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Posted: |
Jul 11, 2013 - 11:33 AM
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By: |
Neilbucket
(Member)
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you dismiss as Zimmer fanatics (which I suppose includes me since I am trying to rid these threads of such 'vitriol'),
See that's the problem. You and a bunch of other guys automatically put yourselves into the "Zimmer fanatics" bracket while my comment was not directed to you, and (not you in this case) proceed to use high-classy words like "troll" and "shit" and whatnot.
A discussion can only be civil if both sides are civil. --Mind, that jabbing fun at a public figure in the wake of a arguably sycophantic article is not being "rude". If I fail to entertain you, my apologies; but if a person is offended by my jabbing of Levine The Errand Boy, well said person honestly is quite sensitive.
Well, when you proclaim "Maybe it's "vitriol" in the eyes of Zimmer fanatics?", and I consider what goes on as vitriol, it can be taken no other way.
And of course, civility thrives when all involved work to participate that way. But remember that your first post in this thread was little more than an insult of the person who penned the insiders POV. Instead of chiming in with a mature critique of what he had to say, you launched into insults with the following:
"HAHAHAHAHA! I actually feel bad about this Levine guy: even with this amount of ridiculous ass kissing, he still got no big solo assignment from Zimmer Da Man, after 8 years of mopping the floor and occassionally playing two notes on a violin.
But hey, what do I know? Guy is a professional violinist so he is entitled to equal any "cat-jumping-on-a-piano" to John Cage and any "repeating-two-notes-like-a-drone" to Philip Glass. Right?"
Maybe you were aiming to give others a chuckle. Maybe that's how you really feel. But that does not qualify is respectful or civil. It has not one rebuttal of what was offered in the article, it did not offer counterpoint. It came across as petulance - and if that raises the ire of those who came to the thread to have a mature discussion, can you blame them? And then the thread breaks down into having to self-moderate the childishness out of the thread (which takes up pages and pages of back and forth, to no constructive end) - and the honest discussion of the original posters note is utterly lost.
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Utter baloney I just read this thing Mr. Line posted. It's one thing to say, "I like Hans, he's a good guy, people like his work and he gets hired as a result, blah, blah, blah," buts entirely another thing to come in and tell everybody Hans is basically a scoring Zeus and you all don't understand how it works, including hundred & hundreds of composers out there.
I wish FSM had a better quote function, so I'll just use bolding:
1) HANS IS A VISIONARY. In films there is a process called "spotting" in which the composer and director decide what kind of music is needed where. Hans is the best spotter I've ever observed.
Opinion. A man isn't a visionary for doing something people have done as well, sometimes better, for many decades before he even started. He's a visionary for doing something that's been done before. Bullcrap. And by the way, incase of Zimmerites want to come down on that, I'd say the say thing had it been Goldsmith or Horner, and Morton Stevens or some orchestrator for Horner, laid claim the two were visionaries for spotting films.
But long before spotting, he will spend weeks writing a musical suite which is the source of the musical themes of the film. Oddly, this isn't really about music - it's about the essence of what the story and the characters are.
Yeah, 'cause you couldn't go to runmovies.eu, or whip out passed issues of FSM, and read composers never do that, right? This isn't new. It certainly isn't "visionary".
But he also fearlessly pushes himself, challenging the limits of what is acceptable in our medium. In Batman: Dark Knight, long before we had footage of the film, Hans asked Heitor Pereira (guitar), Martin Tillman (cello), and me (violin and tenor violin) to separately record some variations on a set of instructions involving 2 notes, C and D. This involved a fair amount of interpretation! For those who are familiar with classical music, it was John Cage meets Phil Glass. We each spent a week making hundreds of snippets. Then we had to listen to each other's work and re-interpret that. The end result was a toolbox of sounds that provided Hans with the attitude of his score.
He fearlessly challenged himself by having other people do the grunt work? Try spending some time with Ennio Morricone.
2) HANS WORKS VERY, VERY HARD. When working on a project - which is most of the time - Hans usually arrives at the studio at 11 am and then works until 3 or 4 in the morning. 7 days a week. For months. As the deadline approaches, everything else fades away.
