All language subtitles for 02 - Themes - Hans Zimmer Teaches Film Scoring

What?

Nothing means anything

until you have a tune and

a tune.

That's the job.

You sit there in front of the piano and

the 88 notes on that keyboard.

Of which only 11 means something
before they repeat in the octave.

And, you know, everybody else has played
those notes before, and somehow

you have to figure out
how to write something original with it.

But at the same time, not too original

because it has to be appropriate
to the story.

I mean, it's
not I'm not doing concert music. I,

trying to be telling

the parallel story
that the filmmakers are taking.

So there's there's the restrictions.

Yet you're supposed to be completely free.

So that contradictions
and everything I do.

a great example of

all of that is actually Beethoven's Fifth.

Not that I'm comparing myself
to Beethoven,

but that I know,

every kid's walked up to the piano
and gone.

Da da da da.

But he knew somehow
that out of those notes,

you could go and build castles in the sky,
that you could invent something.

You could tell a story with those notes.

There's so simple.

That's what you
you need to figure out how to how to find

the simplest thing,
to set the thing in motion.

But you have to at the same time.

And this is this is why I sit there day
in, day out, you know,

driving myself crazy.

You have to know,
you have to make a decision

that whatever those opening notes are,

whatever the first thing is that
you have to say is actually going to hold

what is actually going to somehow
take you through this vast arc of a story

and not halfway through the movie,
you suddenly go, you know, something?

I can't I can't make these notes become

mournful, happy, exciting.

You know, all the different personalities
they need to,

take on, you know,
and sometimes you just have to kill

your favorite babies. So.

Even though you're trying to write

from inspiration, you're trying to be,

relatively practical that,

you know, one of the things

I don't do is I don't use a lot of

exuberant key changes in my music.

even if I do,
I try to always come back to my home.

Key part of that is practical.

I like

writing and.

I like writing in D,

and everybody thinks it's
because I'm lazy,

which is true,
but it's not the reason I write in D.

I write in D because.

In this modern day and age,

the basis can go down to C,

which is that open string, but
they can't do vibrato on the open string.

So D is actually a good note because
they'll do a little bit of a Brasso.

And it's nice that if you go from.

It's satisfying, you know.

So if I have to give you an answer,

if I have to complete a phrase
and I have to give you an answer,

I like when it when,

but it ends on a note that basis.

I'm sorry.

And violas

k violins is a different matter

can land on in a satisfying way.

You know, at least I set myself up
to have that possibility.

The whole score might never do this,
and it might just be, you know, up here.

but I
don't know that at the beginning. So.

So if I pick something that gives me the,
the give me the most freedom,

the most possibilities, I'm,

you know, I'm at least starting.

I'm solid ground.

I think of everything.

I mean, look,

you know, wherever my hand falls,
you know,

it's a question.

It's an answer.

I mean, it's just how I.

You know, I can make the question longer.

It's just,

I think there's a there's a natural.

Way in music where you

where you're basically
having a conversation,

or you want to have a conversation.

Sometimes you leave it.

Leave it as a question.

But another question.

And then if you really want to.

You know, and I mean, it's just,
you know, I'm not writing anything.

I'm just, you know, it's just it's.

And I stop

speaking because
I feel I'm having that conversation

right now with you.

Oh, that's bit of a dodgy question here.

I'm being a bit confrontational.

And I can take the tension out.

Got happier about.

That came.

So it's the language, you know.

So. So,

I don't know, I just I just always,

you know, I love the thin red line
because I'm looking with tonic.

tear my.

One of the things

he kept saying is,

is that the question is more interesting
than the answer.

And the whole movie. Just ask questions.

We never say anything.

You know, it's like a sort of a bit.

It's a it's a bit boring, you know,
usually the answer is a bit mundane.

So, so to maintain the tension,

see if you can just raise

the stake in the questions.

You know,

if it's a love story,
you know what she said?

you know what she says? Yes.

You know, I'll marry you,

with, you know,

and, and and, you know, yes,
some movie stars at that point.

But, you know, it's it's
but but very often

the journey in
this case is more interesting.

The question is more interesting.

So yes, I do think these tunes
and I don't think them through,

I just naturally gravitate towards things
which,

ask questions.

