Gl asgow FILM
FESTIVAL
S C O R E D R AW With guests like Steven Soderbergh, Denis Villeneuve and Sofi a Coppola, Edith Bowman’s Soundtracking podcast is already on its way to a million listeners. She tells Scott Henderson all about it, ahead of a live recording at GFF with Lynne Ramsay
What was the genesis of Soundtracking? The podcast started off the back of a show I did on 6 Music with Adam Buxton. We created this strand called Screen Six, getting people involved with TV and i lm to come in and chat. And then when I left the show they asked if I’d do Screen Six as a show that would pop up now and again, so we started off doing it about soundtracks. It was really obvious from the start no one else was doing this and as soon as you scratched the surface there was a wealth of things to dive into. We decided to do it on our own, make it ours. It meant the goalposts were wider – it didn’t have to conform to a broadcaster’s audience market. For a while you were doing both breakfast radio on Virgin and Soundtracking, plus loads of other side projects – that can’t have been easy. I only i nished at Virgin in September, it was all right though. I’ve got a pretty strong work ethic instilled in me from a young age working in a hotel. And because [Soundtracking] is mine, it means something different. I can do it anywhere, anytime, that’s one of the great things about podcasts, how accessible they are to people – you don’t need much to make one.
The junket circuit isn’t something i lmmakers relish especially, but your interviewees obviously enjoy these conversations. It’s a bit of light relief for them too. I grab people as and when I can. Cillian Murphy was a bit different, we ended up in being in the basement of a hotel trying to i nd a quiet corner. You can hear the door of the luggage room opening every 20 seconds, it’s absolutely hilarious. What’s nice is we’re getting people coming to us and asking to do it. Edgar [Wright] was the i rst person to do that, I bumped in to him last Christmas in Soho. I’ve known Edgar for years and he was like, ‘Edith, when can I do the podcast’? And I was like, ‘whenever you want’! This was before anybody really knew anything about Baby Driver. What’s one of your favourite stories to come out of the podcast? I was nearly in tears recently when Rian Johnson described to us going round to John Williams’ house
24 THE LIST 1 Feb–31 Mar 2018
and sitting and talking to him about the soundtrack, then looking around and thinking he was in a library of books until he realised all these leather bound volumes covering the walls were every score he’d written, in the form he’d written them in. It almost brings me to tears thinking about it. Seeing that the score for his i lm was going to i t in this library with all these other scores was amazing. You must have quite the hit list of dream guests? Oh god yeah, totally. I’m already planning a trip to LA to get some of the people who don’t travel really. John Williams is top of the list really. I want to go to his house and see his books. Cliff Martinez, I’d love to speak to him.
Soundtracking, Glasgow Film Theatre, Sat 24 Feb.