All language subtitles for MasterClass Hans Zimmer Teaches Film Scoring - 27Hans Journey

I grew up in Germany without television.

So my parents basically thought

television was, you know, the end of

culture as we know it. I remember

roughly at the age of 12 sneaking into

the back door of the little local cinema

in our little village and they were

playing once upon a time in the west

and it was just the huge Sier Leone

images was the Anya Maricone music and I

went that's what I want to do. I've been

misled all my life being taken to

concerts and operas. This is where it's

at. It never occurred to me that I could

actually go and do movies. What happened

was that my writing of music changed and

it became more about storytelling. I

became more interested in telling a

story in music than anything else. And

you know I did the usual um was in a pop

band um I did a record with a chap

called Trevor Horn called Video Kill the

Radio Star which sort of really what we

wanted to do we wanted to make a movie.

we didn't really want to make a record

and the record is very much a story. So

I became more and more interested and

fascinated by the possibilities that

music and images had. Um

one of the pro one of the problems I had

in my sort of pop music experience was

that it felt very limited in many in

many many ways. one partly it was the

structure of a pop song was always you

know introvere chorus bridge chorus

chorus chorus out um so the structure

was always the same and it didn't expand

and it didn't expand on you couldn't

take emotional risks in a funny way and

you couldn't tell the stories I wanted

to tell or I wanted to talk about and

movies let you do that you know and I

will miss the late nights on the British

motorways forever but not really. And

exchange it for late night sitting in

front of movie screens and talking to

directors. And really

part of part of the

thing that happened as well about

writing for movies was suddenly you you

were in a room with people who knew how

to tell a story. And it was I mean look

the first director I ever met met met

with was Nick Rogue, Steven Friers, you

know those sort of English directors in

the 80s. you know, working on things

like My Beautiful Lerette, which were

stories which felt relevant. It they

felt more relevant than the pop songs we

were doing. There was a sort of a

freedom attached to the way we could

structure music and we could, you know,

if if today I wanted to write a

psychedelic country and western heavy

metal song, nobody was stopping me from

doing it. While in the record business,

you know, which pretended that you had

freedom, um it was quite the opposite

where you were actually put into these

narrow little boxes. You know, you are

doing electroop, you're doing whatever

you're doing. So, the freedom that came

with doing movies was um enormously

attractive.

I came to cinema weirdly late. I mean, I

I told you earlier that um the first

thing I really saw was Once Upon a Time

in the West because I sort of snuck in

as a kid, you know. Um I still owe the

money. Um and it just blew me away

because for the first time I could make

sense of Yeah. Peter and the Wolf was

great as a kid because somebody was

telling you a story and the music was

excellent. And I think the whole thing

for me was that that I was just

surrounded by music and the only sort of

entertainment I had was you know playing

around on the piano and it formed my

direction in so far that this was the

most pleasurable thing playing music.

Um, the music that I loved in a funny

way told stories. You know, it's it it

figured out, you know, I can sit there

and listen to to any Beethoven symphony

and he's telling me a story. And I just

I like the storytelling aspect of it

because there is an arc that goes

through these pieces of music. And you

listen to any good piece of music, there

is a narrative arc. Um, it doesn't

matter how abstract the piece is, there

is a narrative arc. And I became

interested in

how to capture this narrative arc. And I

tried to get into film as quickly as

possible because I knew that and I

didn't I didn't want to be the lead

singer or anything like this either.

That I think the idea that the story and

the picture and the images

is the driving force and I get to be

sort of the engine underneath it. I get

to help tell the story as opposed to be

the one

telling the story by myself. Uh just,

you know, it's just what I love doing. I

just love being part of this other band,

which isn't just musicians, but it's

directors and writers and actors. Um,

in a funny way, I I see myself, I

suppose, more as a filmmaker than as a

musician because I sort of know how to

if I have to use words, which I have to

do now, I sort of know how to

communicate in the filmmaker language. I

know that language. But then I can do

this one thing which they can't most of

them can't do which is I can go and sit

down at the piano or at a synthesizer or

something like this and I can

get just beyond language and I think

that's what good film music does.

