Conan Doyle realized that a successful lead character needs to play the fiddle. I wish all filmmakers did. It makes writing the score so much easier. With Guy's great encouragement we took the orchestra out of the lofty spheres of the concert hall and brought them back to the pub, where they seem right at home. After all, There is no human emotion that has not - at one time or other - been profoundly expressed in a pub, and I'm so grateful that my peers at the Academy have recognized that. This is the year where we pit the humble banjo against the might of the orchestra.
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2010, February 03
The secret lair of Hans Zimmer, from where he inspires the world
The Sherlock HOLMES' score composed by Hans ZIMMER is nominated for the Oscars.
Other composers also nominated are James Horner for Avatar, Alexandre Desplat for Fantastic Mr. Fox, Michael Giacchino for Up and Marco Beltrami & Buck Sanders for The Hurt Locker.
Composer Zimmer on 'Holmes,' Oscar's Troubling Taste
Robert Downey Jr.’s brash, spirited performance in the title role of the Guy Ritchie film “Sherlock Holmes” may have taken home a Golden Globe on Sunday night, but a different – but equally bold – aspect of the film has a better chance to draw attention from the Academy. Hans Zimmer’s score turns action-movie music on its head, using a small group of acoustic musicians to whip up a playful, dynamic, inventive folk-based sound that plays a dominant role in the film as it trashes and reinvents the conventions for this kind of movie.
The German-born composer talked to theWrap about the film in his Santa Monica studio, where he composes in a remarkable room that manages to combine thick carpeting, plush red couches and dark carved wood bookcases with a huge array of computers, synthesizers and recording equipment.
The conversation was interrupted several times by urgent conversations about music the prolific composer had written for an upcoming episode of “The Simpsons,” which apparently hadn’t quite passed muster with that show’s producers.
Composer Zimmer Talks Sherlock Holmes, Inception, Dark Knight, It’s Complicated
In many ways, the best thing about Sherlock Holmes is its score (released January 12), featuring exotic Hungarian and gypsy instruments. It’s one of about a hundred movie scores delivered by prolific German composer Hans Zimmer, who has earned six Oscar nominations; he won for The Lion King in 1994.
Articulate and charming, Zimmer invited me to his lair in Santa Monica, a sprawling complex housing other composers as well as rooms crammed with synthesizers, computers and towers of servers. He’s currently working on Inception for Chris Nolan, for whom he composed the score for The Dark Knight. He gave me a tour, showed me where and how he composes and explained his working process on the scores for Sherlock Holmes, It’s Complicated, Gladiator, and The Dark Knight. He even plays a bit.
Hans Zimmer recorded the score with featured soloists Lorne Balfe, Ann Marie Calhoun, Tina Guo, Aleksey Igudesman, Davey Johnstone, and Diego Stocco on a triple-neck double-bass he himself built.
Zimmer contrasted an opulent sounding chamber orchestra with these soloists and a Salvation Army Brass Band; infusing Doyle’s orderly, Victorian world with the unorthodox.
Get to know these diverse talented musicians and learn how they became involved with this project in the videos below.
