The following is a word for word transcript of my interview with Mr Ludek Drizhal on 1 December 2006.

First of all , congratulations on winning the Silver Medal for Excellence - Audience Choice for Best Impact of Music in a Feature Film Rounding First at the Park City Film Music Festival 2006

Ludek : Thank you so much, thank you.

We're going to talk a little more about that later, but I was wondering if you could tell us a little bit more about yourself, your background and how you came to live and work in the USA.

Ludek : Well, I was born in a little town in Northern Moravia, what used to be Czechoslovakia . Very quickly after that we moved to Praque, where I lived for nearly 20 years. My mother who immigrated to USA about 1967 or so from Czechoslovakia , she lived in in Washington D.C. and I ended up staying with my father who later remarried , in Prague . When I was nearly 20 , I think about 19 or so , I ended up moving to the United States and I've been here pretty much ever since for about 20 years. So half my life I've spent in Prague and half my life in the United States.

Do you feel more American, or do you feel more European ?

Ludek : Somebody asked me that question in an interview a little while back. It's a complicated question , because when you look at a person's life, the first 20 years, when you are a teenager and all that , you're under the supervision of your parents, so you don't solidify you opinions about life as much as you would later on in life . Those are very often teenaged years which are very rebellious years , so you often think that you know everything there is about the world , but you still have someone to guide you through life in a certain way. When I moved to the United States when I was 20, it was my adulthood, and because I've been living in the USA pretty much through my entire adulthood, I think it's almost where I feel much more American than a Czech or European for that matter. I travel to Europe very often because I record there very often with the orchestras . When I go back to Europe, I find it to be a more strange place than a place where I would feel at home. Every time I return to Los Angeles , flying over places like Nevada and Arizona , very often you would have clear skies and you look down and you see the Grand Canyon for example , and you see all that beautiful country, and I get so giddy, so excited to be back home. So in a roundabout way, I feel more American than I feel Czech or European at this point of my life.

You've had a very interesting journey from, from what I hear, a rock and roll studio composer to a film composer , now how did that happen ?

Ludek : Well, it is interesting, but yet again, I think everything in life kind of goes in circles . I started out as a violinist when I was very, very young and I played with various ensembles and orchestras, playing classical music and folk music. I've always been a great fan of gypsy music, so I played with a gypsy band when I was a young teenager.. I love that kind of music, I love folk music till this day and I very often reach to folk music for ideas .With Rounding First, I was going very much to Americana, which is based on American folk music. Same thing with the film I've just finished as well, Badland , which is very firmly rooted in American folk music. So to answer your question, I started as a violinist, as a kid who played the piano, and also composing tunes , writing music since I was about 12 . I always wrote music, as far as I can remember.. Writing music comes from improvising , and most of the music that I've worked on or played had a huge component of it which was improvised.. So from improvising to composition , it's just a stone's throw. When I moved to the United States , I moved away from violin for quite a while . I had a little band with a couple of friends when I was in Prague, so when I moved to the United States, I thought that I wanted to be a Rock and Roll musician. It sounded like the right thing to do, it was fun and I got it out of my system. It was fantastic and I had a very successful career as a rock musician and singer-songwriter. I don't regret one bit of it. Then somebody offered me to a chance to write incidental music for a theatrical production. When we discussed what sort of music and what sound we were looking for, we agreed that an orchestra would be great, and that was the first thing I wrote that was attached to a visual medium. The first time I sat there in the audience to watch the theatre production, and heard the music that I had put together with the symphony orchestra with what was going on onstage, I thought, " I'm home… I've arrived " . That was the best thing in the world for me then. Then through a series of different events, I ended up finding myself in Los Angeles and working on films and it's the best job in the world.

And filmgoers all over the world are benefiting from that. I am hearing a lot of good things about your score for Badlands, for instance. Who would you say are your musical influences? Who would you say influences you the most, musically ?

