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Posted: |
Jul 25, 2021 - 9:46 PM
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By: |
Mephariel
(Member)
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Spinmeister convinced me to buy Dragonslayer for which I’m eternally grateful!
Zimmer’s 400,000 hours of sketches aside, it’s probably easiest to just summarize all my main points.
The two music samples from “Dune” suck and I was running through scenarios as to why they’d release them instead of others that could be better. I used the word “risk” somewhere in there.
I thought I had mentioned how nobody cares what film score fans want but I guess I deleted that. While it’s probably true, I was also commenting on how Zimmer has admitted he has visited these boards before and others have had social media encounters with him. While I was partly joking about changing the music, those elements of truth do exist as do people at studios whose job it is to read social media and other message boards to gauge audience response and adjust accordingly. Whether that’s happening here is dubious at best which is why there was a whole joke about me being chased down and tackled by Hans Zimmer (that actually did happen, he found me and he knows I know his secrets, someone help!!!)
The marketing of these music releases is very transparent to me and quite silly. I can’t think of any other composer that does it and it highlights other critiques I have given of Zimmer being more of a producer and marketing package than anything else.
Numbers of listens on Spotify or whatever also don’t really say much either - there is a whole generation of young filmgoers who have never even seen “older” films which is a predicament that art critics and theorists have written about for every generation. Given how heavily Zimmer is marketed I’m not surprised he has the most listens, but given how non-existent the marketing is for John Williams it’s quite impressive he’s still hanging in there in 2nd place!
Anyway, this is all about those two lame samples Zimmer released. Like, why those? Why not something better from his 4,000,000 hours of sketches?
LOL. Dune has been vetted through 2 test screenings already to rumored rave reviews. If the studios wanted to gauge audience response on the music of the film, that is when they would have done it. In a controlled environment. Nobody is dumb enough to change the music to a film just because of social media reactions to a track. You can find people on social media that complains about everything and anything. There were people that thought the music to WW84 was bad too.
I don't understand how marketing music makes Zimmer more of a producer, and I assumed that means, not as much as a composer. Zimmer is the most popular composer today. Warner Bros would be dumb NOT to market the music. It is strange to me that the film music community is the only group of people who can't grasp that the best professionals market their stuff. Athletes market their brands all the time. Commercials, social media, movies, and TV...does that make them less of an athlete? Nope. Singers market their songs, release singles to hype up albums, and is endless on shows and streaming content. Does that make them less of a singer? Nope. What about celebrity chefs? Does the marketing take away the fact that they spent years in the kitchen? Nope. Directors market their movies. Doctors, real estate agents, virtually everyone that wants to dominate a sector is heavily marketing their crafts. But it is such a crime for composers to do it. Composers have to be poor. They have to do it just for the music and nothing else. God forbid they want to get rich. The truth is, other composers do not market as heavily as Zimmer because their music aren't as popular and beloved as Zimmer. You think there are a group of people dying to hear a Christopher Young score outside of this community? If there is, he would be marketed just as heavily as Zimmer. Money drives action.
Awards, director praises, critical acclaim, streaming views all matters whether you like it or not. Yeah, there is a whole generation who haven't seen the older films. There is a whole generation who never use Walkmans either. The point is, Zimmer is a influential, critically acclaimed, and immensely popular composer who certainly do not release music simply to entertain the film music community. We are not his target audience. So when you asked why he didn't release better tracks? Who knows? Maybe Warner Bros are not looking at us when deciding.
Lastly, If any composer deserves to be first on Spotify, it should be Williams, imo, the best of all time. So yeah, it is great to see him still near the top after all these years.
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Again, I don’t think anyone is saying people are composing for film score fans or should do so. Some composers DO consider how their music will play OUTSIDE the film while others don’t, but that’s just a preference.
