Rod Lurie is a director and screenwriter for film and television. He was born in Israel but moved to the United States at a young age and grew up in Connecticut, then Hawaii.

Graduating from the United States Military Academy at West Point in 1984, he served in the U.S. Army as an air defense artillery officer, then became an entertainment reporter and film critic, including stints at News12 in Norwalk, Connecticut, the New York Daily News, Premiere, Movieline, Entertainment Weekly, Los Angeles, and talk radio shows at KMPC and KABC.

Lurie had an uncompromising style that sometimes got him into trouble, but it eventually got him into making films of his own, including Deterrence, The Contender, Nothing but the Truth, and the remake of Sam Peckinpah’s thriller Straw Dogs. His television work includes creating the series Line of Fire and Commander in Chief.

On all of the above projects and more, Rod Lurie collaborated with composer Larry Groupé, who has written for film and television as well the concert stage.

Groupé earned his Master of Music in Composition at the University of California at San Diego, then made quick strides into the world of film scoring. He’s won the New York Film Award for Best Score, and received three Emmy Awards. He even got to team with one of his early musical heroes: the classic rock group YES. Groupé co-composed 10 original songs on their album, Magnification, as well as writing overtures and arrangements, and conducting the YESSymphonic Orchestra on its 2002 world tour.

Larry Groupé is also Visiting Professor of Music Scoring for Visual Media at the Indiana University Jacobs School of Music.

Rod Lurie and Larry Groupé’s latest project together is the upcoming film, The Outpost, based on the book by Jake Tapper, about one of deadliest battles U.S. forces have faced during the war in Afghanistan.

Recently, Rod Lurie joined Larry Groupé yet again, this time to discuss the director-composer relationship in a workshop hosted by The IU Media School’s Cinema Academy. While they were together in Bloomington, they spoke with host Aaron Cain in the WFIU studios.