Ludek : That's a more complicated question. Oftentimes I am asked the same question, but I never really know quite how to answer that.. I've gone through such a wide variety of experiences that I have bits and pieces , different composers and different pieces of music that I think of very fondly, and always at the back of my mind. If I think in terms of individuals …. the film score that has made the biggest impression on me, I was a little kid, was the score to The Magnificent Seven, by Elmer Bernstein. I love that score . Then , I was always a great fan of westerns , the Clint Eastwood movies, which often had scores by Ennio Morrocone … those were phenomenal scores , very beautiful, passionate , musical , so I would say those were the pieces of music that grabbed me the most. Even till this day, I would hear things like " Moon River " …. I love Henry Mancini's music . I always thought that he had amazing sense of melody ! Similarly , when I write , I always think of melody first… I try to think of what is the best combination of notes that will get you to feel attached to it , so that when you hear the music, you can relate to it, and that it will be a melody that will stick with you. In that sense, I love Mozart …. he's one of those guys that's been beaten to death, of course, and people quote him and he just sort of becomes this cliché composer, but there is something to it, in his music he just had such a sense of melody ….just the gorgeous, gorgeous melodies and sense of line, long line . So in terms of composers , away from film music , I've always loved Mozart, and I love Czech composers . Dvorak was one of my all time favourite, and Janacek was also one of my very favourite , and then I love in terms of folk music, I love Irish folk music, which then that's only a stone's throw away from American folk music. I have a great passion for American folk music ! Every time I get a chance to write something like this, and there is a film on the horizon that I've started chatting with the producers about, and it's called Buddha , and I would love to work on that film. That film would probably combine a lot of Vietnamese, Asian folk instruments including strings, so that would be a film I would love to have an opportunity to work on. I like to be able to work on things where melody is dominant, and where I can use a lot of folk elements, that would be my forte.

Is there a genre of film that you prefer composing for, anything in particular ?

Ludek : You know, strangely enough, working on Rounding First , this is totally in the opposite direction, I love working on a horror movie. I can go crazy in a horror movie, I can be just so , so creative and it's so much fun to work on a good horror movie. Then I turn around, and I go to a movie like Rounding First or Badland, and I think , oh my goodness, I love writing a beautiful melody . So it's hard to tell, I don't think I have a particular genre, but I am a very romantic person …. I like those big lush string sounds and a beautiful melody that you can attach yourself to, and I think that is the dominant aspect about me. Ultimately I don't have a particular genre that I would feel completely that I would want to do forever and ever, because too much of anything will get boring and will get old, so I like having variety , and it's been wonderful, because I've been getting lots of opportunities to work , on what's a comedy like Rounding First, on what's a very, very tough drama like Badland, and I've worked on some really fun horror movies. So I don't really think I have a specific preference … one thing I don't want to be coined is a guy who writes just one style. I like to be known as somebody who is versatile and who can do a variety of things.

How about any special feelings you might have about scoring for small and independent films, or does it not matter?

Ludek : Well it's an interesting thing. With small independent films , I tend to have more freedom as to what is expected of me, and I can be a little more creative, but that being said, I don't think that it's necessarily true with every independent film. You may come across an independent films where you may not have the same kind of freedom because there may be a very specific temp score that the director has already added to the film and you really have to follow it very, very meticulously so you don't always have the same freedoms . Ultimately, my opinion about it is such that whatever serves the film the best, and quite frankly, I have to say that the director knows the best, because the film is his child, and whatever the director wants, I can give, so it's just a matter of finding common ground to where hopefully, they value what I have to contribute , and then I provide them with what they bargain for, what they want in the first place .

What do you think about using synths or other electronics in score? Do you have certain preferences about what you like to use in your work?