I think
because I think that's more interesting.

You know, all music is made up out of

little fragments of ideas that you're
trying to make into a cohesive sense.

I mean,
so I have my first two words as said.

Well.

And I knew it would work down there.

And you have to sort of

you have to test the DNA very quickly,
you know, you know, is it adaptable?

Can it become for.

What can it become?

You know, and it's it's this thing.

I mean, it is actually of storytelling.

I mean, if you look at it as the.

That's the question.

And then the,

what is it?

There's a half

an answer which again ends on a question

that's a part of what you want to do.
Of course.

And, and all movies as you as like,
you know, when you,

when you work on a love story,
a romantic movie, the

the last thing you want to hear
is them saying, I love you to each other.

You know, that's the part you want to
postpone until the very, very last frame.

Going back to the

I mean,

this you can't get any more banal than.

Okay, so I changed it a bit.

I made it more.

Just on purpose.

Because it it felt it.

I mean, you know,
I wanted a bit of meanness

and then know.

The fucks over question is that, you know.

So, so

you know,
and there's a little twinkle in it

and the obstacles we can put in that sway.

more interesting on the,
you know, the crookedness we can,

you know, I mean, so part of part of the
what the tunes are trying to do,

what the tunes automatically are
trying to do is set up questions

which are half answered
with another question at the end

so that they can drive forward
does not make sense.

So I just I would just.

Look, so.

I live
just a little smack of a question again.

Yeah.

That's quite a strong answer.

There's this.

Just me seeing what happens
if you have a down an octave.

So it's a bit more spooky.

all that it sits on the dialog.

And it's just something.

I mean, it's not even much of a tune. It's
just.

It's a very efficient motif because it's
short and succinct and there's a lot.

And for both.

Christmas being very specific about

he was being very unspecific
in his specificity by saying,

hey, look,
I'm just going to give you this page,

but I'm not going to tell you
what the movie is about.

and he gave me,

the stable

about what it means to be a father.

but, you know,

and he cleverly

steered it in a way that I thought,
you know,

that that automatically made me think
about my relationship with myself.

so I wrote him this tiny,

very personal

theme.

And then, you know,
he told me, you know, the this is a movie

about the vastness of everything,
you know, the,

expanse of the universe, you know, space
and a science fiction, etc.

and it's epic and it's all these things.

But what he had was.

Just a very simple,

you know, just

it's warm and it's small
and it's intimate.

And it meant,

however, it's easy

to go big, it's easy
to throw a kitchen sink and it's easy

to it's easy to go get a big dog
and make a hell of a racket.

But but

we knew we could always return
to the heart of the story.

You know, the heart of the story was.

I mean, this tune couldn't be any simpler.

And the great thing is,
if you start with something

which is so simple and so small and so,

you know,
just just a few notes in the right order.

I mean.

I don't think that's
a, I think I maybe 1 or 2 tunes

I've written that you can't actually
just play with one finger.

You know.

The the simplicity of the material

lets you
then go and expand outwards, you know?

But if it's not, it's the heart of it.

If the kernel of it is intellectually

tied, it's emotionally tied.

You've got something, you know, it's like,

I mean,

I keep going, keep going to this, but,
you know, the,

Beethoven's Fifth.

It's all in those

two notes, all he needed, you know, to go.

And then create a firework

of amazing emotions
orchestration, excitement,

you know, pathos, whatever you
whatever you want.

But, you know, know what you're
talking about and and your theme.

No. What you want to say.

You've got to be clear about that.

It's very hard to
to to write an instruction

manual and music,
you know, a trusty course in music.

It's the it's
not the appropriate language,

but it's an appropriate language
to express,

emotion.

And I think that's all that's happened
over the centuries

that we are compelled to tell stories,
the compelled to make up stories.

That's what film is about.

That's, you know, we're compelled to tell

the fable of our existence of,

you know, our human journey or whatever.

And I think

when we run out of words

and when we run out of beautiful pictures,

we have to resort to this other language
called music.

And I'm not trying to be profound, and
I'm not trying to do anything significant.

But you,

when you spend a little bit of time
thinking about it,

you can actually express some fairly
good things about the human condition

and notes
that you might not be able to express

quite as brilliantly, and perhaps.