Marketing is not bad either, but my point is Zimmer himself is doing the marketing. I’ve suggested this before that Zimmer is a smart businessman and producer and has always been focused on the work less from an “I, Zimmer” perspective and more from a company perspective, yet he still pushes himself as a singular composer (which we know is out of step with how Remote Control works). There’s nothing wrong with marketing, but I’ve described the popularity of Zimmer to be less about the absolute objective quality of his music and more about the high saturation of visibility he gets, honestly no real thanks to the studios but more to Zimmer’s own company PR machine.
I bring it up because I think people tend to miss this distinction, especially when they call him a genius. When someone like Williams brings on Yo Yo Ma or Ann Hobson Pilot or whomever session musicians, I know it’s because these people are the best in their field at that given moment in time and it’s for the best music. But for Zimmer it always feels like marketing. Like is Pharrell the best person to collaborate with for Spiderman or Hidden Figures? Is Johnny Marr REALLY the only person who can play electric guitar? Did Superman REALLY need 10+ drummers playing simultaneously?
It feels more like a marketing gimmick rather than pursuit of virtuosos for the best quality music, so I think it’s important to simply get people to stop and consider that and decide for themselves if they care.
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Posted: |
Jul 25, 2021 - 10:05 PM
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By: |
Mephariel
(Member)
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This board is like a group of crabby old men who has completely lost sight of the current industry and the target audience. You will never see another group of people this delusional.
Yes, a target audience raised on auto-tune.
Like I said, a bunch of crabby old men losing touch with the industry. Delusional beyond belief.
"Me, me, me. Please compose music for me!!!!"
Despite decades listening to film music, still can't understand that composers compose for the directors and the film, not for the film music community.
Nobody has said this at all.
For my part, what I have posited is that I find, reinforced by interviews with Zimmer, that his scores are often pushed onto the movie when something different might have been better. I see a lot of flaws in his constant drive to be “experimental” and when compared to other musicians who are considered experimental, find his stuff to be lacking and for this to be a creative blind spot of his. The desire to be “experimental” is applied to literally every project, which creatively makes no sense and is a huge red flag when you consider the point that creative works NEED all elements to match. It is unlikely that Zimmer just happens to be attached to projects that only “experimental”. “Dune” is not experimental (it is weird though, but this is not Jodorowsky’s Dune). “Dunkirk” was not experimental. “The Dark Knight” is not experimental.
What I’ve also posited is in line with the industry, and it’s that Zimmer has been promoting and marketing himself for forever, and he’s good at that. The industry wants sure bets and Zimmer is a sure bet for drawing attention. Many of the films he worked on could have had equally popular orchestral scores had they been such. What is good for the film is not a straightforward answer - if these same films were presented 20-30 years ago, they’d have different scores that likely would have been effective in their own way.
Creatively, emotionally, I don’t find Zimmer’s sound washes to add much to the film beyond being very literal. Much of what he’s scoring is already present in the performances, the cinematography, the sound design, so I don’t see his music bringing anything new or layered. This is critiquing from an out-of-time perspective, separate from the music trends of the moment, and looking at the filmic art as objectively as possible. We know that ambient soundscape music is a trend, so it therefore requires an additional level of analysis to determine if other avenues could have been possible.
With Star Wars, there is a very specific reason why those first movies used a classical orchestra setup, and they did so out of time with trends in the 70s.
I’m not hearing Zimmer doing anything beyond his comfort zone and the trends of the moment. Unlike Star Wars, I don’t ever see a creative rationale driven by the film itself for why Zimmer’s music needs to be “experimental” or “daring”.
I do not have an issue with how you feel about Zimmer's scoring methods except that your post still shows a lack of understanding of how the industry works. And the fact that you are flat out wrong that every project is "experimental." Man of Steel, Blade Runner, Dunkirk turned out the way they did because they fit the directors' vision. Nolan has always valued experimental scores, even before and after Zimmer. Have you heard Tenet? That is not some orchestral masterpiece. Have you heard Arrival? Why did you even think Denis Villeneuve would want a orchestral score from Zimmer? Along the same lines, have you heard The Lion King 2019 and Wonder Woman 1984? Were those scores experimental? Nope. Why? because Disney values something different and if Zimmer tried to get cute with TLK, he won't have a job. Ron Howard is another example. The scores Zimmer did for Howard (Hillbilly Elegy, The Da Vinci Code, Angels and Demons, Rush, etc.) all were more melodic and "traditional." Why? Because Howard has a very different idea about music than Nolan. What about Zimmer's scores for animation? The Boss Baby, Kung Fu Panda, etc. Were those experimental? Nope. What about his nature documentaries? Were those experimental? Nope.