Ludek : Well, I actually like using synthesizers . I use synthesizers very often, even in films where they the score is completely orchestral . I have nothing against synth …. it's such a different set of challenges, working with a synthesizer , because in my opinion, to come up with a good score that is synthesizer based, or a computer based score, it's just as hard as being really, really good at knowing your orchestra and coming up with a really good orchestral score. It is just as difficult, and there are guys who specialize in that part of scoring , and they are phenomenal at that. Because I come from a classical upbringing , I actually do prefer using orchestras , and even if I use a synthesizer score or computer score, I always like to add a human element to it., and for me, I love a combination of those two . It's always been a part of my sound where I like using a live instrument on top of something that is computer generated, because it provides a certain sense of depth once you add live elements to it. I don't mind using synth , but if I do use a synth, I tend to make it a little more human as well.

So when you first design a score, what instrument do you use… a piano, a synth ? When you first do your writing process, do you write on…. a violin ?

Ludek : <laughs> You know, it's a funny thing you ask that, because I am a lousy pianist . <laughs again> and as soon as I said that, I have to put a disclaimer on that. I can really improvise on the piano until the cows come home, but if I try to write on a piano, I tend to have a short attention span , and so if I think of a melody, I start focusing on me playing the melody correctly . I'm also very obsessive, and when it comes to a certain melody which I'm trying to play on a piano, I actually start focusing on playing the melody correctly, and I basically practice the melody for 30 minutes instead of writing a piece of music. So I prefer not to do that, when I write, I actually write without using a musical instrument. It's a funny thing, when I drive in a car , go pick up my daughter, and that takes me 25 minutes to get there, and 25 minutes is good enough for me to turn the radio off in the car, and I'm thinking… I'm thinking melodies, I sing them, and when I sing the melodies, I immediately apply harmony. Then when I get back, the melody is done, the harmony is done, and if I know it's for an orchestra , I already know whose going to play what , so it is only a matter of me then putting things down . In other words, I write everything in my head, and then I quickly orchestrate it , and because directors want to hear what it will sound like , and because it's in my head and they can't hear that, I have to translate it into something that can help them understand what you are trying to tell them . So we do something called the mock up scores using sampled sounds . I personally like using Gigasampler, and the Vienna Symphony Library which seems to be the most true to the actual orchestral sound by the time I am done with it , so those are my 2 favourite tools. And then of course I put everything into a sequencer. I've experimented with different sequencers, but I am just too slow to learn all of them, and so I go with the ones that are the most eary to use for me. <laughs> I like using Digital Performer , because it's one of those sequences I can sit down and figure out how to use without having to read the 700 page manual that comes with it ! I try to use the kind of tools that will not impede my progress , that will help me to do things quickly rather than to slow me down. I don't like to learn equipment too much, because that takes me away from doing what I should be doing, which is writing music .

Let's talk about Rounding First, the score. At which part of the filming of Rounding First did you as composer come in ? Was the film completed already when you came on board, or were you involved even during the filming ?

Ludek : I wasn't on board during the filming. At that time, when I first learned about Rounding First , I was working on a little short comedy , that had an all black cast, and right before I started writing the music for that comedy, I did a lot of research about music from that particular era , because it was also placed in the 70s, in Detroit …. and here was me, a young guy from Central Europe trying to write in the 70s Motown Detroit style . So I went online and did a lot of research on what kind of music was being played at that time ….how did the music sound, what kind of percussion did they use … I was trying to make it as authentic as possible . In that process, I came across a little film , which was Jim's film, From the Top of the Key , and that was a little short which I found a little clip of online , and I watched it, and watched it, and thought to myself , this is interesting… interesting and when the ending comes …..it was an ending I just didn't see coming… it was just a surprise to me … and I thought, this is really funny, I enjoyed that . Then I went online and went on IMDB to see what Jim Fleigner had been up to, and found out about his film Rounding First, and it said that it was being filmed . So I decided to contact him and I think we corresponded for maybe 6 months before our finally actually had our first meeting . Then I went down to Santa Monica to meet him in his office, and we had a really nice conversation. Before then , he dropped off a copy of the film at my house, I watched it and got really excited about the film .

