[Closed] HANS ZIMMER

New project for Zimmer:
Despicable Me
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1323594/
Source: http://theneptunes.org/d-a-confirms-wor … trailer-3/

I was very tired when I wrote that. My bad.

I would just like to add that from most of the scores by Horner I've listened to, he's very much got a very trademark sound just like Zimmer does. The obvious difference is that Horner's scores are more musically complex with classic orchestral influence, while Zimmer's sound is more simplistic with a progressive rock influence. But that is not my point, from a technical point of view (in the film itself), I feel Zimmer's material works at least as well as Horner's. What if he doesn't do complex orchestral melodies like Horner? He has a different approach and I happen to like it, because it suits the film and is a good listening experience on its own. All his stuff sounds the same? I could say that for several other composers including Horner. Why is it that I hear John Williams haters say all he ever composed was variations of Star Wars and Indiana Jones? I saw people literally in uproar when it was rumoured he would come back for the final Potter film,. Granted these people are obviously ignorant, but it's just an example to show that just because a composer has a certain style of composing or sounds like himself a lot, doesn't mean he's a talentless hack with very limited skills and only a few good scores. Whether Zimmer sounds cheap or not is a matter of taste, I happen to think not and I'm not even a fan of a lot of his RC gang's work. Horner is a very good composer and a favourite of mine, but as far as I'm concerned Zimmer is no more limited in talent than he is, especially when you see Zimmer is doing it without any significant musical education. Granted musical education makes you a better music composer, but this is about doing a film score, which needs to be more apt than musically superior. I wouldn't compare them in that manner because they have different styles of composing, they usually score different types of films for directors with different tastes for scores, so I wouldn't write off any one as talentless just because of the other's work in a different film.

Thanks for the heads up!

Why?

What about Avatar? In fact, i am in confusion whether he used original choir or electronic choir, especially in tracks like Quaritch, Climbing...., War etc.

Thanks for the information. However, i am not impressed with this score.

Hmmm.... interesting subject. According to Spielberg, he firmly believes that a composer would certainly re-tell the story through his/her musical composition. In fact, i read this one from E.T. Score album, where he expressed his opinion on John Williams who has ability to retell the whole story of his movie through his wonderful musical composition. That's what highly required for filmmaker and audience. Score should make you to involve with characters and story of the movie.

The problem is though, whether you expand the information given (usually case of John Williams, usually in epic scores, indeed) or tell exactly the same thing. I believe that film music is another semiotic language, it's just another sign. Visuals, sound give some information, especially if we treat any kind of narration as giving the viewer some information. Music can give something more.

The case of Da Vinci Code and I believe that's a problem with the whole movie is that every information is given by the visuals and the dialogues. Da Vinci Code is not a very film-like material. It's basically a few guys threatened by something that is not a good bad guy (OK, we can see Silas as a typical psychopath, but I think he hasn't got enough charisma to be a good bad guy). Zimmer scores every piece of explanation like it was the most important thing said ever, so there isn't any kind of feeling that the investigation proceeds. It's an amazing album, but the score has no sense of mystery solved, everything is the end of the world happening before our eyes and this is I think improper narration. I blame it mostly on Ron Howard though, who with some notable exceptions is a very UNsubtle narrator. That's the way he wanted it.

Both notable exceptions were scored by a different composer. The first one is Apollo 13. Why Horner's score really works so great? Horner used his "technical/modern action" approach here, showcased by the type of suspense material (basically the best expansion of the Sneakers/Pelican Brief suspense and action material, even if Sneakers has the best orchestrations, orchestrally it's one of Horner's best score, when it comes to working in the film, Apollo 13 is just a bit better, but Sneakers can't be forgotten for its fun factor on both album and in the movie). What makes Apollo 13 a fully-fledged masterpiece in my opinion is that Horner, with his usual bag of tricks (a bag of tricks I always enjoy immensely) very precisely works with the way the film is edited. The alternation between space scenes and flight control scenes, except the very good editing of the movie itself is really enhanced by a series of percussive/brass/piano effects used by Horner - trumpet motifs, drum rhythms, the famous crashing piano.

The other one was scored by Zimmer and it was already discussed Frost/Nixon. Both scores have the kind of motion I discussed. Horner's Apollo 13 is by no means disjointed and I would say that without his score (when it comes to working in the film, I think Apollo 13 is my favorite James Horner score), the film would have been a disjointed experience, Horner gives it coherency when it comes to the said alternation.