The pattern that I am seeing is that Zimmer is experimental because a lot of auteurs and high profile directors are. Look at the awards recently. And they value that kind of music. Likewise, other action/mainstream directors require different types of music, which he also delivered. Sometimes life isn't that complicated. It works out exactly how it should. If Denis Villeneuve doesn't work experimental music, all he has to do, is tell Zimmer "no." Did he? Nope. Zimmer isn't god. He isn't the director. Did you really think Zimmer turned down Tenet to do Dune? LOL. It is because he needed a break from Nolan's musical style (Zimmer insider and Zimmer himself confirmed this). Dune may not sound melodic from the samples, but is still way more organic than something like Dunkirk.
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Posted: |
Jul 25, 2021 - 10:19 PM
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By: |
Mephariel
(Member)
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Again, I don’t think anyone is saying people are composing for film score fans or should do so. Some composers DO consider how their music will play OUTSIDE the film while others don’t, but that’s just a preference.
Marketing is not bad either, but my point is Zimmer himself is doing the marketing. I’ve suggested this before that Zimmer is a smart businessman and producer and has always been focused on the work less from an “I, Zimmer” perspective and more from a company perspective, yet he still pushes himself as a singular composer (which we know is out of step with how Remote Control works). There’s nothing wrong with marketing, but I’ve described the popularity of Zimmer to be less about the absolute objective quality of his music and more about the high saturation of visibility he gets, honestly no real thanks to the studios but more to Zimmer’s own company PR machine.
I bring it up because I think people tend to miss this distinction, especially when they call him a genius. When someone like Williams brings on Yo Yo Ma or Anne Sophie Mutter or whomever session musicians, I know it’s because these people are the best in their field at that given moment in time and it’s for the best music. But for Zimmer it always feels like marketing. Like is Pharrell the best person to collaborate with for Spiderman or Hidden Figures? Is Johnny Marr REALLY the only person who can play electric guitar? Did Superman REALLY need 10+ drummers playing simultaneously?
It feels more like a marketing gimmick rather than pursuit of virtuosos for the best quality music, so I think it’s important to simply get people to stop and consider that and decide for themselves if they care.
What you said is a false dilemma. You can be a genius AND be good at PR. Again, why is this such as a hard thing to grasp? Lebron James is the greatest or second greatest basketball of his generation. He is arguably also the best business man of his generation. He is in movies, commercials, donates to charity, and is constantly on the air to promote politics and "player empowerment." Same with MMA fighters. Conor McGregor was a two division champion in the UFC, and he made millions selling his whiskey brand. Genius marketing machine. There are many chefs who spent years working in high profile kitchens before going on TV. Gordon Ramsey for example. You can be good at multiple things in life. The most successful people have to be.
I am not saying Zimmer is a genius. Maybe he isn't. But look at it this way. Hans Zimmer have be nominated for 11 Academy Awards, 14 Golden Globes, and 17 Grammys. He has gotten the respect from some of the best directors in Hollywood, his peers, and is on the top of his craft for 20 years or so. He has the most Spotify listeners, and his music has been played in concerts, tours, and has been used in arenas, figure skating routines, etc. He is critically acclaimed, publicly acclaimed, and professionally acclaimed. And he accomplished this with minimal musical training to start out with. There are probably more evidence that he is a genius in music than he is not.
