Heb jij je ooit afgevraagd wie de vocals verzorgt bij Hans Zimmer‘s score voor Regarding Henry?
Dat is Bobby McFerrin, bekend van de hit “Don’t Worry, Be Happy”, is een vocal artist die in zijn theateroptredens veel doet met publieksparticipatie (vergelijkbaar met Jacob Collier). Hier is hij te zijn met een van zijn improvisaties.
Het was heel verrassend om te lezen hoe Harry Gregson-Williams tegen zijn score voor Spy Game aankijkt. In dit interview spreekt hij open en vrij over zijn twijfels bij het resultaat.
I feel very fortunate to have done the film, but I still worry a lot about it. Tony is certainly one of a kind. I didn’t really feel the force of it on Enemy of the State, since there were two of us composing, and we came in pretty late. I think I was a pretty poor substitute for “the Z“, and I think Tony felt a bit let down. And since that time, Hans has been with Tony’s brother, Ridley. So I was fortunate on Spy Game – I don’t think the producers were that keen on me at first, but Tony went out on a limb for me – I didn’t do a demo or anything.
Zo erg zelfs dat hij zich bij de premiere van de film ongemakkelijk voelde.
Sitting at the premiere the other night I found it almost unbearable because there’s so much music, and in your face. I knew it was going to be that way – I was at the dub so none of it surprised me. […] I have to shoulder some of that blame myself, I did spot the movie with Tony – but he’s so very clear about the amount of music. To be honest, his visuals do lend themselves to a lot of underscore. Frequently the old equation that “if a movie needs a lot of music, it’s probably lacking somewhere” is a truism – but I didn’t feel that on Spy Game. It’s just that there were few places where music wouldn’t have helped. I think I’ve learned a lot from that. If we did it all again, I would probably try to be more assertive – and take a “less is more” approach.
Ik heb het wel een beetje met hem te doen.
Ik vond hier een aardige review over de score voor Smilla’s Sense of Snow waarin onder andere de compositie-verhouding tussen Hans Zimmer en Harry Gregson-Williams aan bod komt. Daarnaast besteed het enige aandacht aan de ‘Media Ventures sound’ en de beschrijft het de muziek voor de film redelijk accuraat.
Either way, if you’re a fan of the composer’s synthetically-enhanced expressions of force, be forewarned that this score, as mostly a non-descript, atmospheric Gregson-Williams project, has no passages exhibiting that excitement. It is a simple, predictable, and potentially boring score, but its droning consistency is its strongest attribute.
Going back a bit, did Hans really help out with WHOLE WIDE WORLD and SMILLA?
Hans didn’t write any music for WWW – in fact he heard my score for the first time at the premiere. On SSOS he was bound to write a cue or two. His relationship with the director dictated that. He was also very helpful and supportive to me on that film.
Bron: ifiji.com
Een ‘conspiracy thriller’ heet het; Smilla’s Sense of Snow. Een geliefd genre voor componist Bernard Herrmann blijkbaar, want ik lees in deze korte ‘review’ dat de score daar een imitatie van zou zijn. Of dat gaat om de score zelf of om het genre, dat is me niet helemaal duidelijk; daarvoor ken ik Herrmann toch te weinig…
Harry Gregson-Williams over zijn werk voor de film The Equalizer 2:
What attracted you to both films [The Meg and The Equalizer 2]?
The Equalizer, I did the original with Antoine Fuqua and he only had to ask, I did’t think twice about it. The thing is, we have a bit of a relationship; many years ago, it might be 1997 or something when I forst come to America and I was working under Hans Zimmer at his laboratory [Media Ventures, now Remote Control Productions]. I think it was the first action film I was asked to do aside from working for Hans. I was kind of surprised to get a call, I had not met Antoine Fuqua before. I didn’t know his music videos because he hadn’t a film until that point, nor had I scored an action movie. So we did this movie called The Replacement Killers and we had a good time on it in both our first films, so perhaps it wasn’t our best work yet, hopefully there was somewhere to move. And then all these years went past, a decade and a half has gone by, and we kind of circled back to each other and I was really surprised and pleased that he called me on the Equalizer, the original film more than 5 years ago. So it was a natural thing to want to devlop the themes and carry on the Denzel [Washington] story.
I think I’ve done a lot of films with Denzel. You know, as a film composer you spend a lot of time in a darkened room looking at the pictures in front of you trying to find inspiration and I never get bored of watching Denzel. I can’t think of another Hollywood star that just convinces me right out of the gate. I never sit there thinking: really? really? Never, no. I’ve done several films with him, a lot with Tony Scott actually. So it was really great that since Tony’s passing that I managed to hook up with a director who also loves working Denzel Washington. […]
Dit is een transcriptie van een fragment uit een interview door ‘Unger the Radar’ met Harry Gregson-Williams in de zomer van 2018.
Hier hoor je het volledige interview.