So do other composers. I'm sure you can all cite examples you've all read over the years, but I'll limit myself to two:
Howard Blake almost literally (not figuratively) killed himself to make a deadline. And Christopher Young keeps ungodly hours as well.
Time and time again I've read a composer explaining that as a deadline approaches, you suddenly have to challenge yourself; suddenly it melts away and you clear the mental roadblock. There are plenty of compsoers whom work hard to do what they do, many in complete obscurity, but they try nonetheless. This is not why Zimmer got the job and they did not. Covered later below.
3) HANS IS THE BEST FILM MUSIC PRODUCER IN THE BUSINESS. We're not talking about technical music skills. Hans is a so-so pianist and guitarist and his knowledge of academic theory is, by intention, limited. (I was once chastised while working on The Simpsons Movie for saying "lydian flat 7" instead of "the cartoon scale.") He doesn't read standard notation very well, either. But no one reads piano roll better than he does. [The piano roll is a page of a music computer program that displays the notes graphically.] Which gets to the heart of the matter: Hans knows what he needs to know to make it sound great.
All these skills can be applied to living and deceased composers. None of these, by the way, make for the best of producing film music. You want somebody who is the "best" (loosely defined, since no one person holds the mantel), let's try somebody who would dare to only spend their time working on one score a whole year. Whom does all the orchestrations themselves. Whom knows what they want in advance and doesn't have a room full of fledgling composers helping him develop the score. Somebody whom works on paper, with a pen so they can't erase and start over; no computer. They go home to their living room and done have a studio or a moching name "Remote Control" (I think Kilar would roll his eyes). But, OMG -- Hans can read a piano roll on a computer like nobody's business!
4) HANS WORKS WITH GREAT PEOPLE. Take a look at the composers who have worked for Hans: John Powell, Harry Gregson-Williams, Heitor Pereira, Henry Jackman, Steve Jablonsky, Lorne Balfe, Trevor Morris, Ramin Djawadi, Jeff Rona, Mark Mancina, Atli Orvarsson, Geoff Zanelli, Blake Neeley, Stephen Hilton, Tom "Junkie XL" Holkenborg and on and on. And Alan Meyerson, his mixer. And Bob Badami, Ken Karman, his music editors. (Bob's credits alone dwarf about everybody in the business). His great percussionists, Satnam Ramgotra and Ryeland Allison. Sound designers, Howard Scarr and Mel Wesson. Not to mention Steve Kofsky, his business partner. And all the tech whizzes he's had over the years: Mark Wherry, Sam Estes, Pete Snell, Tom Broderick. Even his personal assistants - Andrew Zack, then Czar Russell - are remarkable.
I'll see your John Powell and give you a Morton Stevens. I'll see you Harry Gregson-Williams and give you an Alexander Courage. I call your Lorne Balfe and give you the late Greig McRitchie.
I call BOTH your percussionists and simply give you Emil Richards. And than I refer to the late Shelly Mann.
No doubt any of the people Levine named can do their job and do it well and certainly are not necessarily shoddy or poor in their abilities, but if I made a list of musicians and orchestrators, I could get to a hundred and not name any of these people.
5) HANS IS A CHARMER.
And we know about Bernard Herrmann. We know about what later in life Leonard Rosenman was supposedly like. Their scores, even the rehash, is head over heals that of Zimmer. What being charming has to do with the quality of output, is a wholly different thing.
I'd take a gruff composer whom pushed against me at times but delivered "Vertigo" or "North By Northwest", anyday. And any producer or director who can't, needs to grow an artistic pair.
6) HANS DELIVERS.
There are litterally hundreds & hundreds delivering every day! People often don't think about the sheer volume of music being made every week. TV commercials (some shown only in certain locallities, or in certain countries) across the world. Documenties across the world. Short films across the world. TV series across the world. Reality shows across the world. Online content, like website music or online programming, across the world. Films across the world. Library and trailer music across the world. I'd dare say in a years a thousand compoers deliver. This is not, again, the reason Zimmer got the job and so-and-so did not.