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I totally understand, I’m just way more pessimistic about the industry because, especially nowadays, the director is not the primary decision-maker either. Maybe Villeneuve is a special case, but given the significance of the Dune property I doubt it. But the studio execs and EPs will have a lot of say on who is doing what so I doubt that Villeneuve just said “give me Zimmer” and the studio bowed. He still might have said that and that might be the simplest way to tell the story to the press, but films aren’t really made that way anymore unless you happen to be a director from that era like Spielberg. Anyway, I totally forgot what I was writing about so I’ll have to leave it at that.
Also, I’m not saying Zimmer is some idiotic decision. His music will probably be just fine. Those samples were just really underwhelming.
Funny side note, I saw the DP had been the DP for “Zero Dark Thirty” which was one of the movies I was referencing earlier. Go figure. Maybe the studio interfered enough that this won’t fully be a pure Villeneuve vision? Who knows.
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We could go on forever, but in terms of marketing the film industry is very different from other industries. It’s a creative industry and a collaborative industry so individually marketing certain people over others is not usually kosher. There has always been an odd tension with credit - in the early days it was the producer that got the credit, then that shifted to the director in the golden days of the auteur theory. But that has always been a critical sticking point throughout film history.
Sports is different because, while you have teams, it’s very much an industry built on performance and competition. Player stats are crucial and who plays when is a large part of the history of sports-as-industry. Trading Cards are/were a cultural manifestation of this and sports always loves a hero. Teams remain the same for decades while players switch out, so it’s very different. Wrestling is all about personas and marketing. Businesses are about brands and in fact the automotive industry has vacillated between presenting its C-Level executives as THE brand vs. the branding of the vehicles themselves.
Do you think if we were all in a room having this discussion we’d be friends and start sipping tea and eating biscuits and cookies are perhaps crumpets and croissants?
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Posted: |
Jul 25, 2021 - 10:41 PM
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By: |
Mephariel
(Member)
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I totally understand, I’m just way more pessimistic about the industry because, especially nowadays, the director is not the primary decision-maker either. Maybe Villeneuve is a special case, but given the significance of the Dune property I doubt it. But the studio execs and EPs will have a lot of say on who is doing what so I doubt that Villeneuve just said “give me Zimmer” and the studio bowed. He still might have said that and that might be the simplest way to tell the story to the press, but films aren’t really made that way anymore unless you happen to be a director from hat era like Spielberg. Anyway, I totally forgot what I was writing about so I’ll have to leave it at that.
Also, I’m not saying Zimmer is some idiotic decision. His music will probably be just fine. Those samples were just really underwhelming.
Funny side note, I saw the DP had been the DP for “Zero Dark Thirty” which was one of the movies I was referencing earlier. Go figure. Maybe the studio interfered enough that this won’t fully be a pure Villeneuve vision? Who knows.
Honestly I am not sure how Dune will turn out. From the samples, it could be something that fits the movie like a glove or a steaming pile of crap. We'll find out soon enough.
And I agree that the director may not be the primary decision maker. Back in 2019, I remember someone saying that Zimmer will do "electronic bullshit" on the The Lion King remake. I chuckled because TLK is a Disney property. Disney made it clear if you get cute on their projects, you won't have one. Just ask the fired directors of Solo.
And honestly, I am not trilled with a lot of experimental Zimmer scores either. But they do fit the cold visions of the directors at the very least. I don't think it is necessarily a bad thing for Zimmer to try different things. I will start worrying when Zimmer do electronic experimentation on animated films, Patty Jenkin films, Disney films, nature documentaries, etc. I mean, literally 1 month ago, Zimmer and Mazzaro did The Boss Baby 2, which is melodic, fun, and as traditional as you can get for that type of film.
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If you don't deliver what you are asked and paid for to deliver, the work will dry up.
Hans Zimmer doesn't seem to have this problem.
If he does, he will no longer get paid.
Show BUSINESS.
Graham
Well, Zimmer is not some total idiot who has no idea how to get a film score in your hands for your film. Good or bad, obviously he/Remote Control will deliver that which is unlike any other composer because he’s running a business while others are flying solo.
