So this one time..

I was watching one of my most favourite movies, which has very inspiring soundtracks. I would like to explore the process in this post.

Hans Zimmer:

Christopher Nolan’s movie called Interstellar, is one of the greatest movies ever made and it tells a very beautiful story of a father and his daughter. The movie is intense and emotional. It takes the audience to outer-space and introduces the audience to different astronomical bodies and events while still keeping the element of humanity alive with huge support by its soundtracks, composed by Hans Zimmer.

Hans Zimmer, the famous film score composer and music producer worked on this movie with Christopher Nolan and the process he describes (in video below) is something very ‘magical’. 

I love the soundtracks composed by Hans Zimmer from the movies like The Dark Knight, Inception, Gladiator, Rush, Dunkirk, The Prestige and many more.

But here I want to talk about Interstellar and its soundtracks.

• Already known for his extraordinary music compositions, Hans Zimmer always seems to be experimenting with new types of music and instruments and different combinations to tell the story and pushing the possibilities of imagination.
• The way he looks at music is very inspiring.

The video below show the behind-the-scenes journey.

In this video, it is evident how much he enjoys experimenting with sound.

• I find his process of working with the film-maker very important, because I feel, that is very necessary for the coherency of both visual and audio experience of the movie and storytelling.
• The idea of using church-organs or Pipe-organs to create this feeling of connecting to the ‘heavenly’ bodies or the ‘mystical realm’ just shows how powerful and necessary some experiments can be.
• It is amazing to see how the vibrating sound-waves can help you connect to the story without putting much thought into it.
• The continuous dialogue between the music composer, the organ player or soloist and the movie director, made them realise the immense capabilities of the church organs (or Pipe-Organs), ultimately creating music throughout the process.
• Hans talks about the complex harmonic structures and how it enabled them to make ‘endless discoveries.’
• The way he explains how the instrument breathes while it is being played, and gives this human presence, which is essential to tell the audience that the movie isnt just about space, but about the people in that space.

It is very astonishing to see how the dialogues and experiments can guide you to tell the stories with maximum effect.

This scene from the movie, shows a very intense moment when the astronaut is trying to dock his space-ship to a space-station.

• Hans named this soundtrack, ‘The Docking Scene: No Time for Caution’. For me, the music makes that amazing scene a lot more impactful. The colours used in that scene are very limited but that is what helps the suspense of the scene.
• The use of white (or light) background in this scene to show scale of the planet feels like it is setting stage (or painting a canvas) for an immense scene. The relative sizes of the space-ship and the space-station and their relative positions, are convincing strongly that something ‘cosmic’ is about to happen and that suggests motion.
• The music used in the background for this particular scene (below) is a high-pitched eerie sound slowly building up-to the heavy-breathing sounds of the church-organs (or Pipe-organs).

This is what I find fascinating about the use of music as well as the use of different musical instruments. 

• This scene shows how the visuals and audio rely on each other a lot when telling a story and how essential it is to understand the nature of different instruments and the experiments carried out to support that.

Conclusion:

The processes shown by both the music composers indicate the importance of thought process and experimenting with different sounds. They show how different materialistic properties and certain processes and engagement can play an important role in the storytelling.

• The wind-instrument Church-organ or Pipe organ, uses wind and air pressure to create a breathing-like feeling.
• The use of wooden cello along with (electronic-)Halldorophone work together to create a haunting feeling which evoke certain emotions, that directly helps story-telling.
• Recording of sounds of a quiet open-space, can relate to the feeling of having a negative space or white space graphic designers use in their work.