When it comes to stylish movie making, you can generally rely on the French.

One man with Gaelic flair in abundance is Luke Besant. The Genial Parisian has been involved in over a hundred films as either a writer, producer or director,

including much-loved cult classics Nikita, The Big Blue and Leon.

His latest project is C.G. Sci-Fi Epic, Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planet's

a sumptuous visual feast based on the comics he loved as a kid.

I'm Edith Bowman and you're listening to Soundtracking, a podcast celebrating the sounds of cinema

and television with the biggest names in the business. Much of Luke's work has been scored by his long-time friend, Eric Serra, of which more in a moment.

But in the case of Valerian, he turned to Alexander Des Blas, just to shake things up a bit.

Luke Besant.

It's a pleasure sir and we are going to talk about music if that's okay with you.

We'll start with Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets which you work with Alexander

Des Plais. Why was he the right person for this particular project?

First I work with a composer for many, many years, called Eric Sarah, and he's my friend since I'm 17.

So after a certain point, we're like an old couple.

We can't surprise each other, and I decided a few years ago to do one film with Eric and one film without Eric. So at least when we see each other again, you know, we want to love each other again and it's working.

So, and Alexandre de Pla is very famous. I love his music and I met him few times and I like the guy.

He worked on a couple of huge films. He worked on Star Wars and Harry Potter and so he has

the experience of this kind of film. The introduction, the way they were introduced to the film, it's like a music video, you know, in terms of historical music video and the way that you've used David Bowie to all these actual events that have happened.

Which I think it's a fantastic introduction into your world. How easy was it to get to use that track and why was that the one that you wanted to use?

Oh, I dream about this track for a long time. I have the opportunity to work with David before.

I did a film called Arthur and the Minimoys and he made the villain, Malthazar.

And he was just like amazing. I'm so sad that I couldn't show him the scene what we have done with

...