Hans often gets hired for massive projects. The reason he uses an army of people is that he needs them to keep up with the demands of the directors and the studios. Halfway through Rango, Gore Verbinski suddenly changed direction, threw almost everything out, and we started over. Without a team to carry out the new directions, we'd have been dead.
John Williams, Maurice Jarre, Jerry Goldsmith, and many more, had the good sense to limit their work to what they can do rather than mass produce just because they can. Quality over quantity. And they had no shortage of work.
I've read this before: a picture has trouble, they need to toss the score. They ask the composer if they want to try again. The composer is already contractually obligated to another film or just professionally declines. I mean, my God -- it's friggin' okay to let a picture go and some other composer get the job, Hans. You are not the only composer in Hollywood. You got to the top, congrats! Now, let some other people get a shot when possible; you'll still be up there, your paycheck won't suffer, more work will come.
Look at what happened to Howard Shore on King Kong, Marc Shaiman on Team America, Maurice Jarre on River Wild, Gabriel Yared on Troy, or the great Bernard Herrmann on Torn Curtain? In each case they were fired because the studio or director lost faith that they could shift direction quickly enough once their original approach was rejected. In 150+ films this has never happened to Hans.
You're right, let's actually look at these films and not just clump them together like the same thing happened on each.
Shore bowed out after he and the director realized it wasn't working. He did not get fired. So, this one isn't right.
Marc Shaiman was replaced late in the game, after recording the score things went haywire. As he said in an interview I did with him:
"To make a long story short, they COMPLETELY eliminated post production to rush the films into theatres for the 2 weeks before election day. So...Trey NEVER had time to EVER hear A NOTE that I was writing because he was still editing and rewriting and RE-SHOOTING (!) the movie. So, when he heard my score, he thought it was too playful and that he wanted it to be even more wallpapery, like "just give me 5 minutes of battle music, 5 minutes af sad music, etc...."
There simply was not time for him to do a new score and it was nothing about his "direction". As he joked in his song from "Finding Kraftland", "[...] 'cause I don't work in groups like Hanzi Zimmer and his troops!"
Jarre also prefered to work it himself and three weeks plus other contractual obligations, left him unable to do a new score. He expressed in at least one interview (I think with FSM) that he doesn't like these rushed deadlines.
"Troy", a test audience (which reportedly, though I have not been able to confirm, was ONE GUY'S complaint that did him in) got this score. Let's see if Zimmer feels like rescoring a film after spend a year-and-a-half working on it as a labor of love, only to get canned from a test audience.
And Hitchcock and Herrmann are special cases. And even putting that aside, Hitchcock was furious -- Herrmann wasn't getting another chance.
Lucky Zimmer if he hasn't had this happen. But if you play it safe with an army of composers behind you, I guess it's not likely to occur.
Hey, what did Miklós Rózsa say? Oh, that's right! The quote goes something like this: You're not a real composer until you've had a score thrown out.
And there's also what Basil Poledouris said:
"The reason scores get changed so much is that the music is the last chance to 'save' the film. They can't go back and reshoot it, they can't recast it, they've re-edited it a hundred times. The only thing they can still do is change the music. They always think 'Maybe the music will save it,' but music can't save a bad film. Nothing can."
BTW, he is also very aware of what the power structure is - who really makes decisions. I was fired - or more accurately not hired after a trial period - from a film because I jumped through hoops for the director who had hired me while not spending enough time figuring out what the producer - the actual power - wanted. Rather than being sympathetic, Hans told me I had failed in a fundamental task: determining who was my boss. He was right, and I haven't made that mistake again.
That's one way of looking at it, but I'll tell you plain and simple after tons of research and talking to composers, producers and some directors: the studio is in charge. No matter what. If they don't like what you are doing, they can step in and take care of that.
You don't think a studio, let's just pick a random name, Universal, would allow Jerry Bruckheimer to drag production on a film for three years, double or triple the bidget, throw out a score? It can and does happen to films every year, for decades.
