All language subtitles for MasterClass Hans Zimmer Teaches Film Scoring - 07Sound Palettes

I try I I really try

on each score to find to create a pallet

that that that A I haven't used before

and B if possible nobody else has used

before. So there's a lot of

experimenting going on. There's a lot

of, you know, what happens if you play

the violin behind the bridge and stuff

like this? What would that sound like?

And that sort of happening while, you

know, and every day I get a new idea and

there's like a team of engineers running

around just trying to keep up with me.

And some some of it is is just quite

frankly it's just me procrastinating

trying to avoid having to write the next

note and going I can't possibly write

this next note unless I have the gong

underwater plate with you know I don't

know three snorkels or something like

this you know some some hideous thing I

make people go through to do this

when we were working on the Batman

movies. I mean, Gotham City doesn't

exist, but it it was very important that

Gotham City had its own sound, you know.

So working with um Richard King for

instance, the the sound designer uh and

my friend friend Mel Wesson, we we

really tried to figure out how

music could

seep dissolve

uh metamorphosize into

um a more abstract sound into

atmospheres into room tones could

dissolve into the proper hard real sound

effects which could then at the same

time be reflected in the images that you

saw and very much you know the light I

mean the stylized lighting

and the sound had to make sense you know

I think a very bright ditty across

Gotham City wouldn't have worked you

know and the same time I mean I remember

because I you know I did Batman Begins

with my friend friend James Howard who's

a far more elegant composer I mean so so

I kept forever making him Do you know

the the the the grandeur and the

architectural

wonderfulness of you know the the the

the shiny glass and steel of of that

city while I you know why I became a

specialist at grubby night scenes. Um

but you know James used a very very

different sound to describe those

colors. But if you know and and and in a

funny way we never talked about but it

was fairly obvious that you know there

was a different instrumentation called

for to show you know to to to show the

hope of you know the you know the the

the beauty of the city before it got

destroyed.

As soon as you say a very blue shot, as

soon as you say it, I hear a sound. Um,

and and maybe, you know, I mean, look, I

don't think it's a particular talent I

have. I think it's just it's just how I

I hear the world maybe more than I see

the world. I mean, um,

just like I think the DP spends a lot of

time figuring out how to lo, uh, how to

light something and how to use certain

colors or, you know, the the set

designer, how to how to create an

environment in which it is possible that

the story can unfold.

I need to know what the DP is doing. I

need to know how this thing is going to

look. And so

the colors are really important. The the

you know because music and

music and image I mean you know it's

it's all the same thing. It's light.

It's frequency you know I mean light

goes into you know when you slow it down

enough it becomes sound. So

we need to coexist and we need to

complement each other you I mean, if you

look at um Victoria Straro's book uh

Konuch, you know, the writing with uh

light um and he just shows you the

paintings he's looked at and the the the

way he uses light. I mean, these are all

things that you might think is not what

a composer should study, but I think a

film composer should study that. I think

that's that's that's where you're you

know the paraphrasing of the notes in

light is where I get my ideas from the

paraphrasing you know very often and I

hope Aaron Sin will forgive me for

saying this very often I just watch a

movie with the sound turned off because

I sort of know what they're talking

about but what I want to see is is is

how the shadows fall how the movement of

the cutting is how the editing works how

the light falls and the colors fall in

the thing. I mean,

one thing I learned in animation um was

and it it seemed so obvious to me um

animators would put up a whole movie,

every scene just as a color strip, you

know, okay, hang on. this the scene's

going to be sort of a light blue and

then it's going to get a little green

here and then suddenly we're going to go

red and obviously the motion is going to

be heightened and th those sort of ways

of looking at things are actually I mean

it's a it's a beautiful shorthand

because you can get a movie down to to

to to one piece of paper about this wide

and

all we're doing set designer costume

designer actor uh

writer, composer, we're trying to give

you the illusion that this world, you

know, we we try to create worlds and we

try to give give these worlds a

totality.

When I started doing sampling these

instruments, the technology wasn't

really there. Um, but because I am a

geek and I'm obsessed and it's not a

job, it's my life. Um,

we decided we had to build our own

sampler because the the, you know, the

firepower just didn't exist in those

days. So, but but these days, you know,

it's like

samples to a penny. But the the the

important thing was to sort of

do these sounds myself because then I

could be very specific about them. And I

and I never understand why

it's so easy to do. It's learn your

computer, learn your instrument. Um and

then you know you you must have some

mates that make interesting noises. Go

and do your own samples because

everything starts sounding the same

otherwise. I was asked to judge a

competition once of young composers

and I don't know they were all

gravitating towards the same sample

library. So the pro the problem with

samples is that

this note will always be the same. It is

a moment captured in time

and it's it's you know it's a still

photograph. So when I was judging this

competition, it people were writing all

this beautiful music, but it after a

while it all sounded the same because

the emotion in each note was identical.

It just sounded like gray after a while.

And

my my whole point is I need to go on

these sample expeditions before, you

know, it's it's like, you know, okay,

we're going off to go and create create

new sounds, create a new pallet. the

beginning of a project. So it doesn't

matter what it you know what it is the

the process is pretty much the same. You

you know you

you get something that is bespoke and

you get something that works for you.

So this is um my favorite chist Tony

please. I I know specifically because I

do all my own samples because I love

these players.

