All language subtitles for MasterClass Hans Zimmer Teaches Film Scoring - 04Directors Part 1

This is the only bit of masterclass

that's going to be important coming out

of my mouth.

When you start on a project, you are

working with the director. Everybody

else is secondary noise. you and the

director make a pact that you're going

to do this movie together and you're

going to do your utmost and your best to

go and make his film great even if it

means you have to kill him sometimes but

your allegiance

is with the director and yes what the

producers say and what the studio says

and and they're great comments they're

amazing comments usually and you have to

take them on board and You want to take

them on board, but you have to filter

them and transform them into is this

helpful to the film the director is

trying to make because

I I don't know how else to do it. It's

films are not made by committee. Um, it

seems like it sometimes, but

not really.

If you take Ron Howard, Ridley Scott,

Chris Nolan, and Terry Malik, I mean,

there are directors that work in very

different styles, but really at the end

at the end of the day, we've all come

together at the same sort of place. I

have to get into his head and

you know and that's part of the process

because what I want to do is I want to

make the movie that he wants to make.

That's what what I signed on for you

know I want to have a bit of his vision.

So I work I work really very hard at

trying to understand and and have

conversations about

what this movie is about. And the of

course the weird thing is that we don't

really talk about the movie. We talk

about everything else. we're trying to

sort of sneak up on the subject because

ultimately he has to hand over the job

of directing in a funny way to me.

Um, and

the the best directors and you know the

the the people I work with time and time

again, I mean, they do it with um

they they sort of hand it over with

great joy. You know, they get excited

about something new coming, you know,

somebody new coming into the party. you

know, with Terry Malik. I mean, I spent

a year before Terry went off to shoot

Thin Red Line, we were we were we're

just talking about art. We were talking

about philosophy. We were talking about

paintings. Um, the thing we sort of

agreed on really early on, I had read

the script and it was

it was 198 pages, which is a lot of

script. So, so, so I said to him, Terry,

you know, might it not be a really good

idea if we never talked about the script

anymore? We just talked about what we

want to do with this script. What you

know what's the subtext? What are the

other things we want to do? And we we

go we talked a you know it was a

year-long conversation. We talked a lot

about um

church paintings you know the way the

light you know in Baroque painting you

know hits through the cloud you know

that you know that ray of light. I mean,

and I I think I think that's really what

those conversations are, and that's what

all those directors have in common, that

the the conversation is one where we're

trying to learn from each other, and

we're trying to learn from the movie.

We're trying to get the movie to tell us

how to make it.

There are certain questions you don't

ask the director and you ask the

producer like um so uh we just had this

conversation which involved the largest

symphony orchestra and three choirs

working for you know 7 weeks um what's

our budget on this oh it's only one day

of a string quartet okay fine good that

I know that now because you don't want

to go and narrow the director's dreams

by asking some of those hardcore

questions. Just like he doesn't want to

go and stop me by going, you know

something, we're basically some

miserable little lowbudget production

with with a lack of imagination. Our

producer is terrible. The studio doesn't

care about us, but you know, can you

just crank something out? Um, so that's

not the conversation to have. So reality

is um reality is the enemy of um

you know of imagination or of you know

the dream we have. I mean here's the

thing nobody sets out to make a bad

movie. You know some movies it doesn't

matter how much talent and how many

talented people are involved in it. uh

you know they just derail themselves a

bit because once once you're working

once the movie is you know what once

you're on that first day of shooting it

just propels itself forward and you just

hang on for dear life most of the time

everybody still has this image of the

film composer who's waiting for the film

to be shot and then the director invites

him into a screening room and shows him

his masterpiece and they discuss music.

That was before we got all digital and

all fancy and everybody can go and cut a

movie basically on an iPhone. Um

so the idea that you have a finished

picture that you can work with has gone.

Um and the whole mechanisms of how we

work has been turned around and actually

I think to to an advantage where

suddenly you get to collaborate before

the movie is even made. For instance on

on both Rush and Frost Nixon with Ron

Howard. I mean, it originally started,

we were supposed to be talking about

songs that we might have in the movie

before he went to shoot the movie. And

it turned into two weeks of us actually

talking about

what the music can do with some of these

shots. And it was actually really

exciting

seeing shots come in on dailies that

actually were informed by this

conversation about the music. It was on

the one hand it exciting and on the

other hand it was terrifying because now

I had to actually deliver on this you

know the grand idea you know oh I can do

this with this shot you know um

so

the the the the whole mechanism of film

making and film composing has shifted

because of the way we edit things and

that the idea of a locked picture and

the 12 you have at the end has changed I

mean we we we work hand in hand in tand

and they're cutting picture. I'm writing

music. I get to head in in that

direction

autonomously with an autonomous voice

because otherwise they would be doing it

themselves, you know. So, that's the

thing that that's that's the thing

you're always hoping for. That's the

thing that you're aiming for. Um

that you're adding something to the

conversation that wasn't there before.

You know, I I know a couple of directors

who go, you know, sometimes it's quite

nice, you know, after everybody's asked

me a thousand questions, I put the

headphones on and I get a bit of zmer,

you know, it's like I'm not it's not

like I'm answering a question, but I

reset the mood because there's a mood in

the piece or there's a mood in the

writing that just informs the way things

can happen, you know? I'm not I'm I'm

I'm not trying to

make more of the contribution than just

it's just a a reflection. It's just a

shadow falling across the light

sometimes that informs things in a

certain way. Um I work away from picture

but at the same time I've seen the

drawings, I've spoken to the DP,

you know, I've by now read the script.

And I sort of know where we're heading,

but the timeline has shifted of how we

make movies, how the music becomes part

of it. And

you know, more than one director I work

with, you know, I mean, I I I really

learned this from Peter Wea who told me

that he used to always play music on the

set and always play music to his actors.

It sets the mood into a certain tempo.

Peter sort of got me into this idea that

it's actually quite nice to have music

early so that he can play it on the set.

And for instance, the way I work with

Ron Howard is we,

you know, Frost Nixon, for instance, we

met for two weeks before he even shot a

single frame. um we're just talking

about the music and we were coming up

with things and and and it sort of

informs the way the way he gets to make

the picture even though he's the

director and he knows what he wants to

do and it's quite nice sometimes to be

able to just put a set of headphones on

and go, "Oh, what was that crazy little

thing Hans was trying to work on." Um

it's nice if if a little of that turns

up on the set and it influences things a

little bit.