Was it a rough cut of the completed film ?

Ludek : Well, I don't know if I would call it a rough cut, because it was pretty darn close to being final , and I thought that it was such a charming film, and it reminded me so much of my childhood and my relationship with my friends and the kind of things we used to say and we used to do. I remember being somewhere about that age , I used to go to my Grandmother's house in the country down in Slovak republic , and me and my friend, Michael , climbed out of the window in the middle of the night and we decided to hitchhike to my other grandmother's house which was in the Czech side, in Moravia, in the mountains, and we didn't tell anyone anything , we just took our backpacks and did that, and so when I watched Rounding First, I thought, oh my goodness, I actually remember doing stuff like this . After I watched it , I had a very nice conversation with Jim , and I think that's when we agreed that if I give him a couple of cues and he likes them, I would work on the film. So he gave me a couple of cues which ended up to be two of the toughest cues in the whole film .

Do you remember what the cues were ?

Ludek : Yeah , one of them was the Gas Station scene, when the boys are in the car, hiding … that one was just really tricky, because it can go in so many different ways . And then he wanted me to score the ending, which was a really tough scene … where Joe wakes up from his nightmare, the gunshot and all that. So those were two scenes that Jim asked me to score . I came home and I sat there with it for maybe a couple of days, just watched it, thought about it, watched it , thought about it and I came up with what I came up with . Jim really liked it , so we ended up keeping pretty much most of it . I think the Gas Station scene did get rewritten a couple of times , well, a few more time ….that was one cue we tweaked for a very long time. He wanted something a little bit different than what I gave him at first. I wanted to go in a different direction but he wanted that scene to be a little more broken up. I had a different idea about more constant sustaining sound all throughout that moment until the moment when they jump in the car and drive away, and that would be the release. So my instincts were a little different than his , but ultimately , we did the way he felt was most appropriate, which I think works pretty well for the film , and so that was the way it happened.

How much input did the Jim have on the entire scoring process ? Did he sit down with you to discuss which scenes should actually be scored and what emotions he wanted you to bring out in those scenes ?

Ludek : Yes, we did a spotting session, which means we sat down and ran through the whole film and we talked. We would get to a certain scene, and he said " well, I have a song for here already, but then we have a scene right here , should we score this, should we not, what do you think ," and he would say, " well, I hear some music here, see what you can do " , and that's sort of how we did it. We talked about it . He had some really solid ideas about where he wanted to go with certain scenes and what he wanted . Never really in terms of music themes , but he would just say that " this scene represents this, and this would be what I think I would like to hear ". We ended up finishing the score to almost where it was completed, and shortly before I flew to Bratislava, somebody suggested to Jim that a scene where he used an actual song might actually be better off with a score there, and so we went back to that scene and I ended up writing a piece of orchestral music which is the Arcade scene right where Tiger picks up his knife and threatens those boys there who are bullying his friend Joe. That was , for instance , a scene we didn't even score until the very end of the movie . The whole time we were scoring the film, we didn't even consider that we would be using an orchestral score there, it was sort of a last minute choice, but I think that it was the right choice, it worked out very well, and that scene ended up being much more tense , much more dramatic . Before that it was sort of a by the way, there's some music, and there's these boys, bullying another boy, but it didn't really have the same impact . There is time to use score, and time to use songs, and in this case, it was a good decision to use a score.

In the end, what would you say drove the writing of this particular score for you ? What was your motivation , what was your inspiration ?

