Preview: Bradford International Film Festival, Various Venues, Bradford

Life for the film-music composer David Arnold is usually a reclusive existence, sat alone in his studio while orchestrating soundtracks, and he admits it "is very isolating, despite the Hollywood connection". But he's escaping the studio to talk at the Bradford International Film Festival about his experience of composing the soundtracks to the last four Bond films, before a screening of Casino Royale.

Arnold spent a couple of days hanging out on the set of the film with the new Bond Daniel Craig. He wanted to observe how the actor went about portraying 007 before composing the music and co-writing its title track, "You Know My Name". "The music needed forward momentum to reflect the unstoppable and very alpha male nature of Craig's Bond, who is, this time, believable as a real person," says Arnold. "The soundtrack was about Craig, not about the film. His Bond was no longer fantastical.

"In Die Another Day, Pierce Brosnan's Bond was excessive. There was no sense of real danger. It was more about how extravagant his escapes and solutions could be. Whereas you felt that Craig's Bond might be in real danger. This is reflected in the music. Despite this, it still feels like Bond music. You can't throw away an audience's expectations."

Arnold, whose other screen credits include Independence Day, Godzilla, Hot Fuzz and Zoolander, has also composed the score for Amazing Grace, a film about William Wilberforce that opens the festival. He says that he is now writing music from "a more emotional and truthful place. Big Hollywood films are not about truth. It's about entertainment. I engaged on a personal level with both Amazing Grace and Casino Royale".

Other festival highlights include Alan Bennett discussing his screenwriting career; Ken Loach attending a retrospective of his work; a screening of the US independent film Dangerous Men; and, closing the festival, a screening of Shane Meadow's This is England.

Friday to 24 March (www.bradfordfilmfestival.org.uk; 08707 010 200)