After his early success writing programmatic music for the UNLV Wind Orchestra in Ghost Train, Eric Whitacre composed a second piece at the request of director Tom Leslie. The result was something the composer himself called "completely ridiculous," a program overture called Godzilla Eats Las Vegas. Whitacre originally wrote more than thirty minutes worth of music for the piece, envisioning a completely Hollywood-style panorama; over the course of making the music final, he found himself deleting entire scenes -- Hollywood-style -- onto the cutting-room floor. The final result is twelve minutes' worth of completely bizarre instrumental music, best heard with an accompanying visual screenplay (and perhaps a bag of popcorn).