Ludek : Well, earlier, we talked about Folk Music and to me, I felt that there were many moments in the film that were very, very dramatic , and after the first few screenings , I thought of this film as something that would be very intimate . I thought of this film as a more intimate kind of film, so I didn't want to go overboard . I wanted to keep the score a little more subdued . There were a lot of moments in the film where the choice of another composer or director may have been to do much more grandiose type of sound, and I chose not to go there. I chose to be much more in the back , with this film I tried to merely score the mood rather than to get in the way of what was going on in the film. There are so many wonderful moments in the on the screen with the actors and I ended up using just a very simple string pads with the orchestra , with just a little guitar arpeggiating chords and things like that, just the kind of help to set a certain mood and nothing else. Then there were a couple of moments that did require a much more grandiose big aggressive passionate sound , which I felt was the baseball scene, even though the baseball element is really more a metaphor . The movie's not about baseball , and it's one of those things when some people may see the title and go , " Oh it's another baseball movie " . It's really NOT another baseball movie , it's just a little metaphor , but because that aspect of baseball was implied in the title and we had that moment of the boys going to baseball camp and playing , to me when I saw that moment when they are at the game and Joe is about to step up to the plate, and there is that moment of the panning over the baseball field , that to me was one of those moments when we had to go big on the score, so we did . We did make it very Americana , and that was cue number six , The Baseball Game , and that one was one of my favourites as well, but because I listen to a lot of Aaron Copland , I love that big Americana sound, and there are some aspects of that in that particular cue. I just wanted for that to be true to that American sound . I don't think there is anything more American than a baseball game , a hotdog and a coke , and just kinda sit there … it's just a comforting kind of environment.

What is, for you personally, your favourite Rounding First track that you composed. Is there one . It's a bit unfair to ask you that, it's all your babies right ?

Ludek : It is ! It is ! Just yesterday, I was with my other director , ----- , sitting down over the soundtrack of Badland, and we were going through that because now we have an offer to release the soundtrack as a cd soundtrack , so we were sitting there , going through the tracks. And every time I go through the soundtrack for each movie, I'd go " Oh I really like that one, but oh no, I really like this one, oh but I really like that one !" It's a difficult thing . When I look at a piece of music that I write for anything , I never ever , whether it's a big budget film, or a tiny budget film, or a no budget film , I never write a piece of music that's a throw away piece . I always want for every one of those pieces to mean something, and for them to mean something in the film, they have to mean something to me. So it's a tough call , I really like every one of those tracks from Rounding First . I listen to them from time to time , and I think " I am so proud of this piece of music " . It was a very special time when I worked on that film , and I think , because it is a very thematically based score , you basically hear 3 themes in one way or another in every single one of those cues and I was very happy when I came up with the Road Trip music … the road trip was every time the boys were somewhere on the road , and then Joe's Theme is the one when he is in the bathroom crying , that is still to this day one of my all time favourite pieces of music . I think a lot of them stand on their own, and I was very happy with all of them, so it's very hard for me to say … Even now when I'm sitting here blabbing, I'm thinking which one will be my favourite one, I really don't know , I think I love them all, their all like my little babies… <laughs>

How long did it take to complete the score ?

Ludek : Let me see… we took a lot more time than what we ould typically be needed for a film this magnitude. I think we took about , from when I started composing, to when I delivered the score , about 4 or 5 months roughly. That's a very long time. I would dare to say, 90% of the time we don't have such luxuries. We spent quite a bit of time on fixing , readjusting, and making it just so . The actual writing process was maybe about 3 months , because we did quite a few rewrites, changes and tweaks , going back and forth , but by the time I was going to Bratislava , it was the first week of April , I have a a feeling , the writing process took 3 months, the mixing process was problematic , because we mixed it once, we mixed it twice, then we paid someone else to mix it, then I finally took the score with me on my vacation, and I actually mixed it myself in headphones, just completely by myself, and that was the best mix . I felt that that was the best mix, because I spent a lot of time on the mix , and I brought it back home to my studios and put it on the speakers, I just did a few tweaks . So the mixing process alone took me 4 weeks roughly, but as I said, we went through 4 different mixes. And then when we finally attached it to the film, it was the fourth mix , not to say I always insist on mixing my scores, because I don't. I do it for the most part, but I have also started asking my assistant to mix them now . For the other film Badland, for instance, I had absolutely nothing to do with the mix .That one was done in Europe, in Germany , without me being there, and it's fine, because I listen to that mix, and I'm thinking, oh my goodness, they just did exactly what the score really needed. So sometimes it's good to step back , but I was so close to Rounding First , I had such a specific sound in my head about what the score needs to sound like , that nobody that I gave the score to seemed to have come all the way where I wanted them to be , so that's why I ended up mixing it myself. So it took us about 5 months .

