There's a whole gamut of things to do with film music that don't apply when you're making a record or if you're writing a concert piece or something.

In the sometimes ridiculous action scenarios you're laughing out loud, and so the more committed and in fact the more highbrow the music is, the funnier it is.

Some people feel like you need to have a very specialized understanding of music to have the authority to talk about it. They are such good directors that it's perfectly possible to have conceptual and directorial and storytelling conversations about music without needing to know all the technical pieces.

If you're the sort of person that likes a job where once you know what you're doing you can keep doing what you're doing, don't ever become a film composer.

Some directors are comfortable with music. Some feel comfortable discussing and talking and operating in a musical language. Others don't engage so much.

There's a whole gamut of things to do with film music that don't apply when you're making a record or if you're writing a concert piece or something.

It's a myth that you need to understand all the ins and outs of music. The ideal scenario is you have a conceptual, directorial conversation about what you're trying to achieve in a theme and then trust your composer to go ahead and do that.