And you can please whomever you think is in charge. I've read this before: one producer says "do this", another producer says, "do that", you get tossed around trying to please them all. The director tells you to "no, do that". One producer may have more clout than another, but any of the main producers can fire you, and so can the director. The studio may even swoop in and demand a new score, regardless of what ever heavyweight thinks he's the big-shot producer.
Thankfully, while there is only a fraction of scores replaced each year, most are kept, and not every situation is a power play by some producer who thinks his testicals are bigger and more important than everybody elses.
But he is exceptionally smart, gifted, accomplished, and hard-working. And here is the hard truth: outside of a few rare exceptions, the people who are successful in the film business are successful because they deserve to be. They have earned it. Yes, they have been lucky. But everybody gets lucky eventually."
When I compare Zimmer to Goldsmith, Horner, Alfred Newman, Bernard Herrmann, Leonard Rosenman, Bronislaw Kaper, to name some main men, I find nothing exceptionally smart or gifted in his music. At least Danny Elfman was hunble enough a few years ago to state in an interview that while he's done some great work, he's never done that great score, that big score, like his contemporaries or composers passed. Is Hans as humble? I don't know, so I reserve comment. But it appears Levine is not. Tell me: where is Zimmer's "The Robe"? Where is Zimmer's "Psycho"? Where is his "The Mission" (after speaking so fondly as Morricone)? Where is his "Mutiny on the Bounty"? Where is his "Capricorn On" for that matter? The level of dificulty in work doesn't matter so much as the resutls produced. Does he want a participation trophy, or does he want no trophy, and a smile down from the Heavens from those who came before and paved the path he now travels? I don't know.
As for success because of a composer deserving it, well, let's look at a specific composer here. Let us take Tyler Bates -- a name which is now a joke at another film score board, just by posting it.
We have at least three major panned scores recently from him: the plagarism-fest "300". The zero-star rated "The Darknest Hour" (at movie-wave), which has gotten lambasting I thought we wouldn't get so soon after "Gamer". And then of course the score to the remake film "The Day the Earth Stood Still".
He's also had some negative critizism for other scores in recent years, too. Yet he keeps getting hired. According to his IMDb filmography, since "300", he's been hired 31 times (some of those TV series with multiple episodes). Did he deserve any of this? Hell no based on these recent scores. As for his pre-"300" work, I cannot say (so I'll make no braod generalizations about the body of his whole output). But if the nuHollywood hired every composer based on their passed work, David Shire's phone would be ringing (he says he's waiting for it, so where is nuHollywood?).
Now, this is just one example. There's plenty more than him that gets hired because they deserve it.
But a lot of people, based on my research, are simply getting hired because they are "hot", because they got a new "sound", because they fall stylistically into a category sme director thinks they can do. And often a composer gets hired because of who they know -- even when they aren't talking to that person! I've seen mhy share of times wher a compsoer gets hired because a music editor brought in in advance, recommends the composer. Or ap roducer suggests him or her. Did the compsoer deserve it? No, not really (which is no reflection upon the end result)! That's like a friend telling the HR manager you're hot stuff, and so you get called in and get the job.
And now I conclude my lengthy post with: Why Zimmer got the job and you didn't.
Let's take a little trip to his IMDb page, shall we?
http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0001877/
What do we have? Well, we essentially have four things (in no specified order):
1. Early work while still with Myers.
2. Work with people he's already eastablished a working relationship with.
3. Late-game replacement scores, after making a name for such a thing.
4. And finally, what comprimises a smaller amount: legitimate work where he deserved it.
Let's go back and take at some years of films he's done, including upcoming films, according to his IMDb filmography, starting with what appears to be his first big break, "Rain Man". Did he gets these because he deserved it? Well, let's check a little deeper!
Early on it looks like he got work on what appears to be grounds that he deserved it, but around 1990 he starts getting films here & there from producers on films he already worked on, in other words established ties, which later some of them turned into working relationships, much like Speilberg & Williams.
I'm seeing film after film that have a director and/or a producer(s) he's worked with before, in the roster. Three of his last five projects (not counting the short which re-uses music, it appears) involved one director and producers he's worked with before. Zimmer's their go-to guy, you know, when he's not busy scoring 69 films at once.