Let's talk about the Slovak Radio Symphony Orchestra . That's an amazing orchestra . How did you come to bring the score to them to record it .

Ludek : This is what happened…I had a conversation with a producer, David Kirshner . We recorded Rounding First in the Spring of 2005. The summer before that , in 2004 , I went to a screening of Secondhand Lions , where I met David Kirshner . David Kirshner and I talked very briefly and I asked him about the score and he said that they ended up recording that score actually in Bratislava . I heard the score , and the score to Secondhand Lions is just really an amazing , beautiful sound . The score ( by Patrick Doyle ) itself is really a beautiful score . So I actually looked into it and thought to myself , let's see how much it would cost to go to Bratislava . I started getting a lot of people contacting me from various orchestras , saying , well, you can come record with us …I don't even know how the word got out that I was looking for an orchestra to record with , but I think I received about 4 or 5 submissions for, " this is what we can offer you, if you record with us " , from Europe, one of them was from Moscow , another one was from Sophia , another one from Ukraine , and so we really looked at a lot of orchestras, because as I'm sure you know, recording in Los Angeles is considerably more expensive. If you have a director who really wants that orchestral sound, but has only a certain budget, then the only thing that you can do is look toward Eastern Europe, because, you know, in terms of musicianship, they are all brilliant musicians. There's no question about it, because the Eastern European school of classical playing is, I feel , second to none. It's such a rigorous process , and so in terms of musicianship, I know that I will get what I want . The question then is, is the equipment up to what I need to them to be ?. That was just a little bit of a concern for me, because I knew that if it was an issue, then I could have the greatest players, but if I don't have a great final product, then it's going to be problematic. But I didn't know how to get hold of them, and then I found out from someone that the orchestra was being managed by a gentleman in England, so I contacted him, and he told me everything that I needed to know . He was very complimentary of the orchestra , very complimentary of the product that they could produce . I also knew that Secondhand Lions went to Bratislava with a much larger budget than we did, so my question was if we only had this kind of budget , can we come close to having that kind of sound , that kind of product. We had a nice chat, and he got back to me with all the information that I needed to have . He also had an engineer who was just absolutely phenomenal , and I would love to work with him again. And so when I actually showed up in Bratislava and I started working with him , Peter Fuchs , it became clear in no time that we are going to have a great product on our hands, and so the musicians were just phenomenal, the studio was actually quite good, of course you know there will always be glitches of a sort , and so there were little glitches there as well , but we got past everything , everything got figured out and so ultimately , I would always recommend for anyone who needs a great orchestra on a low budget to go there.

Did the orchestra receive the score beforehand, prior to your arriving there ?

Ludek : No , they sight-read everything, right there on the spot. I basically brought the music, put it on the stands , they never saw it beforehand, and we played through it. Some cues were simple , some cues were hard , some cues were ridiculously challenging and we did have to do a lot of takes and then you fix certain things in edits of course, but that is pretty much the practice every time, because you never have time to rehearse . The only rehearsal they have is, they see the music , you run through the piece with them one time, then explain what the mistakes were, hopefully most of the mistakes will be gone by the second play , and then you do maybe one more play, so you have 3 or 4 takes at the most, and if there are little glitches, you just kind of edit them out . I have to tell you though, I did not have to do a whole lot of editing. I actually kept pretty much, I may have taken the first half of a cue, and then the second half of a cue and put them together , so maybe take 3 and 4, maybe take 2 and 1 but overall, I did not have to start editing little details, which sometimes you have to do. They were very, very good , they played very well.

