For this essay I will be looking at the work of Hans Zimmer to discuss how music in film engages the viewer and evokes emotion and pulls the viewer toward the film. Hans Zimmer is a German born music composer. Hans Zimmer’s love of music stems from his childhood when he learned how to play various instruments. Before Zimmer began composing music for films he was in a well-known band. The band was called The Buggles whom were famous for their song Video Killed the Radio Star. After the Buggles Zimmer played in other bands but never had another hit. As Zimmer has progressed as a film composer so has his list of nominations and awards. Zimmer has won 4 Grammy Awards and 2 Golden Globes and many more for his outstanding film scores. The reason I chose to write this essay on Zimmer was that his genres and music score are extremely versatile ranging from animations to comedy to dark thrillers. This is important to highlight as it shows Zimmer can create almost any atmosphere with his music whether it be sad or creating tension that all cause us to engage with the film. Zimmer's use of themes and introduction of different instruments allowed him to create these wonderful engaging film score. In this essay I will look at three films by Hans Zimmer these are The Holiday Rush and Rain Man. The Holiday is a festive and romantic comedy which is different from the work generally associated with Zimmer such as Inception or the Dark Knight as the score in The Holiday is much lighter and less intense. The Holiday shows a much more sensitive side to Zimmer and proves his flexibility when it comes to movie genres. The Holiday tells the story of two women who are played by Cameron Diaz and Kate Winslet. Both women are extremely unhappy in their li... ... middle of paper ... ...usic in film has an intensified power to affect the viewer and can cause us to engage with meaning and responses without knowing it. I looked at three films that Hans Zimmer has scored each film being made years apart and based on different story lines. Although the genres of all three films where different each film score was used to achieve the same thing. Each film score was the reason the films had an emotional impact. The motifs in all three films where identifiers for the viewers and allowed them to understand the meaning of the films. Zimmer understands the score needs to pull the viewer towards responses as the image on screen is not always able to do this. Zimmer is an amazing composer and can write film scores for any film and use the score to suggest the central meaning of the film. Zimmer’s versatility can also be seen as he can score films of any genre.
It is true that the essence of any story is emphasised through distinctively visual images created for the audience. The ability of any composer- an artist with paint brushes, a musician with chords or the writer with words- to entice and evoke is at the centre of a narrative. Both Peter Goldsworthy’s novel Maestro and Beneath Clouds by Iven Sen evoke emotions in the responder through distinctively visual elements and exploration of the concepts appearance versus reality and influence of environment.
Composers effectively reflect and communicate how universal human experiences can explicitly modify an individual’s understanding and acceptance of one’s sense of identity and maturation. Goldsworthy’s novel Maestro, Don McLean’s song ‘Vincent’ and Baz Luhrmann’s film Australia all inter-relate within the deeper realisation of the impact the appreciation of art, and the development of understanding the concept of love acting as a compelling emotion can create towards one’s self-image.
Therefore, the distinctive visual techniques employed by the composer provide a vehicle for the respondent to understand the ideas and themes prompted by people and their experiences. Tykwer’s film, Run Lola Run demonstrates the effect of the distinctive visual in Lola’s exploration of the themes of chance and time, whilst Mackellar’s poem ‘My Country’ provides the audience with an evocative experience of the Australian environment.
Karlin, Fred, and Rayburn Wright. On the Track a Guide to Contemporary Film Scoring. 2nd ed. New York: Routledge, 2004. Print.
After just reading the title,You probably have never heard the name Hans Zimmer until just now(Don’t worry no one has). Hans Florian Zimmer is a German film score composer and record producer. Since the 80s, he has composed music for more than 150 films. He is famous for his works in movies like “The Lion King,” the “Pirates of the Caribbean,” “The Dark Knight Trilogy,” “Inception,” and “Interstellar.” Hans may not be as famous as John Williams but I feel he needs some recognition.
