Some cool film music of hans zimmer soundtrack images:
Composer Hans Zimmer
Image by yausser
Hans Zimmer has scored more than 100 films, grossing approximately 13 billion dollars at the box office worldwide. He has been honored with an Academy Award®, two Golden Globes, and three Grammy’s. In 2003, the American Society of Composers, Authors, and Publishers presented him with the prestigious Henry Mancini award for Lifetime Achievement for his impressive and influential body of work. Hans has received a total 8 Golden Globe Nominations, 9 Grammy Nominations, and 8 Oscar® Nominations, the most recent for Sherlock Holmes. His other Oscar® nominations include Rain Man, Gladiator, The Lion King, As Good As It Gets, The Preacher’s Wife, The Thin Red Line, and The Prince of Egypt. He has also been honored with the prestigious Lifetime Achievement Award in Film Composition from the National Board of Review.
His recent films include Christopher Nolan’s thriller Inception, Nancy Meyer’s It’s Complicated, Kung Fu Panda, Madagascar 2, Frost / Nixon, The Dark Knight and Ron Howard’s Angels & Demons. Hans’ most recent film includes Tom McGrath’s animated film Megamind and the upcoming James L. Brooks’ comedy How Do You Know? which opens December 17, 2010, Ron Howard’s The Dilemma opening January 14, 2011 and Gore Verbinski’s Rango opening March 18, 2011.
Hans’ interest in music began early, and after a move from Germany to the U.K., would lead to playing with and producing various bands, including The Buggles, whose “Video Killed the Radio Star” was the first music video to ever appear on MTV. But Hans was most interested in the world of film music. Not long after meeting established film composer Stanley Myers, the two founded the London-based Lillie Yard Recording Studios, collaborating on such films as My Beautiful Laundrette.
It was Hans’ solo work in 1988’s A World Apart, however, that gained the attention of director Barry Levinson, who then asked Hans to score Rain Man, Hans’ first American film. Levinson’s instinct was right – the score’s Oscar® nomination that followed would be the first of seven.
With Hans’ subsequent move to Hollywood, he expanded the range of genres of film music he explored, and his first venture into the world of animation, 1994’s The Lion King, brought Hans the Oscar®. The Lion King’s soundtrack has sold more than 15 million copies to date, and The Lion King Musical has garnered a Tony Award, and became Broadway’s ninth-longest-running show in history.
Hans’ career has been marked by a unique ability to adeptly move between genres – between smaller films and comedies (such as Driving Miss Daisy, Peter Weir’sGreen Card, Tony Scott’s True Romance, Ridley Scott’s Thelma and Louise, James L. Brooks’ As Good As It Gets, Nancy Meyers’ Something’s Gotta Give, and The Holiday)and big blockbusters (including Tony Scott’s Crimson Tide, John Woo’s Mission: Impossible 2, Ridley Scott’s Hannibal, Black Hawk Down, Edward Zwick’s The Last Samurai, Gore Verbinski’s The Pirates of the Caribbean Trilogy, Christopher Nolan’sBatman Begins, and Ron Howard’s The Da Vinci Code).
In the middle of Hans’ unparalleled pace of taking on new projects, his ability to innovate, to re-invent genres is what is perhaps most striking. The film scores Hans has written speak for themselves, whether it has been for drama in Barry Levinson’s Rain Man, action in Ridley Scott’s Black Rain, war in Terrence Malick’s The Thin Red Line, or the dark comic book world of Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight, for which he received another Grammy.
It was Hans’ unique take on the historical in Gladiator that earned him another Golden Globe. The album sold more than three million copies worldwide and spawned a second album “Gladiator: More Music from the Motion Picture.”
Hans’ roots in performing never left him, and in 2000, he performed his film music live for the first time in a concert at the 27th annual Flanders International Film Festival in Ghent, Belgium. With a 100-piece orchestra and 100-piece choir, he performed a number of newly- orchestrated concert versions of a selection of his work. The concert was recorded by Decca and released as a concert album entitled “The Wings of a Film: The Music of Hans Zimmer.”
His background in collaboration and mentoring never left Hans either, and he created a Santa Monica-based musical ‘think tank’, Remote Control Productions, in order to build a creative environment to nurture the talent of those new to the composing world. In the process, he has launched the careers of an unparalleled number of film and television composers, including John Powell (the Bourne Trilogy), Harry-Gregson Williams (Shrek, Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason), Geoff Zanelli (Disturbia), Heitor Pereira (Curious George), Henry Jackman (Monsters vs. Aliens),James Dooley (Pushing Daisies), James Levine (Nip / Tuck, Damages), Ramin Djawadi (Iron Man), Rupert Gregson-Williams (Hotel Rwanda), Steve Jablonsky (Transformers), and Trevor Morris (The Tudors).
