Film Composer Hans Zimmer Discusses His Man of Steel Soundtrack

 Q for question , A for answer

When people think of how technology is changing the art of cinema, they rarely think of the soundtrack. Yet you've been experimenting with different technologies for a while now, right?

There are definitely horrible things you can say about Hollywood, but two of the good things you can say is that it pushes technology forward and that it commissions classical music on a daily basis. Pushing technology forward is one of the things that I've done previously on movies such as The Dark Knight and Inception—where rather than just releasing soundtracks, we released apps, so it would become a completely different experience. I think the environment is very important as well. We create these worlds for these movies and an app was a more interesting place to do that than just a straight MP3 download.

You worked with DTS to make a Headphone:X soundtrack for Man of Steel that can play through ordinary headphones. Why concentrate on bringing surround sound to headphones?

I've been doing all kinds of mad experiments lately—like putting 12 drummers in a circle—that I knew would work really well in the cinema, but I was really not looking forward to doing a soundtrack album where I had to fold all this stuff into boring stereo. When DTS came along, and I said to them, “I need your technology. I will only ever be able do one Superman movie in my life, and this is it.” Now we can give people the full surround experience with a movie on their computer.

Since it's all processed to give the sound field of a virtual room, how do you pick what room listeners should be in?

I've been looking for a way of, basically, restoring things the way I hear them when I write them. The DTS thing is a print of my studio, it sounds the way I hear the score when I'm writing it and recording it.

Since all the channels are electronically simulated, presumably you can go beyond the traditional 5.1- or 7.1-channel surround sound, right?

Absolutely. We can do height as well. I wanted the sound to kind of sail across the city [of Metropolis]. Now I wish I could go redo my old movies because suddenly I can play with height in a straight stereo environment.

Frankly, playing with height is particularly good for a movie about a man that can fly above you, right?

There might be something to be said for that.

You were casually mentioning it there, but as new technologies evolve, many directors do go back and make improvements and changes to their earlier work. Would you see a possibility of doing something like that for some of your previous scores?

Well, it's funny because I just had this conversation I think earlier last week with Chris [Nolan, director of the Dark Knight series and Inception], where we were talking about what we're doing now and about to do, and we're forever wanting to go forward, but when we get completely bored and we don't know what to do anymore, we'll go and have a look at the old stuff. But right now, it's all about moving forward.