Hans Zimmer
Hans Zimmer
Hans Florian Zimmeris a German composer and record producer. Since the 1980s, he has composed music for over 150 films. His works include The Lion King, for which he won Academy Award for Best Original Score in 1994, the Pirates of the Caribbean series, The Thin Red Line, Gladiator, The Last Samurai, The Dark Knight Trilogy, Inception, and Interstellar...
NationalityGerman
ProfessionComposer
Date of Birth12 September 1957
CityFrankfurt, Germany
CountryGermany
I try to communicate with the musicians the way I communicate with the filmmakers. I'm not going to say to them, can we be a little bit more presto here. Hang on, this should be a bit more exciting, or I try to explain the scene to them, or I try to explain the context the notes are supposed to live in.
I've spent my life trying to make things simpler..
The first thing I think about is music, and the last thing I think about is music. I'm like some Monk. I don't see a lot of daylight. I hang out with musicians, I hang out with directors and I just try to spend as much of my life as possible playing music.
I've spent my life trying to make things simpler. Because I find ultimately that complicated doesn't reach the heart.
Wings of a Film: The Music of Hans Zimmer.
when (producers) are going, 'This scene really doesn't work and we need some help here,' and you realize what they're saying is you can make or break this movie.
Trust me, if you're working on a $70 million movie and you're the last guy, you feel all that weight on your shoulders,
You have to realize I like doing big movies that appear on a big screen. So the visuals and the audio have to be of a certain quality before I start to get excited about the thing.
When movies first came out, maybe they were in black and white and there wasn't any sound and people were saying the theater is still the place to be. But now movies and theater have found their own place in the world. They are each legitimate art forms.
'The Graduate' must be the best use of songs ever in a movie; it adds a layer to the movie you wouldn't ever get from a score.
With animated film, you have to create the sonic world; there's nothing there. You get to color things in more and you're allowed to overreach yourself a little bit more, and it's great fun.
Here's something I probably shouldn't be saying: I never listen to my soundtrack albums because I can't stand it. It's just stereo. When I write, I write in surround. My life is in surround.
If something happened where I couldn't write music anymore, it would kill me. It's not just a job. It's not just a hobby. It's why I get up in the morning.
A soundtrack can carry a visual along, be an unforgettable addition to the film and sometimes there is a small moment of something really great, which exists as beautiful music on its own merit.