. Nicolas has enjoyed a particularly fruitful relationship with composer Cliff Martinez. We'll hear plenty more about that during the course of the interview, as well as excepts of score from the movies on which they've collaborated. Nicolas also gives us a fascinating insight into how he deploys music to induce a profound emotional response from his cast, and also reveals what he considers to be the Holy Grail of score.

From child star to Academy Award winning director, Ron Howard has always made it his business to entertain. And entertain us he has - from A Beautiful Mind, Apollo 13 and Frost / Nixon to his most recent offerings - the Beatles documentary Eight Days A Week and Dan Brown thriller Inferno. But whereas Edith's previous guest Andrea Arnold prefers to accompany her films with source music, Ron is a particular fan of score, and has, accordingly, collaborated with some of the finest cinematic composers of recent times, including James Horner, Thomas Newman, John Williams and Hans Zimmer. We'll hear plenty more about the director's admiration for that venerable bunch during the course of our conversation, as well as excerpts from the work they produced for his movies. Ron also reflects on his time as an actor, and has a most amusing anecdote about Michael Jackson!