Mark Ridley

Marc Streitenfeld is an interesting composer to look at. He started out as an assistant to Hans Zimmer and served as music editor on many of Hans' scores the past decade. Through Hans is where he met Ridley Scott. After working on 7 films together Hans and Ridley took their separate ways, which some people still wonder about. Honestly, it was most likely a friendly separation than some of the "creative differences" separations you hear about between directors and composers.

After the success of Gladiator, it wasn't unusual to see director Ridley Scott turn to Hans Zimmer again for the score to Black Hawk Down, his fierce adaptation of Mark Bowden's account of the tragic 1993 American military intervention in Somalia. What was more surprising was the schedule Scott imposed on the German-born composer: 15 days to write, arrange, and record the film's nearly two hours of music. The results of Zimmer's miraculous two-week musical campaign not only belie those constraints; they instantly take their place alongside The Thin Red Line as some of the most compelling music he's produced. The gambit here is simple–portray the combatants as two warring tribes, with their native musics locked in a tense dance for domination.