The secret lair of Hans Zimmer, from where he inspires the world
Image by Stuck in Customs
See the FULL STORY at www.stuckincustoms.com/2010/01/29/the-secret-lair-of-hans…
I Approach my Quarry!
Six days ago I was up at 3 AM, listening to Hans Zimmer while editing photos, and then I had an idea for a project with him, so I made a blog post. Now, less than a week later, I was in his studio in California!
For those of you that don’t know who Hans Zimmer is, he’s, like, the Liger of composers. He did the soundtrack for The Dark Knight, Pirates of the Caribbean, The Lion King, Gladiator, Sherlock Holmes, and many more! In fact, back when I was in college and had a double major in Computer Science and Geophyisics (I dropped the Geophysics bit after a fight with the professor), I commandeered the SGI machine in the Geology department to make a computer animation, and I set the whole thing to one of Zimmer’s songs from Backdraft called "Burn it All". So, in short, I’ve had Hans Zimmer’s music in my head for about 20 years.
The Story of How I Got Into Hans Zimmer’s Studio
It’s because of you! We have millions of visits here on the blog every month, and you all know how thankful I am for your repeat patronage. It’s tough to get a pretty photo up every day, and I thank you for all your feedback! So, when I put out the call in my newsletter, I got a ton of responses. My math-guess was that I was one or two degrees away from Hans, especially since there are many creative-types that are regular visitors.
Also, many of you hyper-active types (like me!) talk to me, ask questions, and follow me on Twitter — thank you for being responsive to real-time requests and news.
About an hour after I sent out the newsletter at midnight, I got a response from a German gentleman (name private) who is friends with Hans! In fact, he told me he was going to see Hans the next day at his studio near Hollywood! He did a few things to help out, and, although I could not meet Hans today, I did get an amazing opportunity to take photos of his studio. I knew I could make his studio look the way it feels — I had a sublime confidence I could make it happen. Anyway, I was like a kid in a candy store. I got a ton of shots… I only had time to process four of them.
Hans Zimmer’s Studio
I don’t know if words do it justice, but I hope these photos do.
The studio is even bigger than I thought, and I was reminded of the Crimson Lounge in Chicago. In fact, I pulled up the image on my laptop there on the table to compare textures and light. I thought everything worked well together — the decadence and richness of the decorations integrated with the technology. I don’t know if there is a word for such a look… It’s something out of a Phillip Pullman novel, somewhere between Steampunk and Techno-boudoir. Again, words fail.
The first two photos I have placed on Flickr. You can click on them to go to Flickr and then zoom into the full-res size. Amazing details — especially in the chair photo. I’ll post more in coming weeks, months, and years, as usual. So, stay tuned in my this ongoing quest!
from Trey Ratcliff at www.stuckincustoms.com
Music for a slow waltz
Image by gwilmore
I took my 12-year-old son to see the movie "Pearl Harbor" when it came out in May of 2001. We both agreed afterward that it wasn’t all that great, and that it certainly did not deserve all the hype that had built up around it. The film starred Ben Affleck and Josh Hartnett as two Army fighter pilots involved in a three-way romance which included a Navy nurse, played by Kate Beckinsale. The basic problem with this movie, as I saw it, was that the romance-cum-disaster formula that had been so successful in "Titanic" just didn’t work for "Pearl Harbor." In addition, this one seemed to be about a half-hour too long. (The best part of the film, in my judgment, was the last half-hour or so, which centered around the Doolittle raid on Tokyo in April, 1942. I think that if the producers and the director could have cut some of the fluff and left that part in, the movie as a whole would have been quite a bit better.)
About a month ago, while I was sick in bed at home one Saturday afternoon, I watched "Pearl Harbor" again, this time on television. It was on, I was sick, and I really had nothing better to do at the time. But a couple of weeks later, after I had recovered and gone back into general circulation, I went to Barnes & Noble and bought the soundtrack, which you see here.
Why purchase this CD six years after I saw the movie for the first time? Well, there were two reasons. The less important one is that Hans Zimmer, a talented composer, wrote this score. The second, and far more important reason, is that I have been taking ballroom dance lessons with my wife for the past three months — and when I saw "Pearl Harbor" the second time around, I discovered the soundtrack included some wonderful music for a very slow waltz. Especially the piece on Track #4, which is titled, " . . . And Then I Kissed Him." I have been driving around, listening to that track over and over on our car’s CD player, mentally choreographing it each time.
