Great Soundtrack, Shame About the Film

Recorded in the mosquito-infested fields of Latitude Festival, Mark and Jack dig into film music to mark the paperback release of Mark's book Surround Sound: The Stories of Movie Music, co-written with Jenny Nelson.

They talk composer-director shorthand including John Williams and the "shark" scene from Jaws, Hans Zimmer and Christopher Nolan's one-page brief for Interstellar; they discuss the "great soundtrack, shame about the film" phenomenon referencing S. Darko, Cannibal Holocaust, Exorcist II: The Heretic; and how Jack worked with composer Benjamin Squires on his own short film The Second Time Around.

Mark also talks about Mike Oldfield's Tubular Bells and the eerie 15/8 time signature that makes The Exorcist's theme feel so wrong, and gives some hard-won advice on sticking with a creative career when nobody's paying you yet.

Titles mentioned in this episode include:

Spider-Man

The Social Network

Drive

Interstellar

Man of Steel

Superman

The Lord of the Rings

Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy