All language subtitles for MasterClass Hans Zimmer Teaches Film Scoring - 10Scoring Under Dialogue

There used to be all these rules. You're

not supposed to write for clarinets

because they're in the vocal range.

Well, if you I don't think I sound like

a clarinet. I don't think I sound like a

clarinet. Um, so I I I think

just just just be a little bit mindful.

I mean, a lot of these rules about how

we're supposed to circumn dialogue come

from the days before, you know, I have

the picture running when I'm writing and

I pop the dialogue up and I can see if I

can understand every word, you know,

they come from the time before pu people

actually had, you know, they had a movie

if they were lucky and but they

couldn't, you know, they couldn't think

it did didn't matter their piano playing

to the dialogue. It wasn't until they

unleashed the orchestra that they found

out that

it's all a bit loud and a bit, you know,

stepping all over the dialogue. Most

screenwriters,

if they're any good, will pick just the

right words and just the right amount of

words to get that story across. So, as a

composer, you got to do the same thing.

Don't pick too many words. Don't pick

the wrong words. It's just, you know,

what what's the what's the story you're

trying to convey right now? And it

doesn't matter if an actor is speaking

or if it's a well, it doesn't matter if

it's a car chase because nothing new can

happen till the car chase is over

anyway. So, and nobody can hear anything

other than the roaring of cars. Um, you

know, look, it's back to the same

argument or the same thing I've been

saying all along. Be mindful of the

story. So if if you're getting in the

way of the story which is being told by

the character, you're doing something

wrong. Um if if you are on story, if you

just stick with story, stick on story.

Um

that's your safety net. You know, it

doesn't matter that you've just written

the nicest and most beautiful piece of

music of your career. If it interferes

with the story, bin it, chuck it, throw

it in the trash.

You know, the the the Sherlock stuff is

actually strange because it was it was a

bit of an oopsy not having everything

this close, recording everything this

close and not giving it perspective. So

that it became really tough in the, you

know, on the dummy engineer and you just

want to have real masters working it. Um

because uh

quite simply I think it's it's not the

size of the orchestra or the amount of

noise you make that gets in the way. Um

if your dialogue is close, if your

character is close to you or whatever

and unclear

and you mic your orchestra in the right

way, perspective is just as effective as

turning the volume down. So um

I I think a lot about the perspective of

the scene, you know, where I want to

have the players placed in relationship

to the uh to the actors in a way, but

it's not necessarily

about volume. It's it is about

perspective. So if if if you can make

sure that your orchestra or your

musician sound further away, your your

ear will automatically go to the the the

clear closely miked thing. I mean, you

know, there it's

you're about 9 milliseconds away from me

right now. You know, you're not in real

time because of the distance between the

two of us. So if I record at Abby Road

or at Air or any of the halls that I

like recording at, you know, there's a

a fair distance between the orchestra

and and where the mics get hit, you

know, so uh that's an automatic thing.

And then I can go and push things

further away by adding, you know, adding

more room and and you know, very quickly

you actually lose the sense of how close

things are. And and the other nice thing

of course is when you have mics further

away even in a dry room um the the air

absorbs the high frequencies. So there's

a sort of a natural beautiful roll off

that happens and that just you know uh

lets the voice through. So if you record

everything really close, in other words,

you do not have that natural roll off

like some people might have done in

Sherlock Holmes, um you yeah, you're

going to land yourself in a world of

trouble.

Sound has changed, you know, it's we're

we're not in in the mono world where it

comes out of one little speaker anymore.

And you do have to sort of you have to

make a decision at a certain point about

how you're going to approach things. Um

I mean I I find this this happens to us

on the Chris Nolan movies all the time

where um we get berated for the music

being too loud in Interstellar and that

you can't hear the dialogue and and

people keep forgetting Chris is not only

the director of this film, he's the

writer of this film, it's his dialogue.

he could do with it what he wants. And

if sometimes he thinks that the music

creates, you know, creates a better

narrative or explains or says something

that he prefers to hear notes as opposed

to words, then, you know, he can do

this. But

the point is,

don't be shy about

being, you know, being ballsy on the

dialogue as well. that it's a huge big

screen and you you you hope that you're

going to have a great huge wonderful

sound system to listen to it on. Or you

can go the other way and you can say,

"Well, I'm I'm just going to go and

write for the worst cinema experience I

can possibly think of, which is some

screen where all the speakers are blown

except for the left hand corner tweeter.

Aim upwards. hope that the hope that

this movie is going to get shown only in

cinemas where the sound is wonderful and

if the sound isn't wonderful um don't

blame us. We really did do a good job

and we really sat there and you know we

weren't haphazard. We're not random. We

spend an enormous amount of time making

sure that you can hear everything you're

supposed to be hearing and therefore I'm

going to be really really cautious. But

my attitude is they all know we're

working really really hard and we're

trying to make it sound really good and

we're trying to make it comprehensible.

And yeah, the last thing you want to do

is not let people have the information

um that that they need. But not all the

information is always conveyed in

dialogue. It's not necessary that that

it's always just dialogue

um that that gives you the right

information. Sometimes it's sound,

sometimes it's music, sometimes it's

silence.

This is all part of the game. You You

try to figure out an interesting way of

how to coexist with the dialogue, how to

be quiet. I bet you there are a lot of

people who go, "Oh my god, it's a

dialogue scene. I got to go and write

the dialogue. All I'm going to do is be

like some pad underneath the dialogue.

doesn't have to be. That can be

something really interesting. It's it's

teamwork. I mean, it's it's it's you you

you can't just say, "Oh, it's scoring

under dialogue." I mean, if if if if

you're dealing with an actor with a soft

voice um or not a very strong voice,

yeah, it's going to be probably a little

bit more problematic than if if you're

dealing with Jack Nichols and all just

like, you know, as somebody who

projects, somebody who really knows how

to do it. And then it be it really does

become teamwork is where the

circumstances. Okay, I'll give you uh

great example um

Dark Knight Rises. We have a scene

between Batman and Bane and they're

having a big showdown and

it's right in front of a waterfall, you

know, visually perfect, but they're both

wearing masks and it's in front of a

waterfall. So there's a lot of a lot of

the spectrum has been covered, you know,

and it, you know, and

Chris is absolutely legitimate in

shooting the scene that way. Um,

and you know, and and trusting us and

the sound department, etc., to go and

dig the dialogue out and and make it

comprehensible.