Much of the advance attention swirling around Zack Snyder's 300 — a stirring, violent and visually audacious tale of battlefield sacrifice — has focused on cinematographer Larry Fong's rotoscoped, consistently evocative camerawork. And rightly so — the movie's saturated frames and rich shadows look and feel like a comic panel come to life, and feed its brawny, heightened tone. Composer Tyler Bates' driving, aggressive music, though, reflects the characters' physical vigor as well as their steadfast dedication to principle.

I had the chance recently to speak with Bates about his second collaboration with Dawn of the Dead director Snyder, his overall career path and the challenges of tackling iconic properties. For the full interview feature, from Rotten Tomatoes, click here. To visit Bates' eponymous web site, meanwhile, click here.