Composer Cliff Martinez

The South by Southwest Film Conference and Festival features a dizzying lineup of industry experts talking about their craft. For filmmaker attendees, the Conference is an intensive boot camp where film artists learn the ins and outs of their craft and also get a pulse on new opportunities and horizons that are emerging as entertainment and technology converge.

Among the most buzzed Conference events is titled A Conversation With Cliff Martinez, the cutting-edge composer of the hypnotic score for the stylish Ryan Gosling-starrer DRIVE.   Martinez began as a drummer for several bands during the punk era including the Red Hot Chili Peppers, Captain Beefheart and the Magic Band, and the Dickies. It was during his tenure with the Chili Peppers that he began exploring the new technologies eventually guiding him towards film music. Martinez was hired to score Steven Soderbergh’s landmark indie film sex, lies, and videotape, leading to a longstanding relationship which included later Soderbergh films like KAFKA, THE LIMEY, TRAFFIC, SOLARIS and last year’s CONTAGION. His on screen composing credits also include NARC, THE LINCOLN LAWYER and Nicholas Refn’s pulsatingly hypnotic score for DRIVE, for which he won the Boston, Chicago and Los Angeles film critics’ awards for Best Score. His latest score is for the Wall Street drama ARBITRAGE, starring Richard Gere and Susan Sarandon, which had its world premiere at January’s Sundance Film Festival.

FFT Webmaster

The FFT Webmaster use displays whenever an article has multiple authors. It also pops up on articles from old versions of Film Festival Today. The original author byline might be missing! In that case, if you are the author of such an article and see this bio instead of your own, please send us an email. Some of our contributors that might be missing bylines are: Brad Balfour, Laura Blum, and Sandy Mandelberger, among others.