All language subtitles for MasterClass Hans Zimmer Teaches Film Scoring - 16Character Theme The Joker

Working at Dark Knight, I knew I had

nothing if I didn't have the Joker's

motif.

I wasn't thinking about a bad guy. I was

just completely intrigued by the

character and I kept thinking, "Oh, hang

on a second. He's the he's the only one

who always tells the truth in this

movie." You know, everybody else is sort

of I don't know, they're bullshitting or

they're, you know, they're lying or

they're not being straightforward or

they're being secretive. You know, the

Joker comes up to you and he tells you

exactly what he thinks and he tells you

the truth. I thought that was admirable

in in a way and and his sense of

anarchy, you know, tossing things up

into the air, you know, is maybe

something that I quite like. So, um, I

never I, you know, I never I never did

the, you know, the, you know, the the

the big

evil courts thing, you know. It's like,

um, I did it I did him quite the

opposite, you know. I was much more sort

of a punk attitude which I which I can

sort of get into and you know just

anarchy in Gotham City. It's just like

fun.

I need to know what the spine of that

character is. Sometimes I need to know

what his heart is, but really it's, you

know, what what what makes the thing

tick or what makes what gives tension to

it. It took a while to get to something

so incredibly simple. And, you know, one

of the first things I realized was the

the most compelling thing I could do

rather than, you know, you think, you

know, he's this bad guy, it's anarchy,

it's, you know, he blows stuff up. Let's

be loud and ballsy. And I did exactly

the opposite. It was very very quiet. So

you sort of had to lean in. I think

there's something something much more to

be had out of an audience having to lean

in.

Hey, you wait like everybody else, pal.

And it starts off. It just whispers at

you, you know, just whispers, gets a

little unstable, starts rising.

What the hell is that? Obstruction

ahead. Obstruction ahead.

Damn it. All units, divert down on the

lower fifth. I repeat, exit down.

Exit down.

Lower fifth. We'll be like turkeys on

Thanksgiving down there.

One of the problems with music is you

always know when something is finishing

or when it comes to a resolution or when

the tension is going to be released. I

was just playing with the ideas that uh

what happens if you never release

tension? Is there such a thing as

infinite tension? You know, it's the

idea of

a bow or steel, you know, steel cable

being pulled and figuring out when will

it snap. And I'm not going to tell you

when it will snap. And I never let it

snap. Um, so you you're just you're just

holding your breath constantly because

you know sooner or later it's going to

snap and just tear your face. You know,

it's like a guitar string which is too

tight. Um, so, so the sound itself has a

builtin recklessness and a built-in

danger to it. And it's really actually

very quiet, you know, and it's not

bassy, you know, usually usually, you

know, the bad guys, you put a load of

bass in. I mean, there there all these

cliches just like the violins for the

love scene. There all these cliches and

and and and part of the the fun is to go

uh let let me show you or let me play

you something that you haven't heard

before.

I I on purpose picked an instrument that

that number one it can rise seem

seamlessly. Um, but on the other hand,

you don't expect it to play up there.

And secondly, it's really really hard to

do. And and and

really what happened was that um I mean

I was torturing my chist Martin because

it as an idea it becomes very it's such

a simple idea that you know it you could

always hear him acting it. I actually

had written him an instruction manual.

Start slightly worried, you know, little

bit more anxiety in it. And I know the

last sentence, the last words were

[ __ ] bricks. Um, you know, so there

was this sort of chart of, you know, a

performance note, you know, and at what

point of where we are in the rise. Um,

and you know, by this t time he was so

beaten up. He hated me so much. um you

know this is not what he spent his whole

youth

learning how to play the cello for you

know this was something completely

different um but I need I needed to have

that sort of just casual you know it's

just of course I can pull this string to

till it snaps you know I needed to have

the that that sort of recklessness in

The reason why it's good to have a car a

strong character motif which can be just

one note in the case of the Joker is

because it becomes very efficient that

when you don't see the character on the

screen

you know we have shots of the city and

we just put that one note and and you go

He's coming.

So,

so it's a it's it's a great storytelling

device.

Who was that?

What happened?

He took our guns.

I think point of view is very important

in a movie. Whose point of view am I

seeing this from?

It's certainly not

the point of view of the audience. It's

sort of the point of view that's that

that

takes place inside the movie. And it it

it's it's it's interesting because, you

know, if you take something like The

Dark Knight, if I I could have made that

whole movie from the Joker's point of

view and it would have been morally

quite a different story. You can you can

tilt

you can tilt the currents of of

ambiguity constantly with a theme. You

know, really early on, you just figure

out who whose movie is this, you know,

whose story, whose story do I want to

tell. I mean, the, you know, the writer

does that, too. But in a funny way be

the the better the writing and the more

fleshed out the characters are, the more

interesting the you know the the

secondary characters become the

temptation becomes really um easy to go

and you know focus on the interesting

secondary character and and it it's just

you sort of have to discipline yourself

a little bit. Again, this is where it

becomes really useful. Once you've done

your once you've mocked up your score on

synth or whatever whatever it takes to

do whatever your process is, put it in

front of an audience because you really

quickly notice that you got far too

interested in the dark side and that you

know you'll just love writing for the

villain because it's a lot more fun than

writing for the for the happy people and

you just tilted the whole movie the

wrong way. You know, it's it all it's

all balancing. It's all all balancing

act.

I had to be very careful that I didn't

make him into a hero. Um because the

more

I invested in him, the more I loved him.