All language subtitles for MasterClass Hans Zimmer Teaches Film Scoring - 03Story

At the end of the day,

I can tell you everything you need to

know in one word, story.

Stick with the story. Figure out the

story. Stick with the story like glue.

Um, don't abandon the story. Don't

betray the story. Um, know the story you

want to tell. And in in in a funny way,

that's

It sounds like that is actually very

narrow but it's actually huge and vast

because the subtext for the composer is

that there is a subtext because you

don't want to go and tell the story that

they're telling beautifully elegantly in

images and words. You want to go and

slip it underneath and find that bit

that they are not illuminating yet. That

is

that takes the whole thing just that

step further into

um sometimes a metaphysical world,

sometimes into a more emotional world,

sometimes um just figuring out how to

color a scene in a s in a slightly

different way.

But at the end of the day, you are

everybody on the film if if if if it's a

good project, a film becomes successful

because everybody has decided that they

want to tell this one story and it's

just they're using their different

voices to tell that story. I suppose

it's a delicious meal and I suppose at

the end of the day I don't see myself

very differently from a chef. I go, you

know, I you know, here's the task. you

know, the guests are coming at 8:00

and they want to have an experience and

so I go out and I see what's available.

You know, are there fresh tomatoes? Oh,

look, those carrots look good. You know,

potatoes. No, no, no. So, you get all

this stuff and then you spend an

enormous inordinate amount of time

peeling potatoes, chopping onions, and

all that sort of stuff. And then at 10

to 8, you just put it all in the pot and

you have hopefully a delicious and fresh

meal. Um so I don't think the process is

that different. Um

with the one caveat always you just

always in the back of your mind stay on

story stay on story stay on story.

There's an obsessive quality about the

whole thing because what you try to do

is you you're actually trying to figure

out how you're going to live in this

world. So, there's a bit of method

composing that's going on. Um,

where yes, I'm a lot more fun to be

around when I work on a romantic comedy

than I when I work on a when I work on

The Dark Knight. You just don't want to

be around me then, you know? I I do

become the Joker. I do become all of

those things. I found over the years

it's it's

I I I I have a strange way of working

where when I start on a project really

what happens is rather than reading the

script I much rather sit down with the

director and say to him tell me the

story because then I know what's in his

head, what his emphasis is, where his

thoughts are going. you know, he might

not tell me all the details and he

certainly won't uh, you know, won't

recite bits of dialogue to me, but I

know what sort of a movie we were doing.

I mean, when Ridley Scott phoned me and

said, "Hey, let's make a gladiator

movie. It's 9:00 in the morning. I'm not

good at 9:00 in the morning." I started

laughing because I imagined he was going

to make a movie with men in skirts and

sandals. And even though it wasn't a

movie with men in skirts and sandals, it

wasn't a comedy. It was something

completely different. And you know, and

the same thing happened. I said to him,

"Okay, tell me the story." And as he

told me the story, I start

I don't hear tunes, I hear fragments, I

hear sounds, I hear bits, but I'm I'm

starting to narrow in on a common

language that, you know, that that we

can use and and there are lots of ways

of telling a gladiator story. There are

lots of ways of telling. I mean, thin

red line is another example where I sat

sat with Terry Marrick probably for a

year before he started shooting because

lots of war movies had been made, but

there was a way of doing this. There was

there was a different way of doing it.

There was there's always something still

left unsaid in musically and in the

human condition. And I think that's the

sort of thing we aim for.

I think I think the rules come in that

first conversation you have with the

director where he's describing what his

vision is and he tells you the story and

as he's telling you the story, he's

telling it within the framework of his

rules already, you know. Um

I remember really not wanting to

do pirates. Actually, it was ludicrous.

I was working with Gabinsky on the ring.

And I was of going, "So, so what are you

doing next?" He's thinking, he said,

"I'm thinking of doing this pirates

movie." Pirates movie. H uh yeah, it's

from the ride, the Disneyland, right?

Oh, give me a break. What? With the dog?

All this. So I was just making fun of

him all the time, you know, and

you know, so so every, you know, because

we were working on the ring, you know,

and I said, "I'm absolutely no way am I

doing this, right?" And and at a certain

point I said to him, "So so how's how's

this pirate thing going?" You know, um,

well, I got Johnny Depp and

I went, "Tony Deb thinks it's

interesting." Okay. But but I I was just

being me, you know. narcissist. Um,

so I misheard his rules or he never told

me the rules. He never told me the story

he was going to tell. I stopped in my

imagination with it's a pirate movie

based on a riot. What could be a worse

idea? Um, and then one Sunday he phoned

me. um he he got into a bit of trouble

with the music and he said, "Would I

have a look at it and maybe help out a

bit?" Um

and I looked at it and it was nothing

that I could imagine. But there was an

in you know that there was an absolute

world created which followed absolutely

the Gore Vabinsky rules of what this

pirate world and how he was going to

present this was going to be. Um

and had he told me those rules when we

were first starting to talk about it I

would have gone whoa this sounds really

great this is really yummy. This is

fantastic. Um, so the the the rules are

part of that first moment of

storytelling. You know, when um when Guy

phones me up and he goes, "I'm working

on a Sherlock movie and they're putting

as temp music Dark Knight all over it

and I don't like it." He's already

giving me a hint to what the rules are

going to be. And the way he p, you know,

literally that first sentence in in

which he basically is going, "I don't

like your music." that that

unbelievably freeing, unbelievably

liberating, you know, and us going

Sherlock, what if he, you know, what if

he thinks differently? What if he

doesn't play the Bach Patita on the

violin? What what if it's what if it's

like over there, gypsy music? um you

know so so so now we're starting to

define a new set of rules you know and

we just and it's a rules rule of

aesthetic more than anything I think and

you just stick to that

Brianino actually said the thing do you

know what play-doh is like sort of this

um kids uh it's like um

clay, multicolored clay, and comes in

all these beautiful colors. And you

know, when you're a kid, you get all

these beautiful colors and you mash them

all together. And it doesn't matter what

combination you mash together, you

always end up with brown. And so, if you

don't have rules, if you don't go, you

know, I'm going to use red and yellow,

and that's going to be pretty cool for

over here. and I'm going to use blue and

yellow and or you know whatever. You

have to have certain rules otherwise

it's all just brown and nobody's

interested in just brown or beige if

you're even worse. So, you know, for

instance, the rules in Sherlock are, you

know, maintain some sort of intellectual

integrity while at the same time having

a lot of fun with it, but not too much

fun because occasionally you might want

to go and turn

turn sideways and get a little bit of

bit serious. But, you know, the the

other rule is

for Christ's sake, it's another Sherlock

movie. How many Sherlock movies have

there been? So, let's not go and do

certain things. Let's not go and do the

big pretentious orchestral thing. Um,

which I break by re orchestrating Mozart

in the middle of this. But it's not

pretentious. Again, it's a game.

So, once you define the rules of the

game,

it's more fun to watch the game where

somebody cheats in a clever way than

where everybody plays totally by the

rules. And I think that goes for

everything. You know, I I can't think of

a movie where I didn't set myself really

strict rules to then just at one moment

go,

let's break them. And because it it it

adds a freshness to it, you know, bit of

cayenne pepper in the middle of this the

stew.