When you start on a new film, no matter how many you've done before that, I think I've done close to 80 films, but it's always kind of a fun adventure.

There are many things that have stayed consistent. But the biggest change, of course, is technology, the way it's used, the way films are shot, the format that they're shot in, and the way films, of course, are edited. It's very different than it was in the past.

I grew up in repertory theaters, so it was comedy one night, drama the next. I'm used to going from one to the other. And I worked for years in television as well. So, I like the interrelationship of it and having a good relationship with a group of artists creating something really where the sum is greater than all of our individual contributions, our parts.

I have to feel something emotionally on the story to be able to write for it. I turn things down if I don't feel I'm really right to tell that particular story.

I live in Tuxedo Park, N.Y. and spend time in the West Village, where my wife Elizabeth Cotnoir, a writer-producer and documentary filmmaker, has an office.

You don't always want to be using the music in a way to express ideas inherent that are on the screen. You might want to work more around the fringes of the story, and work more with the subtext, and add more depth to the story through the use of music.

To make good films, you have to have a good relationship and good collaboration as composer-director, composer-editor, composer-production designer-actor because you're working with the actors on screen.