Aquí os queda la segunda parte de la entrevista con Hans Zimmer:
B: Has Lion King--and your Academy Award for it--made a difference in your career? Because there were always movie music buffs who knew the name Hans Zimmer. But Lion King put you before the general public.
Z: First, I realized that I should not write things in three and a half weeks. Lion King could have been better if I had spent twice the time. Second, it's dangerous to work with black and white preproduction drawings and not have color because I think I got the orchestration wrong in a few places. Third, Lion King also made me reassess my situation in this town. You can go two ways. I admit that standing on the stage getting an Oscar is the most seductive moment one can have in one's life. It is truly overwhelming. And then you go, wow, if I just carry on writing nice music like this, I can have this moment again. It's a very Faustian sort of thing. That's why I did the exact opposite, scoring for truly offensive projects like The Fan. Just to shake myself out of the desire for that Oscar experience. Otherwise I would just stagnate. Nothing new would happen. For me, it's still about trying to write decent music. Ironically, despite all the scores I've written, there are very few I'm proud of.
B: Those are?
Z: A World Apart, Driving Miss Daisy, and a couple of cues in Crimson Tide. Black Rain had somehow set up a new way action movies should be scored. Soon everybody was doing the Black Rain thing. In Crimson Tide, I managed to break out of that trend, push it a bit further. So it was an evolutionary step.
B: The descendent of the Crimson Tide style would be Peacemaker?
Z: Yes. In Peacemaker, I managed to finish off all the ideas that I didn't quite get right in Crimson Tide. How many sunflowers scenes did Van Gogh paint before he was happy? You know what I mean? Sometimes it's nice to go over old ground just because you learn something. In film scoring, there's revolution and there's evolution.
B: Crimson Tide and Peacemaker aside, how do you feel about what I think is your best work?
Z: Drop Zone?
B: Correct.
Z: Drop Zone was written just for fun. I was being reckless--nothing to prove, nothing to lose. The director was just happy I was working with him. Remember, I come from rock n roll. At the same time, I grew up with classical music. So I'm always torn between the two. In Drop Zone, I could do both. And it never hurt! You know, with some scores, you come away with a lot of scars. In Drop Zone there weren't any. It was just a blast.
B: Scars?
Z: You just wear out your system. The late nights, the arguments. Crimson Tide was so hilarious because director Tony Scott, the producer Jerry Bruckheimer and I all argued for a whole week about one cue-- with me doing no writing. We just sat there, we'd come in every day and we'd go at each other.
B: So on the short list of best works, we can add Drop Zone?
Z: We can add Drop Zone, absolutely.
B: What else can we add?
Z: We can also add a little film I did for the BBC which I adore, which nobody has ever seen, called Two Deaths. I think it's some of the best stuff I ever composed.
B: I have some others that few know about-- Millennium and Fools of Fortune.
Z: Fools of Fortune was the first time anyone let me loose with an orchestra. I wrote it in two weeks. It's one of the few early scores I still really like. Maybe because I got all the romanticism out of my system.
B: So why hasn't the good music from Days of Thunder even been released?
Z: Because there wasn't any good music in it. Thelma and Louise, everybody keeps asking me why don't I release more of that?
B: I used to ask that same question. But I recently re-watched the film just to spot additional worthy cues? Yet I couldn't hear any music except for the Thunderbird theme at the end.
Z: There really isn't. People are under the impression there is. But I go around that one Thunderbird theme a couple of times, plus some little rock n rollish type things. I hate overstaying my welcome on these CDs--so there's just not enough. In fact, Crimson Tide is far too long a CD. If I allowed a score-only Thelma and Louise CD, it probably would have been only 10 minutes long.
B: Nor did Bird on a Wire ever release.
Z: It was too expensive to release.
B: Because of the orchestra union's reuse fees?
Z: Yes, I recorded Bird on a Wire in the U.S. If it's a 103-piece orchestra, you're talking serious dollars. Unless it was recorded overseas, say Hungary or London. On the other hand, when it is just me playing on the synthesizer, as in Green Card or Regarding Henry, we don't have all those expensive reuse fees. So those get released. Drop Zone, with that big orchestral sound was actually just me on synthesizer and Pete Haycock on guitar.
B: So why is one US-recorded score too expensive to release, and the next one not?
Z: Because someone says: "This could be it. This can sell some copies."
B: What if your name is Jerry Goldsmith and you don't want to compose on the synthesizer. Why are most of his orchestral scores released?
Z: Because he's Jerry Goldsmith. And he keeps going to Scotland to record with the Royal Scottish Philharmonic.
B: Yet his scores keep coming out. The Edge was one of his best in recent times.
Z: I also thought it was a great score, even better than LA Confidential.
B: Yes, LA Confidential was actually the third grandnephew of...
Z: ...Chinatown.
B: So fans will simply never hear Days of Thunder or Bird on a Wire?
Z: I don't think so. But then again, I've done some truly bad scores and Days of Thunder is one of them.
B: So you wouldn't like it to be re-released years from now as many old film scores are?
Z: No. Very often I'm the one saying, "No I don't think so, guys. Let's not do this one." There's just a big difference between how music works in the movie and releasing that score on a CD.
B: When you're composing, are you thinking about the CD or the movie, or both?