I think the score's seriousness helps making the movie "not very good".

I wonder what would happen if the story wasn't treated so seriously. I mean, in the end what we deal with is a faux-intellectual Indiana Jones (rather than killing Nazis to find an artifact, Langdon is looking at a painting). This kind of music might have worked, if the movie didn't have much music. If it's there all the time, it's far too dramatic.

Than We would Deal with totally diffrent Movie. I'm think that sooner or later(propably later) there will be another screening so We might See.

Doesn't help the discussion, does it?

"SK: You brunt criticism for employing other composers who receive “additional music by” credits in the films that you score. Fair or not, this has led to speculations that you don't write portions of your music. Using SHERLOCK HOLMES as an example, can you take us through your scoring process and how your team of composers and orchestrators fit into the overall big picture?

HZ: I’ll happily do that. Look, years ago the studio system had orchestrators, arrangers, and copyists. There was a team of people employed and they were on the payroll. That all went by the wayside.

When I got into film, I worked as an assistant for another film composer. A man named Stanley Myers. That’s how I learned to do film music. He always gave me a credit. Sometimes I had done hardly anything. I was just around and might have contributed an idea or something but he always gave me credit. I thought it was great that he never treated me like a ghostwriter.

I don’t think people should be anonymous. I think people should be acknowledged. How else are their careers going to happen? How else are we going to have new voices unless we promote the Harry Gregson-Williams and John Powells? Those two guys are the perfect examples of people who I insisted upon giving music credit.

To get to the specificity on, "Do I write this thing or not?" I mean, yes I write it. I write it probably more and more singularly than anybody who writes on paper – the old fashioned way you would write your notes on paper the note is the symbol that tells you the pitch and the duration of the note.

I write in a computer. Every note that is being played has at one point or another been played by me. I surround myself with really good programmers as well. Once I set the tune and the outline of it, people are filling it. Plus, I value people coming up with other ideas. It's a conversation. It's like being in a band. People contribute and that to me is additional music.

Maybe it's some perverse thing in me whereby I am always going a little bit against the grain, but you look at all films…Look at THE DARK KNIGHT. It’s very much a Chris Nolan movie. There can be no doubt about it. But was there a collaborative process? Sure! Are there other people involved? Sure! Do they have a voice and contribute to that voice? Sure!

The SHERLOCK HOLMES score is my score. Do I have people coming in and doing arrangements? Look, I’m not a great percussionist. I’ll hire great percussionists and I’ll give them an outline and I’ll give them a beat. So I suppose I had written it but by the time he has finished it, he will have contributed an enormous amount of depth to it.

I work a lot with Scotsman – which is appropriate on SHERLOCK HOLMES – a guy named Lorne Balfe. He is a brilliant programmer, a brilliant arranger, and a brilliant musician. We talked about every note. So, yes, I am going to have him credited as “Additional Music.” At the end of the day it doesn’t take away from me. My ego isn’t that fragile. I don’t have to have the big credit.

You and I know – and we don’t have to mention the name of the movie – there was a big hit movie out there a few years ago that I don’t have a name on in the titles and I wrote the score. They started putting my name onto the sequels.

I feel music is about playing. I feel that music is about getting a bunch of people around you and actually making music together. In one way or the other, I always like to have them acknowledged. I remember when I started out it was really exciting when I got a credit. That sounds ridiculous. My mother used to phone me up and say “Hey, I just saw your movie and I saw your credit!” which was somewhere at the very end of the roll. It meant something to her and that meant something to me, you know?

By the way, I have to fight for those credits with the studios. Studios don’t really want to give credits to anybody else. They just want my name up there."

Really, really good ideas. It's true he gives / gave people careers, and i admire him for giving the opportunity and not being an egoistical jerk. But a little filtering on who the careers go to, wouldn't harm us either

"How else are we going to have new voices unless we promote the Harry Gregson-Williams (...) "

"…I think partly what it's referring to is a particular type of film music which is big orchestral scores. Look, Jerry Goldsmith isn't around anymore. Elmer Bernstein isn't around anymore. Ennio Morricone doesn't do that much in America. So we have John Williams who doesn't do that much anymore and James Horner. James and John are the great composers of the era and they truly are great composers. There's not denying that they're incredible talents. But it's not necessary that we make those types of movies."

Hans Zimmer's words