It's a stratavarious. Um, so it's not a

bad axe, you know. Um,

and when I write, when I play, when I

I actually see him in front of my eye,

you know, I know how he plays. I know

him so well. So, I write for him. I

absolutely specifically write for him.

And

I know he will play much better than I

can.

But the but the huge advantage is it's

him. It's he's right there. He reminds

me of his musicality all the time. Even

though this is just, you know, some

dodgy samples. Um and that's that that

and I started doing this this year years

years and years and years ago to

actually sample these players not to

replace them but to quite the opposite

to um

make directors and studio executives

interested in what an orchestra can do

because that there was a period of time

where everybody thought that if you do

an orchestral score it'll sound like

Star Wars and they would go, "Oh, no, we

don't want an orchestral score." And

they they didn't realize that there was

there was so much more to be done with

it. So, I went to the players that I

adored and loved and said to them,

uh, you know, this was the beginning of

sampling

when they were all freaking out that

they would get replaced. I said, "Look,

let me sample you and I promise you I

won't replace you. If anything, it'll

create more work." And I think there are

many many horrible things you can say

about Hollywood and they're all true.

But the amazing thing about film is we

we're sort of the last place on earth

that on a daily basis commissions

orchestral music. And I think there's

something important about that. You

know, not because I write particularly

well for orchestras, but the idea, you

know, an orchestra is a very expensive

hobby. Um so you can't have it as a

hobby and these you know but I I want

the possibility to I want the tradition

to be maintained that we can can have

orchestras that we can have orchestral

players and if this thing if you know

weirdly that this computer now suddenly

can

um help maintain that tradition and make

sure that if my kids want to learn the

violin it's not that they could actually

make a living out of it and and and it

actually is an

a viable career to have, you know, I'm

all for it.

Sherlock is is still the the the title

itself already has some inherent baggage

that comes with it. There have been

so many actors have portrayed Sherlock

Holmes. So many Sherlock Holmes movies

exist. So it's sort of you know so how

do you find yourself out of the maze of

cliche? So it really was very much about

figuring out who this character is in

this case played by Robert Downey Jr. Um

I thought this is where they've always

gone wrong. This is my conceit. They

haven't gone wrong. There's some

beautiful Sherlock scores that have

nothing to do with what I did. Um, but

for me, I wanted, you know, I want to

widen my gaze, which is sort of a line

actually from from the movie. And I

thought, where are we? We're in

Victorian England. Um,

we're dealing with a man

who is extremely inquisitive.

And

we know he plays the violin.

And every Sherlock movie you've ever

seen, he plays Bach or he plays, you

know, he plays classical violin. And I

thought, but hang on a second. We are at

a juncture in time, you know, the

British Empire. Yeah. You know, people

were going all over the world. The

exotic was suddenly the, you know,

something

interesting for people. Different

cultures suddenly started to seep into

England. And I thought, what if he

didn't play the classical violin? What

if he played tipsy violin? Because I

mean, I I grew up in in Europe and you

know, the true virtuoso player were all

these, you know, tips are actually the

derogatory term. It's really Roma, you

know, these great Roma musicians that

play passionately and it's different and

it's it's more interesting than if he

played Einstein. We know Einstein played

Bach. Einstein played Bach. He's not

Einstein. He's

he's this, you know, he's a slightly

more dangerous character. And so so on

the one hand, I had the violin and that

he was going to play it differently,

that he wasn't going to play classical

music. On the other hand, I would just I

just thought about Victorian London. I

mean, I when I'm not here, I live in

London. I live bang in the middle of

Soho. And it's one pub after the other.

And I was thinking in Victorian times,

it must have been just this jangle of

noise. As you walk down the street, you

heard the bad piano out of one place,

the accordion out of the next door,

banjo playing in another thing. So why

don't we make you know what again?

What's the world we can create? One of

the things um I try to do straight away

is that you set up

right at the very beginning of the movie

an an unusual sound. You know, a sound

that you didn't associate necessarily

with the polished expectation of a

wellbehaved Sherlock Holmes movie. I

wasn't going to go and do a well-

behaved score and guy wasn't going to do

a well- behaved Sherlock Holmes movie.

Um, and

there's an inherent problem with that

sort of thinking, which is your audience

comes into your into a movie with

certain expectations. They come with

certain baggage, especially if you if

you're dealing with a subject like

Sherlock Holmes, which they know and

they expect,

you know, you know, a certain behavior.

So, and I and I really think this goes

for every movie. um right at the very

beginning the first thing you do you

know and and and and in this and and

Sherlock I mean I I fought for this that

I you know the you know that I could

take the real estate of the logos and

actually start telling story there

actually start setting up a sound you

know actually the most extreme example I

I can give you just but it it it leads

into it's it's the same thinking is

Lion King. Lion King. I I didn't really

want to do Lion King because I I kept

saying number one, I don't like Broadway

musicals and you guys just make these

fairy tale movies and it's not really my

thing. U and they kept saying, "No, no,

no. We don't want you to do that. We

want you to do your thing." And I

realized the audience was probably

thinking like me that they were going to

go and see another princess movie, but

it wasn't going to be a princess movie.

So

by finding my friend Lebo M and putting

that African voice right at the

beginning over the black, it just said

to the audience, hang on, it's not going

to be that sort of a Disney movie. Just

like in Sherlock, it's not going to be

that sort of a Sherlock movie, but

it might be interesting. And we I'm

inviting you on this adventure. Come

along on this journey which might not be

quite the way you expect it to be, but

that's the good thing and that's what

might be