[Closed] HANS ZIMMER

Christodoulides wrote
Heard it's pretty organic, and primarily orchestral. Cello / piano driven and small-scale.

Thomas Glorieux wrote
indeed Frost/Nixon could indeed be the project to give the Zimmer bashers the stuff nessecary to change their mind, although we know that is never going to happen

Steven wrote
The one Zimmer track from Madagascar 2 on the album is a fun track, as is Zooster's Breakout on the first album. It's a very catchy, uplifting tune - one of my favourites from Zimmer.

HeeroJF wrote
Just got The Weather Man boot. Haven't listened to it yet. What are the thoughts on this score?

By JON BURLINGAME

The score for "The Dark Knight" has been disqualified by the executive committee of the Academy music branch.

Formal letters to that effect are expected to go out this week to composers Hans Zimmer and James Newton Howard, who collaborated on the music.

Their previous collaboration, on "Batman Begins," was similarly disqualified in 2005.

Sources inside the committee said that the big issue was the fact that five names were listed as composers on the music cue sheet, the official studio document that specifies every piece of music (along with its duration and copyright owner) in the film.

Zimmer said, in an interview with Variety prior to this week's Acad action, that listing multiple names on the cue sheet was a way of financially rewarding parts of the music team who helped make the overall work successful. (Performing-rights societies like ASCAP and BMI use the cue sheet to distribute royalties to composers.)

Zimmer, Howard and the other three individuals -- music editor Alex Gibson, ambient music designer Mel Wesson and composer Lorne Balfe -- reportedly signed an affidavit stating that the score was primarily the work of Zimmer and Howard.

That apparently wasn't enough for the majority of the committee, which was also supplied with documentation indicating that more than 60%, but less than 70%, of the score was credited to Zimmer and Howard.

The "Dark Knight" score -- and the whole issue of multiple-composer collaboration, which is on the rise in Hollywood these days -- has occupied about four hours of discussion over the past two executive committee meetings.

Some members sided with Zimmer and Howard; citing the originality and cutting-edge nature of the music, they urged others to keep the "Dark Knight" score eligible despite the cue-sheet issue.

Both Zimmer and Howard declined comment on the ruling. Both are seven-time nominees; Zimmer won for "The Lion King."

Southall wrote
I thought Zimmer said he never wanted to be nominated again anyway? So I assume he doesn't mind.

lp wrote


Does it matter? If the score deserve to be nominated, then it should be. Sounds like they were too hell bent on being ridiculous.

Southall wrote
It's a very well-known rule though, so it would have been very odd had this score been nominated, and as soon as Zimmer and Howard put the extra names on the cue sheets they would have known this would happen. Wasn't the rule introduced after The Last Emperor saw someone who only wrote a couple of minutes' music end up receiving an Oscar? They wanted to avoid that situation occurring, which seems fair enough to me. I can see the other argument though - that if the final music's good enough to be considered for nomination, then it should be, regardless of how it was created.

(Of course there's another debate about whether this score deserve to be nominated anyway, but that's not the point.)

Southall wrote
I thought Zimmer said he never wanted to be nominated again anyway? So I assume he doesn't mind.

lp wrote
On a slightly off-topic note, if it was up to me, I would have nominated Jerry Goldsmith's score to Air Force One (for some reason, this score just popped up in my mind). It's awesome score that worked like gangbuster in a not-so-great movie.