Hans Zimmer

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Biography

German-born composer Hans Zimmer is recognized as one of Hollywood's most innovative musical talents. He featured in the music video for The Buggles' single "Video Killed the Radio Star", which became a worldwide hit and helped usher in a new era of global entertainment as the first music video to be aired on MTV . Zimmer's additional honors and awards include the prestigious Lifetime Achievement Award in Film Composition from the National Board of Review, and the Frederick Loewe Award in 2003 at the Palm Springs International Film Festival. He has also received ASCAP's Henry Mancini Award for Lifetime Achievement. Hans and his wife live in Los Angeles and he is the father of four children.

  • Aliases
  • Hans Zimer·Zimmer·H. Zimmer·Hans Zimmer·Hans Florian·Hanz Zimmer·Hansel Zimmer·ハンス・ジマー·Hans Florian Zimmer·Florian Zimmer
  • Active years
  • 56
  • Primary profession
  • Music_department·composer·soundtrack
  • Country
  • Germany
  • Nationality
  • German
  • Gender
  • Male
  • Birth date
  • 12 September 1957
  • Place of birth
  • Frankfurt
  • Children
  • Jake Zimmer
  • Education
  • Hurtwood House
  • Knows language
  • German language·German language

Music

Lyrics

Movies

TV

Books

Awards

Trivia

Last name means room in German.

Co-founder (with Jay Rifkin ) of Santa Monica-based music studio Media Ventures (now Remote Control), which has housed composers Mark Mancina , Harry Gregson-Williams , Rupert Gregson-Williams , Nick Glennie-Smith , John Powell , Klaus Badelt , Steve Jablonsky , Geoff Zanelli , Jeff Rona , Jim Dooley , Henning Lohner , James S. Levine , Mel Wesson , and several other composers from all over the world.

(December 2003) Hans longtime business partner, Jay Rifkin , filed a $10 million suit against him for conspiring to take business for himself. Because of this lawsuit, Media Ventures changed its name to Remote Control.

Gladiator became into one of the best selling film score albums of all time.

The Last Samurai marked his 100th score.

Inspired by Ennio Morricone s The Mission .

His iconic theme "Journey to the Line" from The Thin Red Line is heavily used in trailers and various other media. This theme was born out of trial and error. Terrence Malick , the director of The Thin Red Line had been dissatisfied with Zimmers results and had him continuously rework melodies and come up with various approaches. Thus "Journey to the Line" was finally born. Many of his latter scores would go on to bear an uncanny resemblance to this classic Thin Red Line theme.

He wrote music for a a 4-minute Maybach commercial.

His favorite movie theme of all time is from Assault on Precinct 13 by John Carpenter.

Fans and industry insiders in the film music world credit Crimson Tide as a turning point in both his career and the scoring business. The Grammy-winning score, often heard in trailers since, was a departure from the norm, making use of digital synthesizers, electronic keyboards, and the latest computer technology to digitally produce a rousing score with traditional orchestral arrangements.

The reason why he was chosen for the movie Lauras Stern , was because, in an interview, he said that he feels that German producers forgot him for composing to a German language movie. One of the producers read the interview and he immediately asked him to do the movie.

Completely self-taught, he learned everything he knows through collaboration and experimenting.

He pushes collaboration between composers because that is how he learned. Every composer that has come out of Media Ventures learned by working with him on various scores by conducting, writing additional music, or even co-composing with him. Harry Gregson-Williams , John Powell , Mark Mancina , Klaus Badelt and Steve Jablonsky are just a few composers who are now doing solo work after expanding from Media Ventures.

He told in an interview that he would retire for some years after The Dark Knight , saying he has been exhausted in the past years. He also said that he wants to help young composers and would produce their scores. His future plan is also about touring the world holding concerts with his own music.

Was nominated for a Tony Award for Original Musical Score in 1998 alongside Elton John , Tim Rice , Lebo M. , Mark Mancina , Jay Rifkin and Julie Taymor for their work on the musical version of The Lion King .

Was nominated for Film Composer of the Year in 2006 by the International Film Music Critics Association (IFMCA).

Was included on the list of "Top 100 Living Geniuses" published by The Daily Telegraph.

He was awarded a Star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 6908 Hollywood Boulevard in Hollywood, California on December 8, 2010.

Hans Zimmer s score for The Thin Red Line would inform the direction he would take in style for the rest of his career. Many directors (especially Christopher Nolan ) would employ him based on their love for The Thin Red Line and the desire for its similar ambiance. More specifically based on the track "Journey to the Line". Ironically, with the exception of "Journey to the Line", most of Zimmers score did not make the final cut of The Thin Red Line What was used was often sampled with various other music chosen by Malick to create an intricate work that is often mistakenly credited to Zimmer.

As of 2017, he has contributed with the music score of nine films that were nominated for the Best Picture Oscar: Rain Man , Driving Miss Daisy , As Good as It Gets , The Thin Red Line , Gladiator , Frost/Nixon , Inception , 12 Years a Slave and Hidden Figures . Of those, Rain Man , Driving Miss Daisy , Gladiator , and 12 Years a Slave are winners in the category.

Has 4 children: one daughter, Zoe Zimmer, with his ex-wife Vicki Carolin; a son Jake Zimmer, a daughter Brigitte Zimmer and another unknown child with his current wife Suzanne Zimmer.

He is the only composer to do scores for Batman films under two different directors.

He is the only composer to have done scores for films about Batman and Superman.

He has written and composed scores for all of DC Comics trinity of heroes: Batman, Superman and Wonder Woman.

Quotes

You have to remain flexible, and you must be your own critic at all,times.

I am not saying it is a bad movie or good movie, but it is an odd movie.

All of the music was written before Terry would edit a scene. That was,just how he wanted to work. It was a very odd way of working for me,because I had to lead the charge up the hill all the time. It gets a,little daunting.

If the secret should be known, which is not much of a secret at all,this is my hobby I love doing this. Anything else feels like work to,me.

You have to realize I like doing big movies that appear on a big screen.

So the visuals and the audio have to be of a certain quality before I,start to get excited about the thing.

The writing gets done away from the keyboard and away from the studio in,my head, in solitude. And then I come in and hopefully have something,then I wrestle with sounds and picture all day long. But the ideas,usually come from a more obscure place, like a conversation with a,director, a still somebody shows you, or whatever.

Anything can become a musical sound. The wind on telegraph wires is a,great sound; get it into your machine and play it and it becomes,interesting.

I want to go and write music that announces to you that you can feel something. I don’t want to tell you what to feel, but I just want you to have the possibility of feeling something.

You have to realize I like doing big movies that appear on a big screen. So the visuals and the audio have to be of a certain quality before I start to get excited about the thing.

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