Sound is an incredibly relevant part of filmmaking. Although often misunderstood, it helps to generate a more realistic episode by recreating the sonic experience the scene needs. Its main goal is to enhance the emotions that each section is trying to convey by adding music and effects alongside moving images. Psycho (Hitchcock, 1960), is one of the most popular films of the XX Century (Thomson, 2009). Commonly recognised as a masterpiece for its cinematographic, editing and musical values, it changed cinema forever by “playing with darker prospects (…) of humanity such as sex and violence (Thomson, 2009)”. This paper will analyse the sound effects used in the shower scene and its repercussions
After listening to all four movements of Beethoven’s Symphony No. 5 in C minor, I have suddenly been awakened to the tremendous influence that the Classical Form of music has had on modern day works, especially in the area of the film industry which it is used to create drama, tension, and joy. History owes a debt of gratitude to composers such as Ludwig van Beethoven, who build upon the legacy of pioneers such as Joseph Haydn and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart to create his own unique blend of symphonic compositions which will be revered throughout generations because of their continued appeal to the
...successful collaboration of sound, colour, camera positioning and lighting are instrumental in portraying these themes. The techniques used heighten the suspense, drama and mood of each scene and enhance the film in order to convey to the spectator the intended messages.
As an audience we are manipulated from the moment a film begins. In this essay I wish to explore how The Conversation’s use of sound design has directly controlled our perceptions and emotional responses as well as how it can change the meaning of the image. I would also like to discover how the soundtrack guides the audience’s attention with the use of diegetic and nondiegetic sounds.
In conclusion, I have demonstrated how Coppola exploits a wide array of sound and editing to create suspense, intensity, and anxiety in the sequence to affect the audience’s emotions, using diegetic ambient sound effects, non-diegetic music, voice over and four editing types. With this sequence, Coppola has shown the savagery of war and our complicity in this violence as an audience.
I want to discuss the function of music to combine intention and perception. I believe in the prehistoric, people sing or beat on the tough surface because they want to express their emotions, otherwise they have no reason to sing. Similarly, the composers also write the songs to express their feelings. Nevertheless, a piece of music which cannot trigger the change of feeling to audience cannot regarded as a musical sound. According to Thomas Schafer, "When people listen to music they usually try to attain specific goals. Those related to self-awareness and the regulation of mood and arousal are relatively important to them and those related to social relatedness less so"(12). From the research, Schafer get a conclusion that the music which can let people attain goals related to self-awareness and the regulation of mood and arousal will increase the strength of music preference(12). Hence, the function of music is to express the emotion and then influence the audience to let them have the same feeling as composers or performers. For example, Beethoven composed the famous Fate Symphony, or called Symphony No.5 in C major to show his determination to fight with the fate, for Beethoven the fate is the loss of his lover. While it is not the only purpose to write this symphony. The final goal is to move the
Sound is what brings movies to life, but, not many viewers really notice. A film can be shot with mediocre quality, but, can be intriguing if it has the most effective foley, sound effects, underscore, etc. Sound in movies band together and unfold the meaning of the scenes. When actors are speaking, the dialogue can bring emotion to the audience, or, it can be used as the ambient sound. Music is one of the main things to have when filmmaking. The use of Claudia Gorbman’s Seven Principles of Composition, Mixing and Editing in Classical Film gives audiences a perspective of sound, and, how it can have an impact on them.
Sound is important in film and how it is used to drive a narrative progression. I will analyse how and why in this essay. Covering the history of sound in films and the essential component it plays in the film industry.
Although I have conducted both an interview report and an observation report, neither of them will be methods that I use in this paper. The interview report was beneficial in a way that it allowed me to see into a different perspective of music appreciation. With the observation
There are thousands of movie composers in the music industry, a few who triumph and whose work is well known to almost half of the world. One example of that can be the famous Maestro John Williams. John Williams is the musician for Jaws, Harry Potter, Star Wars, Jurassic Park, E.T and lots more. But there is a piece which everyone recognizes, and that is the theme from the movie Jaws. Imagine Jaws without the music. People would not feel scared; they would laugh at the plastic shark. And that is why music is one of the most important elements in cinema. John Williams in a late interview said this: “The music is part of a whole, which if I try as a composer to take that part of the whole, like in a concerto. I would not succeed, because the attention would go only for the music and not for the picture” (John Williams Interview). In Jaws, the music blends with the picture and acting; there are no imbalances. The picture and the music need to be in perfect harmony. Therefore, in Jaws, every time the daring melody comes out; the audience knows something bad is going to happen, and the music may anticipate a particular situation, but without the music overpowering the actors and sound effects.