Z: I'm thinking about the movie--all the time. Today I'm sitting here mixing Prince of Egypt and everybody else is telling me it sounds great. But I just have doubts about it. Constantly. But that's the way I'm built. At the same time, the studio is asking me, what tracks are going on the CD, and I'm saying, "I don't know. Maybe two minutes's worth."
B: How long did you work on Prince of Egypt?
Z: I started on the songs three and half years ago, long before any drawings were made. Animators must coordinate to lip movements, so they really needed the songs first. For years, I worked on the project just one or two days per month--and even became involved in story shaping. During this same time, I completed a number of other scores including Peacemaker and As Good as it Gets.
B: How involved were you in the visual product?
Z: Animation is a very collaborative process. Everybody just puts their two cents in. Then you look at a storyboard and see someone heard your idea. But Prince of Egypt was especially daunting--a Bible story. I was constantly worried about offending people. So last January I just allowed myself the shortest possible timeframe to compose the score portion. I just went with my instincts. By February. I was mixing.
B: What was the big difference between Prince of Egypt and Lion King?
Z: Unlike Lion King, for Prince of Egypt I had plenty of color drawings. Everything but the burning bush. In Lion King, I wasn't that involved with animation and didn't really understand the process. For Prince of Egypt, I saw the color charts. In fact, in the Burning Bush sequence I wrote the score first and then they colored it.
B: What type of scars did Prince of Egypt leave?
Z: While recording in London, I was the most miserable I have ever been. I was so grumpy because I thought I ruined the whole movie. I dropped into a complete insecurity. I was convinced none of the music would fit the action. Then, I became more and more panicked and didn't tell anybody. But everyone around me noticed. I was impossible to be with. Finally, one of my staffers kicked me out of the studio for a week and half to organize everything. There were 88 tracks of music. Imagine you are an air traffic controller. There are 88 airplanes circling over LAX, all running out of fuel, and you must decide which one lands first. That's what it was like. Now they are saying its a great score. So it's easy for me to answer, "no problem."
B: How was Israeli singer Ofra Haza selected for the lead songs?
Z: I have always loved Ofra and asked for her. If I ask hard enough, I get it. and she was the first person we cast. She is tremendous and recorded 13 of the foreign translations as well.
B: So is Prince of Egypt going to rate on your short list of favorite soundtracks?
Z: Yes. Just because the burning bush was so impossible to score, but I think I pulled it off.
B: Do you score on notation paper, or on computer?
Z: Computer.
B: And do you score out the complete orchestration yourself?
Z: Yes, absolutely. Nobody comes in. But I do send the finished work to an orchestrator, my friend Bruce Fowler, who goes through the score to make sure it is actually playable by human beings.
B: Earlier, we were talking about innovation and inspiration. Just where is it? Consider: Magnificent Seven, Psycho, Midnight Cowboy, the James Bond series, Omen--these are lasting themes that we all know. Is soundtrack music more prolific, but less inspired? Among all the thousands of scores being released--how much of it has become memorable?
Z: You want a name? John Williams' Shindler's List.
B: Which thrives on one genre theme.
Z: But you know I think it's as good as John has ever written. I looked at that score very closely when I was starting to do Prince of Egypt, because the one thing I didn't want to do is go anywhere near that music, for obvious reasons. So first, I just listened to it for the fun of it. Second, I just got drawn in, not only into the craftsmanship, but just the genius of it.
B: So you can name one or two great scores. Yet among the thousands in recent years, you don't see 10, 20 or 30 great scores?
Z: You might not have them because the movies might not have happened. Why is the score from Titanic so incredibly successful?
B: Yeah, why?
Z: Because it works with the movie. I think it works on the lowest common denominator. No more, no less. But it works.
B: Yet the score to Titanic has done a great deal for the world of soundtracks.
Z: I know. But now we're going to hear these generic Titanic songs. Like Feelings has become a very annoying song. We have to differentiate between popularity and quality. The Los Angeles Times ran a great headline a few years ago after a Michael Bolton concert here saying, "Five Million People Can Be Wrong."
B: What about the proliferation of pop songs within the soundtracks. I'm writing a story for the Chicago Tribune called Scores vs. Songs. And my first sentence is going to be, "Why does Godzilla need a song?"
Z: Yeah, why does it? I have no idea.
B: Well, maybe the producers are now looking at the billion bucks associated with Titanic.
Z: Marketability.
B: Producers say "I need a hit record."
Z: There are two things going on. On the one hand, you have the action, or light, fun kind of movies which always need songs flying around, for their genre of picture. On the other hand, there are movies like The English Patient, which I believe didn't have a song.
B: So do you see soundtrack music becoming more creative, more inspired, or is it all going to homogenize into sound effects--what I call museffex?
Z: Here's my own personal theory. Warner Bros. has had a very bad year. And they've always specialized in the big effects movie. The Postman didn't do well for them at all. Batman and Robin didn't--I thought it was an atrocious film. I think the big effects thing is becoming passe. We're bored with it. Jim Brooks and I went low-tech with As Good As It Gets. Our biggest special effect is somebody driving a car.Nobody's shooting at anybody.
B: Are you saying we're going to cycle back to the inspired music?
Z: But you see inspired music arises from an inspired movie which arises from an inspired script.
B: Thank you, Mr. Zimmer.
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