What language did you use to communicate the musicians ?

Ludek : <laughs> Well, hopefully when you are standing there , they just understand when you are conducting. You just have to express yourself through conducting … that being said, I stopped conducting my own works. I actually now hire a conductor to do it instead because I find it's better for me to get a perspective of the sound because when you conduct , you don't get exactly the final sound when you are standing on a stage. It's much better if you are sitting in the recording booth with the engineers and hear it through the speakers, because that's the sound that you are capturing. So if there is something too loud, or not enough, or out of whack, you have a better chance of hearing it. Besides you're not focusing on conducting, you're focusing on listening. Rounding First was the last score that I actually conducted. I basically came to a conclusion that it's a much better thing for me to sit there, I have a score producer or assistant producer who comes there and sits with me, and helps me communicate with the orchestra if I needed to translate something. So that seems to be the practice, for me , it seems to work better.

Was the film playing in the background as you were recording ?

Ludek : Yes it was , and so every cue , when it comes up on the screen and your hear the live orchestra and you watch the picture, it's just undescribable when you hear it for the first time with a real ensemble. As much as you know how it will sound, because you've been listening to a mockup score down with samples, it's just undescribable, it feels so good… it's very addictive. <laughs>

Back in December 2004 , I believe it was then , you promised Jim Fleigner that you would create a musical score that would elevate Rounding First above the hundreds of indie films clogging the market .

Ludek : <laughs>Yeah, I did, didn't I ? <laughs>

Yes, you did .Winning the Silver Medal for Excellence - Audience Choice for Best Impact of Music in a Feature Film Rounding First at the Park City Film Music Festival 2006 . and garnering very consistently positive critical review for the Rounding First score , do you feel that you have done exactly what you had promised Jim Fleigner ?

Ludek : I think so. I am very confident and as I said, I'm very pleased with the score , and this is without trying to sound bigheaded and all that , but I am very happy with the final product . We spent plenty of time, we tweaked , and we got it to exactly where it was supposed to be . I hadn't seen the film in a while, and I had to create a Cue Sheet to submit to ASCAP for royalties , so I pulled out the DVD , sat down with the film, watched it and I thought, you know, it was a really fun experience and I enjoyed working on the film, so I am very happy with it. I wouldn't change anything about how it is now .

What is more satisfying to you , the Award, or the satisfaction watching the film with other people and seeing how well they respond to your music in the context of the film ?

Ludek : That's a loaded question , because anyone is happy when they get official recognition of any sort . It kind of legitimizes the work that you've put in and the accomplishment that you've made. On the other hand , I don't want people to go see Rounding First and think of the score. I want them to think of the movie , and then after that, if they sit down after dinner after they've had a chance to see the film, and say , oh it's a fun film , what was your favourite , and Oh my favourite was this scene and that scene , I really liked that , I really liked that song, I really liked that piece of music , yeah that was great …. when they think in those terms, that's really the way it should be. There are films where the music score is so, so important , that it's a total partnership . In Rounding First, I tried to understate it as much as I could. It's not the case with Badland , with Badland , it's a total partnership. There are times when all external sounds are completely muted, and it's only the orchestra and the visual . It's just beautiful moments with this gorgeous sounding symphony over them. Rounding First is not that, it's a different thing. Rounding First is a film where the score only supports hopefully , it provides a bed upon which to build the rest of the story . So for that reason, I hope people do not go watch Rounding First for the score, because that's not what the film is about, it's not about the score <laughs>

That said, I think it's a wonderful piece of work that you've done, and we're seeing a lot of people coming in to pay tribute to every aspect of the film, including the score, and I think that's just amazing.

Ludek : Thank you.