Trained musicianship and film music today

To be honest, I was inspired to start this topic in the discussion that happened in the Now Playing thread.

There is a huge surge of self-taught composers, with the biggest breakthrough being the appearance of Hans Zimmer and Danny Elfman on the landscape back in the 1980s. The interesting bit is that both started from a similar place (pop/rock stardom in the 1980s) and went into film music because they really dreamt of it (in the first case through Ennio Morricone, in the other one - through Bernard Herrmann). It really kickstarted in late 1990s/early 2000s when people stating their pride in NOT knowing notation (Clint Mansell comes to mind) started to appear and make their impact.

The bit that may be controversial is that the genre is defined by an untrained composer, saying that he's a better film composer because of his lack of musical education (the idea being that the notes come from his heart and reaction to the movie rather than training which may go beyond the film's core, I'll make a point about it a bit later in this post). Also the popularity of his writing, the PR he performs even if he admittedly hates it as he publicly stated about a month ago (my own experience with his PR is, to say the least, interesting, but that's I think something I should leave for myself). The obvious thing to start with is that film music has changed. I'll try to begin with my own opinion on the matter.

I am all against uniformisation of film music and this is the strongest point I'd like to make for now. The fact that there is a largely popular trend that makes everything sound electronic and all that stuff that many people despise is something that I dislike not because it happens at all, but because it happens everywhere. Whether we call it a scoring style or a scoring paradigm, as Thor likes to call it, I believe that there is not a bad paradigm or a good one per se, but rather a bad (rather wrong!) or good one for a particular project. I actually tend to defend the Batman sound for the movies it accompanies. I happen to defend Inception, which is a genuine attempt at writing something unique for Inception and kudos to Hans for writing it the way he did, even if the score, one of the most important (and to me the best) recent scores is an admittedly acquired taste. But a Batman like score in everything else from Transformers (of all things) to wherever people think it could fit is the WRONG thing for the genre as a whole, because there is no attempt at being unique and bring in something new, even a new personality granted by a composer's idiosyncrasies, be it harmonic or phrasing preferences.

The moment where I tend to disagree with these assessments is when the only person blamed for this is Hans Zimmer, when, in reality, I believe that the bigger fault is the producers. Knowing him personally and a bit of his scoring process, I know that he genuinely tries (and actually, while his PR is overblown, which even he can recognize) and believes he does bring something unique to a particular project and I think when he says that he tries to cut Batman off Superman, he really genuinely attempts at that exactly. The cluelessness of modern producers leads to using the wrong scores and asking to keep with it, even if the composer would really want something else. It *is* a problem with modern film music and not only the famous brass chord (which is REALLY not the most important thing about Inception, it's just the loudest one) called Horn of Doom (a good name, admittedly) is the problem. How many scores were simply rehashing the Bourne trilogy at the behest of the powers that be? How many scores were doing, to get back to Hans, Journey to the Line all the way, because the director and/or producer really loved it? Even Remote Control Productions is, I think, flawed at design, because while I know (not just from him, but also from certain statements of the group members) he looks for genuine voices to work there (both as additional composers for him, but also as standalone composers getting projects *thanks* to him), they are still treated as (financially, of course) Hans Zimmer-lite and nothing else. "Do me Hans Zimmer cheaply" is the reason for getting a Ramin Djawadi, not the fact that he has interesting harmonic developments, as showcased by Pacific Rim (e.g. Mako). It IS a huge problem.

It is a sad thing indeed that a composer like James Horner gets replaced by Steve Jablonsky, though in that case the problem is not the fact that Jablonsky took over, but rather the fact that the movie seemed so problematic that the whole post-production crew got fired by the studio, go figure (Horner didn't get to start working, I think). Trained musicians bring more complex orchestral writing (though I would argue it doesn't fit everywhere) and also more complex and rich harmony. Conrad Pope recently complained about lack of major chords/major key writing and rich harmonies in film music. I think it brings up by something alarming said by James Newton Howard when doing interview rounds for The Dark Knight: Film music shouldn't say too much (or was it actually "anything"?) about the characters. That's not exactly true and this will make my last paragraph for those that might end up with a tl;dr kind of reply.

As every aspect of film making, music is a semiotic language. A set of signs adding to the semantics (meaning) of the final work. Composers working in Hollywood (it was said in Kraków unanimously by Don Davis, Abel Korzeniowski and, even, Trevor Morris) acknowledge that they are a part of the team in which everyone (including the director!) can be fired, but at the end of the day, they are there to serve and tell a particular story. A richer musical approach than just blasting power chords says more about the characters and the scene. So on the one hand we have an overflowing approach (music is EVERYWHERE), which, I believe, comes from the fear that the visuals don't say enough on their own, on the other hand the fear that music can actually say too much (it can, but you won't know if you let the composer try, for God's sake!) in a scene. Then what should it say? All composers agree that they underscore the subtext of the scene, with the perfect match being really not overdoing the said subtext (a relevant thing, film music CAN be too much for a scene and this is where I wave to Edward Zwick and Ron Howard).

Personally I believe there is a place for Hans Zimmer and more educated composers and even those self-taught composers that have and work on getting a complex skill set, like my friend Maciek. I think film music will recover from this electronic fashion and allow things to get back to bigger diversity. The electronic stuff sells, but viewers more and more care for diversity in the genre. I hope Romeo and Juliet will be a bigger success, because Korzeniowski's score is both a beauty and a combination between minimalist tendencies and good old-school orchestral lushness with virtuoso concerto-like elements.

I'd love to hear your say about it.