All language subtitles for MasterClass Hans Zimmer Teaches Film Scoring - 26Writing Tips Part 2

How do you write music? You know, you

can write music by sitting in front of a

piano and your fingers will run across

the keys.

And usually what happens is they fall

into certain patterns of ma muscle

memory. So the way I write is I turn up

in my room in the morning and if I don't

know what the tune is. I do it like

this. I sit on my hands until I have an

idea and I don't let them straight to

the keyboard because I know what's going

to happen. It's just going to be muscle

memory. It's just going to be the thing

I did last week or whatever. So the most

impossible part is not to touch the

keyboard because it's so tempting to go

and touch the keyboard and play a load

of crap.

Um and you know very often you can play

a load of crap and people are really

happy with it but at the end of the day

um it it there has to be a sense of

adventure in it for me otherwise you

know it gets boring so there has to be a

sense of the new and we've never tried

this before and if it means uh setting a

piano on fire or you know uh going to

Africa and uh going into you know a

township and working with an African

choir that, you know, none of us speak

the same language or um going to

Slovakia and

meeting some extraordinary musicians, so

be it.

I think writer's block

comes from from sort of many different

places, but I think one of them is you

don't know what you're doing yet. you

don't know what the story is you want to

tell or you feel you haven't done your

research yet. I mean, that's one form of

writer block. The other one is just

you've been working too much and you're

burned out. You're not enjoying it

anymore. But quite honestly, I I never

have that because

I love what I do and I get excited by

it. But I can't write until I know what

what I'm writing about. And that isn't

that's a little harder to explain

because weirdly it's not in the script

and it's not on the screen. It's some

weird strange

version which is my version of the film.

My little bit on the you know left hand

side of the corner of the screen.

There's something going on that nobody

pays attention to and it becomes really

important to me and that's the story I

want to tell or that's the part I can

contribute. So once I know what I can

contribute, I know what to write about.

And up until that moment, I just sit

there

in,

you know, total panic like a deer in

front of the headlights

budgets. Cuz this is what people always

want to know about. They always think

the the they always think that we're

either completely rolling in it and it's

just like gazillion dollars

or what every film composer tells you,

there isn't enough money. And of course,

none of it is true. At the end of the

day,

I've done some of the most fun things on

movies where I had no budget and

you know did the most sort of boring

things where I had sort of a bit too

much money. Um so budget but you know

the budget shouldn't affect the creative

process. The creative process takes uh

you know takes place in your head and

every day it becomes easier to figure

out a way of creating things. Um as long

as as long as you have ideas are not

limited by budget. Yeah. Okay. If your

idea is that it needs the biggest

symphony orchestra and that's the only

way you can do it. It's actually not a

budget problem. It's a it's a you are

limited by your imagination because you

didn't figure out that you can probably

say the same thing with four great

players or four not so great players

even but um so you need you need to you

know you need to have enough to make it

sound good but there's always enough to

make it sound good in a funny way I mean

budget should not affect the creativity

budget should not really affect the

outcome at the same time be bold go up

to them tell them you're going add

something to their movie that they won't

get otherwise. And so so don't don't be

shy about it. You know, music is

important. Music is worth something. You

know, it's not it's here's the mistake

people make. Just because we play music

and we like the process of playing

doesn't mean we're giving it away. Um

and you need there needs to be an

appropriate budget to do to to

help fulfill the vision that is not just

your vision but it's the director's

vision. So, you know, the two of you of

you are working together on something.

And sometimes it's important to remind a

director that there isn't endless time

and endless budget and endless amounts

of recording sessions with very

expensive orchestras and we might have

to resort to a rubber band and a

cardboard box to get this one done. But

that one works too. Um, rather than

going for the most expensive score that

you could possibly do, I was trying to

figure out to show something where a a

big budget movie could actually benefit

from using really modest instrumentation

and just a bit of quirkiness and a bit

of inventiveness.

Because

here's a lot of what I noticed when

people come in from music school and

they come and intern with us, etc.

Somehow they have this idea because they

learned about the orchestra and they

spend a lot of time at university or

music school or the academy or whatever

learning about this that their first

movie they're going to unleash this

102piece symphony orchestra when really

what it's going to be is you're going to

unleash some plugin on an iPad and

you're going to go and make a great

score out of it because that is the

budget they're going to give you. And

that's all right. And and and what you

have to do is you just in yourself, you

just have to imagine how you're going to

make that sound like that 102piece

symphony orchestra that you thought

music school or the academy had promised

you.

Start writing. You know, look, at the

end of the day, a a a cheap piano sound,

it's all there, right? 88 keys. It's all

there, you know, and and at the end of

the day, the job is to go and and figure

out the notes and figure out all these

things. And then you can go and put all

those, you know, simultaneously all

these colors are going on. I mean, I

keep

I keep being in two minds about this

conversation. I mean, I picked Sherlock

very much sort of on purpose

for the purposes of our conversation

because

it's a score anybody could do. You could

do this score one microphone,

you know, on a laptop, you know. So, and

I'm not saying I'm not saying that to

show off. I'm not saying it in any other

way other than to say I don't accept the

fact that you can't write create a great

Hollywood blockbuster or whatever

whatever the score is uh depending on

money or depending on resources etc.

Anybody's got access to something that

they can go and make a great score with.

Um, you know, as opposed to us sitting

here and me showing you the thing that

took a huge symphony orchestra to do,

you know, in in in a funny way, the the

more

money you have available, the less of a

achievement it becomes to make an

impressive sound. I think the I think

you don't need all the whisbang sounds.

You you don't need the computer. You

don't need anything. You can compose in

your head. You can compose on the piano.

You can compose on anything. Um,

actually, I think it might have been on

Sherlock where

um, Anmarie Simpson was sending me

violin tracks that she recorded on her

iPhone and they sounded great. You know,

it's like, here's an idea. And and

there's a quality to it and you can

either go, oh my god, that's not

technically correct. or you can go,

"Wow, that's really interesting." So,

just, you know, if you just o open

yourself up to the possibility that that

could be really interesting and that you

can manipulate it, it's not a problem.

It's a huge advantage to to work with a

the bare minimum of available things,

you know, one, you know, this is one

violin, one bass, one timber, and then,

you know, Yes. And then I went crazy and

I went off to Slovakia and recorded all

the gypsies. But that's a different

thing, you know. It it's the the

resources exist to go and

do great things. One of our engineers

who I think he worked on this, you know,

he certainly worked on quite a few other

movies. I did a chap called Steve Lipson

and and he was here the other day and he

was working with some amazing artist. I

said, "Oh, this guy's a real genius."

And he said, "Yeah, yeah, yeah. I worked

with a lot of geniuses in my life." And

he truly has. He said, "They all have

one thing in common. They roll up their

sleeves. They work until they drop. They

never go home." And then present it as,

you know, oh, it was easy. You know,

you're supposed to make it sound easy,

you know. And Sherlock,

it's easy. If you if you listen to the

score, it's trivial, you know. It's

trivial. It's just like, you know, it's

simple tunes and it's and and you can't

tell that a lot of work went into it,

you know. And I'm not saying that in a

oh dear me, I didn't get any sleep.

Yeah. Oh dear me, I didn't get any

sleep. That's the truth. But I didn't

get any sleep because it was fun. It was

great. It was, you know, we were we were

at it passionately and everybody is at

it passionately. I mean those are the

sort of situations you want to be

involved in and

it's your job as a composer to help to

create