The mountain music... is compelling music in its own right, harking back to a time when music was a part of everyday life and not something performed by celebrities.

There aren't reasons why you like this song or this piece of music, or don't like it. It's just, it's either right or wrong, you know?

Like any kind of writing, there are good days and frustrating days. But even frustrating days can be rewarding sometimes.

I was always interested in movies the way everyone is interested. That is, I liked to go to the movies

You don't cast the animal, per se. You have an animal trainer who looks for several of them. That is a different experience than dealing with actors. That is just difficult. It is what you expect from an animal on the set. You just run a lot of film and prompt it to do the right thing, but sit through it doing all the wrong things first. It's just unbelievably boring, frustrating and painstaking to shoot.

We tend to do period stuff because it helps make it one step removed from boring everyday reality.

When the movie's done, you talk about either the score or source music over a particular scene, what might work. You just throw a piece of music over the scene, and we both listen to it.