With no formal classical music training, composer Rolfe Kent became a self-taught musician while earning a degree in psychology at the University of Leeds. An association with local bands resulted in Kent's composing music for a stage play, GROSS, produced at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival.

Additional stage play music followed, and by 1989 Kent found his way into television and soon into films. One of Kent's earliest notable scores was that for Alexander Payne's CITIZEN RUTH, which starred Laura Dern. Kent also scored THE SLUMS OF BEVERLY HILLS, and, last year, Payne's ELECTION. His latest project is the contemporary gangster comedy GUN SHY, starring Sandra Bullock, Liam Neeson & Oliver Platt.

Intervied in February, Kent described his music for the film and his burgeoning role in motion picture music.

I think it was because the editor, Pam Martin, had introduced the director to some of my stuff.

I think it was the dry humour that they found in it. Frequently, although it's not funny music, it's often got a certain quirk to it. The music isn't humorous, but it leaves room for you to find humor in it. I think that's the sort of stuff they were listening to. Certainly [they listened to] THE SLUMS OF BEVERLY HILLS.

I came on a couple of months before they finished editing, and they were still making changes. They had put in a lot of temp score, but a lot of it was my music, some of BEVERLY HILLS and bits of other things.

The fact that it's dark but it's also a funny film, they wanted broad strokes. They liked the idea that there ware certain ethnicities drawn out of the characters, who were variously Colombian, Italian-American, Irish, and American. And they liked the idea that in some way the different characters and their different takes on life were supported in the score.

Oh, yeah. There were elements of pastiche, and there were thriller elements. Essentially it's a quirky movie and it has a quirky humor to it. That was the main element.

My tendency with temp tracks is to say, "I know you really like that, but I can bettter it, because that wasn't written for the film. There is another way of going which can be more interesting, and belongs to the film". There was an interesting moment in GUN SHY where there was a piece of music they had borrowed from CITIZEN RUTH, a sort of twisted military thing, the director really liked it, and they played it through this moment where Oliver Platt is feverishly cleaning the kitchen, and it had this sort of busy, militaristic fervour to it. They loved it and they couldn't imagine that I could replace it. So I did a sort of Italian styled MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE with mandolin and bongos, and operatic voices singing all over it, and what was great was the director said, "Wow! We never thought you could better what we had, but this is better!" So it was very much one of these things, where they emphasized how much they loved what they had, but I just didn't want to do the same thing twice. I don't like to depend on the temp track.

I think there's quite a lot. There are a lot of songs, Sandy [Bullock] really enjoys song-driven soundtracks, so there are a several in the final mix, but there's maybe half an hour of score as well.

No. There will be a CD, but it's just the songs.

THEORY OF FLIGHT, yes. In Britain, they also released the full score of DON'T GO BREAKING MY HEART which was a romantic comedy starring Anthony Edwards and Charles Dance. And the SLUMS OF BEVERLY HILLS was also released.

I think it was 1991.

I love it. The things I've done have have very enjoyable to work on. I've had the luxury of being able to be quite discerning about what I get to work on. Since the age of 12 I always wanted to score films, so it's always been an ambition and it's great to be working out this way.

I've just scored a film called NURSE BETTY, it's kind of an ensemble piece, with quite a large cast and several different story threads. It's a romantic film with significant crime elements. [the film is a comedy about a widow's post- traumatic obsession with a soap star. -rdl)

It's full orchestra for a lot of the time, and then it's got a lot of percussion and weird noises for the remainder of the time. Apart from the fact that the film is really fun and the cast is really good, it was interesting because Neil LaBute [the director] hadn't had a full score written for him before.

Yeah. He had some incidental music, some concert pieces, in his previous films [YOUR FRIENDS & NEIGHBORS, 1998. IN THE COMPANY OF MEN, 1997], but this is the first one he's had fully scored. So it was an interesting thing, showing him what is possible.