And you know what? That's great; it's a good thing. It means he is making living, it means he can afford to employ people and give them a libing. More power to him. What ever earns you an honest living.
But if somebody like Levine is going to sit there and tell me establiushed working relationships and popularity (the "hot" composers right now) are why Zimmer got the job and somebody else didn't, well, to quote the famous TV character Sherman Potter: "Horse hockey!"
And one final comment, while it occurs to me: Zimmer said in and interview he had a score replaced, and they changed their mind, and put back in some of his score (he did not name the film). So, if in 150+ films he's never been replaced because the producers changed their mind about the direction and didn't think Zimmer could do it, then what? They got bored and decided it would be fun to get somebody else? Sounds to me they had a reason, otherwise they would have spend more of the film's budget on a replacement score.
You know, I think I've said all I intented. I'm backing out of this thread simply because it's the Devil's playground and it's going to get locked eventually, and people will probably get warned it not banned, which may or may not involved certain people, like YOR.
YOR is now number 1 fan of Girl With Condom on Avatar!
Even if she said nasty thing about YOR in the end, which means YOR is very important to her!
Go, Condom Girl, go!!
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As for so many others here... especially Yor, a particularly sad character who seems to be defined by what he hates (I've read so many posts by him and seriously couldn't tell you what music he genuinely likes)... yawn. Seriously... fucking YAWN.
YOR is not sad.
YOR is very happy!
And YOR wrote a lot of times about his favorite scores and composers!
Cartoon Dude With Strange Hair surely missed it!
Go to the SEARCH engine now and you will see how YOR is nice people!
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Another day, another Zimmer thread.
Nice post, BTW. It’s interesting to get into “the process”.
There a lot of threads on here about stuff I know I don’t like. Ever. So I don’t post in them. There are a LOT of things I like. You’ll almost always find me in a Star Trek thread. Often in a Bond or Rocketeer thread. Never in a Star Wars Prequel thread. Why would I be?
I posted negative things in the Star Trek Into Darkness thread because I LIKE Star Trek and I LIKED the last movie. So I felt the discussion was useful.
But there are people here that show in up EVERY Hans Zimmer thread to tell us how awful he is! I’m not sure I’ve ever seen Yor (what can I say, he’s memorable) in a thread about a score he liked!
I am not and never have been a Zimmer “worshipper”. But I like to read discussions on his work especially when he’s working on stuff I like (Superman, Lone Ranger). But I know that not too many posts down I’m going to get “Zimmer is an overpaid hack who is singlehandedly killing film scoring” or the like. Zimmer threads are the least civil and as someone said filled with the most vitriol. It’s not enough to not like his music, some people take EVERY opportunity to tell you. And disparage anyone who disagrees.
And no, I don’t think I’ve seen this response to any other composer. Not one. I’ve seen people say they don’t like someone, I’ve seen people say a composer isn’t their cup of tea. But not Zimmer. It’s a whole different level. Someone prove me wrong.
Hans Zimmer is a talented man. I like some of his music. Of course a collaborative spirit is necessary when scoring a film, and filmmakers' demands do sometimes result in better scores (compare Jerry Goldsmith's first stab at Star Trek: The Motion Picture to his final score).
Nevertheless, if every film composer had cow-towed to filmmakers' whims as much as Hans Zimmer does:
There’s a pretty good anecdote in the above about how Zimmer is very good at convincing other filmmakers to come around to his thinking. Kind of like how Herrmann did with Hitchcock. Right?
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As for Yor's images - I doubt anyone could frame them as vitriol - but in tandem with his persistent appearances mocking Zimmer (and those that enjoy his music) in Zimmer threads (and sometimes unrelated threads) become tiresome.
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What, nothing bigger on hand?
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What, nothing bigger on hand?
Do not tease YOR...
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What's up with Yor's belly? Disgusting
What kind of male belly do you preffer, Gozer's Minion?
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YOR is such a good hunter, his belly is always full!
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