My first IFTA event...

I spent Friday afternoon at the IFTA Music Forum at the Lighthouse Cinema. It was a half day on the subject of music composing, something I knew nothing about and am now kind of fascinated with. Composer Derek Gleeson played a bunch of music clips and some film clips, to show the effect the soundtrack has on your experience of the movie. The most interesting was the music from What Lies Beneath - even with just the music playing, everyone immediately looked tense and anxious...

Then there was a panel with the likes of Robert Walpole, David Collins, Kirsten Sheridan and some music rights people. Star of the show was Dario Marianelli, who won the music Oscar for Atonement and turned out to be a really interesting interview subject.

I was there for two reasons - to see his latest project, The Soloist (excellent, especially Robert Downey Jnr) and to meet people. Which I did - everyone was in good form, there was some free booze and all in all a good Friday afternoon. Now if IFTA would just do a screenwriting forum...