Again, that doesn’t denote quality, it just means he is 110% equipped to deliver SOMETHING for your film and has a ton of people to help make adjustments as quickly as necessary, which doesn’t exist anywhere else in the industry.
If you think about it, a solo composer is a pretty big risk because what if you don’t like their film score? Most composers don’t have giant teams to assist with a sudden change like that. Granted, that’s probably not happening all the time, but studios really can create their own problems thanks to egos and some pretty wacky neuroticism.
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Posted: |
Jul 25, 2021 - 10:50 PM
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By: |
Mephariel
(Member)
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We could go on forever, but in terms of marketing the film industry is very different from other industries. It’s a creative industry and a collaborative industry so individually marketing certain people over others is not usually kosher. There has always been an odd tension with credit - in the early days it was the producer that got the credit, then that shifted to the director in the golden days of the auteur theory. But that has always been a critical sticking point throughout film history.
Sports is different because, while you have teams, it’s very much an industry built on performance and competition. Player stats are crucial and who plays when is a large part of the history of sports-as-industry. Teams remain the same for decades while players switch out, so it’s very different. Wrestling is all about personas and marketing. Businesses are about brands and in fact the automotive industry has vacillated between presenting its C-Level executives as THE brand vs. the branding of the vehicles themselves.
Do you think if we were all in a room having this discussion we’d be friends and start sipping tea and eating biscuits and cookies are perhaps crumpets and croissants?
Starting with your last question first. Yes, I actually think a lot of us would be friends in some other life because ultimately we all share the same passion.
I get the credits thing, but from what I learn, see, experienced, everything is competition. I think it is very naïve to think anything otherwise in any industry. Especially Hollywood. Hollywood is a 100+ billion dollar industry. Literally everyone and their mother wants to work in Hollywood. If Zimmer dies tomorrow, there will be 500 people looking to take his place. Nolan's phone would be ringing non-stop. In every business, persona is an advantage. So is being business savvy and marketing. I see this everyday at work and the biomedical community is nowhere near as competitive as entertainment. With that said, do I think composers will start shooting each other to death like rappers? Probably not.
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Posted: |
Jul 25, 2021 - 10:55 PM
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By: |
Mephariel
(Member)
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If you don't deliver what you are asked and paid for to deliver, the work will dry up.
Hans Zimmer doesn't seem to have this problem.
If he does, he will no longer get paid.
Show BUSINESS.
Graham
Well, Zimmer is not some total idiot who has no idea how to get a film score in your hands for your film. Good or bad, obviously he/Remote Control will deliver that which is unlike any other composer because he’s running a business while others are flying solo.
Again, that doesn’t denote quality, it just means he is 110% equipped to deliver SOMETHING for your film and has a ton of people to help make adjustments as quickly as necessary, which doesn’t exist anywhere else in the industry.
If you think about it, a solo composer is a pretty big risk because what if you don’t like their film score? Most composers don’t have giant teams to assist with a sudden change like that. Granted, that’s probably not happening all the time, but studios really can create their own problems thanks to egos and some pretty wacky neuroticism.
I hate to break this to you again...but you need to really look up how many ghostwriters Beltrami has been using the past 20 years. And how many Tyler has been using in the last 10. McCreary has his own remote control production. Team scoring has been a thing across the industry for decades now. It is not a Zimmer thing anymore. Zimmer was just ahead of the curve.
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In my experience it’s like a gentleman’s agreement that of course there is personal competition, and yeah you hate your best friend for getting the job you wanted but you still support them to not poison the same well you’re all drinking from. Civility, whether faked or real, is still a requirement because ruthlessness and bad behavior spreads through the grapevine pretty quickly. Also, because films rely on so many people to do stuff, it’s very easy to get kicked out if you’re not collaborative. So it’s weird.
Good movies, no matter what, still require people to come together and collaborate. Otherwise too much competitiveness or ruthlessness just kills the film. I’d imagine the medical industry has more opportunities to hold monopolies on sections within the industry and consolidate power. Sounds rough.
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