Nick Martin
Senior HTF Member
- Joined
- Mar 18, 2003
- Messages
- 2,690
There is no doubt that former keyboard programmer/performer Hans Zimmer has taken over the world of modern film music.
His influence is everywhere, but at the same time it quite skewed because it's primarily his own doing.
Zimmer's musical style was made popular in the Jerry Bruckheimer-produced hits like "Crimson Tide", "The Rock" and the "Pirates of the Caribbean" franchise, but what people may or many not know is that he has a type of monopoly on things:
Many years ago, Zimmer co-founded a company called "Media Ventures". It was a kind of composer talent / employment agency that attracted a large group of young would-be composers who were given the chance to be put to work on high-profile films out of the gate, with Zimmer overseeing the processes.
Due to some legalities with Zimmer's co-founders it is now known as "Remote Control Productions".
From what I've read, the idea is that directors would approach Zimmer's company, and Zimmer would either develop a series of thematic statements that would be given to the employees to mold and shape into a film score, or a series of composers might be given specific sequences to score but with a set of musical parameters, to give the whole thing a unified sound. They sound like the same thing, and sometimes they might be but I'm not entirely sure.
Zimmer would often give credit to these younger composers, despite originating the main themes and ideas on his own, relegating himself to a role of producer for the final credit.
There is a massive debate about the merits of this kind of musical factory approach, as the downside (if you see it that way), is that almost all major films have the same basic musical sound to them. The names credited may be different - Steve Jablonsky, Ramin Djawadi, Klaus Badelt and others but the music sound is the same, all based on a signature Zimmer himself created with those popular scores that put him on the map such as "Crimson Tide", "Black Rain" and "The Peacemaker".
That sound can be described as this:
A series of looped rhythms with powerful brass chord phrases, often in a pounding, propulsive manner.
It's not a graceful sound by any means - my own criticism of that sound has to do with the performances, since Zimmer and Co. will have a live orchestra perform the written music, but Zimmer will take that recording and overdub all of the brass and occasionally strings with synthesized versions of the same instruments, which (to me at least) cheapens the music to a huge degree - reducing what could have been a powerfully organic performance into that of a cheap keyboard rendering.
I listened to two "Gladiator" albums - the original and the follow up album which had a synthesized demo of the opening battle cue.
Despite a few editorial differences, the 'live' cue and the demo were interchangeable because of the synthesized overdubs on the live version.
It is Zimmer's trademark sound, and it's everywhere.
For those who are familiar with Zimmer's music, I suggest you do the following:
If you have the "Batman Begins" and "The Dark Knight" albums, play the following tracks back-to-back:
For "Begins", play 'Molossus'.
For "Dark Knight', play 'Introduce a little Anarchy'.
These two pieces of music have the same basic themes, but you'll easily hear the more processed, artificially enhanced sound of "Begins" compared to the "Dark Knight" cue, itself unfortunately damaged by overpowering bass and little dynamic range - like a rock or rap album. "The Dark Knight" is sort of the odd one out, given that it's one Zimmer action score without the heavy synth overdubs. Perhaps that was James Newton Howard's influence to avoid that, but that's only a guess.
Of course there is another side to Zimmer's musical personality, with gentler music in "As Good as it Gets" and "The Simpsons Movie", but I'm obviously talking about this bigger, more action-oriented sound that is what has taken over the film music landscape.
Directors and studios seem to think that it's what all big films should sound like and the biggest casualty of this is that traditional melodic themes have been on the way out, deemed to 'old fashioned' for more jaded modern audiences. It's all chords and rhythms now. From what I've noticed over the years, a lot of people seem to be eating it up and enjoying it as well. I guess you can't deny its effectiveness.
Unless there are sequels to be made, the larger-than-life musical days of "Star Wars" styled film music is long gone.
His influence is everywhere, but at the same time it quite skewed because it's primarily his own doing.
Zimmer's musical style was made popular in the Jerry Bruckheimer-produced hits like "Crimson Tide", "The Rock" and the "Pirates of the Caribbean" franchise, but what people may or many not know is that he has a type of monopoly on things:
Many years ago, Zimmer co-founded a company called "Media Ventures". It was a kind of composer talent / employment agency that attracted a large group of young would-be composers who were given the chance to be put to work on high-profile films out of the gate, with Zimmer overseeing the processes.
Due to some legalities with Zimmer's co-founders it is now known as "Remote Control Productions".
From what I've read, the idea is that directors would approach Zimmer's company, and Zimmer would either develop a series of thematic statements that would be given to the employees to mold and shape into a film score, or a series of composers might be given specific sequences to score but with a set of musical parameters, to give the whole thing a unified sound. They sound like the same thing, and sometimes they might be but I'm not entirely sure.
Zimmer would often give credit to these younger composers, despite originating the main themes and ideas on his own, relegating himself to a role of producer for the final credit.
There is a massive debate about the merits of this kind of musical factory approach, as the downside (if you see it that way), is that almost all major films have the same basic musical sound to them. The names credited may be different - Steve Jablonsky, Ramin Djawadi, Klaus Badelt and others but the music sound is the same, all based on a signature Zimmer himself created with those popular scores that put him on the map such as "Crimson Tide", "Black Rain" and "The Peacemaker".
That sound can be described as this:
A series of looped rhythms with powerful brass chord phrases, often in a pounding, propulsive manner.
It's not a graceful sound by any means - my own criticism of that sound has to do with the performances, since Zimmer and Co. will have a live orchestra perform the written music, but Zimmer will take that recording and overdub all of the brass and occasionally strings with synthesized versions of the same instruments, which (to me at least) cheapens the music to a huge degree - reducing what could have been a powerfully organic performance into that of a cheap keyboard rendering.
I listened to two "Gladiator" albums - the original and the follow up album which had a synthesized demo of the opening battle cue.
Despite a few editorial differences, the 'live' cue and the demo were interchangeable because of the synthesized overdubs on the live version.
It is Zimmer's trademark sound, and it's everywhere.
For those who are familiar with Zimmer's music, I suggest you do the following:
If you have the "Batman Begins" and "The Dark Knight" albums, play the following tracks back-to-back:
For "Begins", play 'Molossus'.
For "Dark Knight', play 'Introduce a little Anarchy'.
These two pieces of music have the same basic themes, but you'll easily hear the more processed, artificially enhanced sound of "Begins" compared to the "Dark Knight" cue, itself unfortunately damaged by overpowering bass and little dynamic range - like a rock or rap album. "The Dark Knight" is sort of the odd one out, given that it's one Zimmer action score without the heavy synth overdubs. Perhaps that was James Newton Howard's influence to avoid that, but that's only a guess.
Of course there is another side to Zimmer's musical personality, with gentler music in "As Good as it Gets" and "The Simpsons Movie", but I'm obviously talking about this bigger, more action-oriented sound that is what has taken over the film music landscape.
Directors and studios seem to think that it's what all big films should sound like and the biggest casualty of this is that traditional melodic themes have been on the way out, deemed to 'old fashioned' for more jaded modern audiences. It's all chords and rhythms now. From what I've noticed over the years, a lot of people seem to be eating it up and enjoying it as well. I guess you can't deny its effectiveness.
Unless there are sequels to be made, the larger-than-life musical days of "Star Wars" styled film music is long gone.
