All language subtitles for MasterClass Hans Zimmer Teaches Film Scoring - 05Directors Part 2

The way I work is I talk to a director

usually before they go out to shoot the

movie. So a year in advance of actually

going in and recording this stuff, some

conversation happens with the about the

intention why we want to do this movie,

how we want to do this movie

and

then something happens. The director

goes off to shoot the movie and that is

basically the director is going to

battle. the director goes to war and he

comes back wrecked, you know, 3 4 months

later. I mean, he has now answered a

thousand million insane trivial

questions. He's been thinking on his

feet all the time. Things have gone

wrong. Um, the money's run out. You

know, it rained on the day he needed

sunshine and it was sunny on the day he

he needed rain. So by the time he comes

back into my room,

he's a changed man. And

the other thing that happens is

he might not quite remember why we

wanted to go and make this movie in the

first place because he's bloodied and

beaten and exhausted.

And so part of my job, I always see this

as part of my job is that the first

conversation we have when he returns

from battle is that I remind him why we

wanted to go and do this thing in the

first place. And then I remind him of

some of the instincts and some of the

things that we wanted to do and um and

the things that we were looking forward

to doing and and just sort of remind him

why this is actually a good idea.

speak in plain English if you can and if

they're German, speak in German. No, no,

no. Just you use your words. You know,

it's like what they teach you as a kid.

Use your words and don't get technical.

Don't make it into a technical

conversation about a minor 7th chord and

augmented chords and triads and don't

don't have the conversation, you know, I

which is one I'm prone to where I get

nerdy and I go, "Oh, I want to go and

use a Moog 55 because,

you know, and I can get all nerdy about

this or should we record this on real

tape or should we do this digitally and

you know and I can get all carried away

in this and it has nothing to do with

anything. this is just this is you know

this is the sidebar that I'm going to

have with my guys you know my

technicians etc or have with myself and

then I you know because all you want to

do is you want to present a piece of

music or a sound I mean sometimes it's

just a sound and you you want to go what

do you think cool sound um you know is

this right for this movie does this feel

right does this work with the images and

nobody cares how you got there sometimes

you know with govinsky he'll go, you

know, go from the dominant chord to the

tonic or something. I just think a gore,

come on. You know, it's like,

let me rock out here.

Being that specific about it, he robs

himself of the possibility of being

surprised of something happening that,

you know, yeah, I understand what he's

trying to do. He's trying to get from,

you know, a question to an answer or

he's trying to get into a new thing. Um,

and might there be a more surprising and

interesting way of doing it?

Temp music is a uh, you know, everybody

keeps going on about, you know, temp

music is ruining creativity, temp music

is ruining our movies, etc. Yeah. And I

and I've had it where uh, director, you

know, I'm not going to name names or the

movie, but where director screened a

movie with music from a previous one of

my films on it and the screening went

through the roof. I mean way beyond

expectation.

Um

and

so after that because of the success of

this of the screening um I was suddenly

caught in the situation where he wanted

exactly what I had done before for

another movie and first of all you don't

want to do what you've done for another

movie that that belongs to that movie.

So I realized that

successful temp can stop any forward

motion and creativity

and you just you know and you just have

to fight it. I mean remember temp music.

One of the problems with temp music is

they're all finished tracks and you can

pick the best scores and the best music

ever written and just line one up after

the other. I mean, my editor, Bob, once

put um

um Samuel Barber's Adagio for strings up

as temp music, and everybody loved it.

And I was just going,

"What are you trying to do? Kill me?"

You know? Yes. Two weeks later, I'm

still trying to write something as good

as that, you know. I had to cancel

orchestra sessions literally. I mean,

and you know, it it it you know, the

burden of that was just so impossible.

So, I'm recommending to do what we've

been doing more and more, which is not

use temp music at all. Um,

with Chris Nolan, I mean, I think

everybody knows this. He doesn't like

using temp music. He wants things which

are written for his movie, even if

they're not finished. Even if they're

just like little yellow post-it stamps

you put on a fridge which just have a

bit of a tune on them, but it's just off

that movie. If you can start early

enough and you have a good music editor

and you guys can just work hand in hand,

there's no no real reason you need to go

and put a temp on. If you know how to

use a computer, if you know how to use

synthesizer, if you know how to

basically

fake up the sound of the score,

The ideal situation to have is if you

know and maybe we should talk about this

for for a second.

For me, the ideal situation to be in is

is that the director, the editors, every

and I, we're all in the same building.

So, um, you know, we don't do this thing

where, you know, can you come by on

Friday at 3:00 and have a have a meeting

and then there's an either very little

to play, which is a bit of a

disappointment, or there's far too much

to play to have a serious discussion

about it. So, if we can just see each

other every day, I mean, right now, this

this was the gladiator cutting room

you're in, you know, and and my room was

actually next door. And so, uh, you

know, we just walk into each other's

room. And I mean, one of the things

that's important to me is to just be

able to walk in, you know, in the old

days it was I I I would literally walk

into the cutting room and just pick up a

bit of film, you know, that they'd cut

off and just sort of touch it. You just,

you know, just to remind myself what

what the movie is we're working on. So

the there's all this there's

experimentation time going on all the

time. Um Ron Howard always thinks of the

way this room works. is like the

laboratory and even when we run out of

time I mean he always

he always you know just as he's leaving

he he always says Hans make sure that we

don't shut the laboratory doors too soon

because the you know the there's

deadline here and it's a brick wall and

we're hurtling towards it but we in we

have to have the luxury to experiment

and try these things and you know we're

not for the last second None of it would

have been written.