I have to give you some context. The

context basically is that I am convinced

and absolutely sure of this fact that I

have no idea how to do your movie. I'm

no I'm not good enough. And everybody's

going to say by now, oh, you've done a

100 or something movie. You you know

what you're doing. But it's not like

that. It's always a blank piece of

paper. And I can't remember any of that

stuff I've done before. So everything is

like, oh my god, I have no idea what to

do. As much as I wanted to come to Los

Angeles and I wanted to go and and work

on on the movies that I was a fan of,

work with the filmmakers that I was a

fan of, work with artists that truly

meant something to me. Um, I thought if

I come here, I I have nothing to show. I

you know it's it's I'll just be lost in

the sea of

enormously talented people if you know

if I I'm do I was doing music. I was

doing music and I was happy with doing

music. I was I was actually working on

some pretty cool films in England and

one of the little films I did was uh

it's actually a really great movie

called A World Apart and about seven

people saw it. One of them was Diana

Levenson, Barry Levenson's wife. And not

only did she like the movie, she liked

the soundtrack. And it was in the days

when they had these round things called

CDs. And she actually, and I'm being

very precise about this because I

thought it was so amazing. She went to a

record shop and bought Barry the CD and

gave it to him. And he was working on

Rainman and somehow this music spoke to

him. and the style spoke to him and he

didn't have my address. No, he he had my

address, but he didn't have my phone

number. So, at 11:00 on a wet whatever

Thursday, let's say, in London, there's

a knock on the door. There's a guy

standing outside going, "Hello, my name

is Barry Levenson." Pause. I'm a

director. And I'm going, "Yeah, you and

my mom both." But as I look behind him

in this narrow little shabby alley that

my studio was in, um, there two, not one

but two enormous limousines. And that's

not something you find in London. So I'm

thinking, oh, maybe he isn't a fraud.

Well, come on in. And we started talking

and and and he said, you know, he was

actually quite hesitant about, you know,

would I come to Los Angeles and look at

his movie? And of course I didn't say to

him I would love to and no I have never

been.

I didn't know anything you know and and

to be I mean it actually set me in a

certain direction because I came to Los

Angeles and I didn't know anybody and I

certainly didn't know how it all worked.

So I just set up my little synthesizers

and stuff like this in his office right

next to his cutting room and it became

sort of my preferred way of working that

you're that you're you know you're part

of you're part of the team. you know,

Barry could just come in, see what I was

up to, you know, we could throw ideas at

each other. And if I really needed to

write, you know, I needed the privacy,

I could just sort of gently

tell him to go and maybe cut a bit more

picture.

I was an academic failure. I mean I you

know I was an academic failure except I

was lucky I got an internship with this

incredible film composer. I was

basically making coffee for Stanley

Myers. I mean the way I got the job was

Stanley was incredibly musically

literate and I knew a little bit about

technology. I knew nothing about the

orchestra or about films

and he bought an espresso machine that

he couldn't work. So I I learned how to

use the espresso machine and he got me

into, you know, like the first meeting I

had was sort of with Steven. I I was

just part of it. I was just in the room.

And the interesting thing was that you

saw I was observing just the way

you in a funny way are observing right

now. Um that there was a question that

didn't have an answer to it. And this

question posed a problem. This scene,

how are we going to put music to it?

What is the music? Does the scene need

music? Any of these things, but they

weren't theoretical questions. They were

real questions because here was a real

scene that didn't have music to it. And

over here was a deadline and the movie

was coming out. And I'm watching Stanley

and the director basically go, we have

no idea what to do. And by the end of

the conversation there was a glimmer of

an idea, you know, and there was and

then maybe by the next meeting there

were a couple of notes there and you saw

something you saw the possibility of of

getting there of something being written

and and I think

that's the you know that's that's the

part I'm always missing when when we

have a lot of interns here who come from

colleges and I'm not saying the colleges

are bad. I'm saying the colleges are

fantastic because they know their music

theory. They know all that stuff but

they don't quite know real world stuff

which and and

it's your first day and you're making

coffee and you're just sitting here and

you're not saying anything but somehow

you're you're already part of the

solution. You're already part of the

process. Your presence in the room

already changes the s of the chemistry

of how things are and your presence in

the room of watching observing being

part of something and there is no such

thing as a stupid question. I mean some

of the greatest solutions to

amazing filmmakers being in this room

with

me ba being unleashed with vast

orchestras were solved by an intern

going what about if you tried you know

and nobody goes that's the worst idea

I've ever heard everybody goes oh yeah I

never thought about it that way so

you're part you know the the the thing

is get involved be part of it. You know,

there is no such thing as a as as a

stupid question because none of us know

what we're doing. We're just making it

all up.

No, there's no bounds. But you know

because you know I I have I tried you

know when my children were born I tried

to

live a normal life and get up at 9:00 in

the morning or 8:00 or whatever you

people do that I don't still you know I

forgot what you people do. Um and

promptly at 1:00 a.m. I would get my

first idea except I would be much too

tired to go and actually execute it. So

this went on for bed and then you know

the time started slipping again and I

started

you know doing my usual being up all

night. Um but I had a letter from my son

recently and he said

dad you were a great dad. I just want to

point out you were a great dad just not

a normal dad but them all piling and

coming over to the studio where where we

make things there things happening and

there was you know was with everybody

around them there was a sense of fun and

there was a sense of work ethic and

there was a thing you know I would go

and take the kids as soon as they could

sort of sit upright you know the the

sort of potted plant state of

development and I would plunk them into

the middle of an orchestra

which is an amazing way to experience

music and an an incredible luxury. No,

I've I I haven't been the normal family

man and the normal any of this and

I I suppose I never will be. You know, I

I keep thinking I'm just the luckiest

person on earth to have this job. I I'm

the luckiest person on earth that I get

to do this. Um, and I know that I'm the

luckiest person on earth because I'm

quite incapable of doing anything else.