Christoph Zirngibl Interview
Below is the transript of my interview with the award-winning German film composer Christoph Zirngibl. The podcast, video and show notes are linked here at this link button.
Christoph Zirngibl:
That's the first time I really recognized film music as film music. When I was age 13 or something, I was a big fan of dinosaurs. In a magazine I read about the movie Jurassic Park that would be coming out and where you can see dinosaurs coming to life and I was really excited about that. And so I went to a cinema with an uncle of mine and I was completely overwhelmed by the combination of pictures and music and when the helicopter flew over the island and there was this big fanfare with the big orchestra and I thought, wow, I want to do that too. People, I want people to react to my music and the way I reacted to the music and the combination music with the picture. From that time on, I really tried to get to know how to become a film composer.
Leah Roseman:
Hi, you’re listening to Conversations with Musicians, with Leah Roseman, which I hope inspires you through the personal stories of a fascinating diversity of musical guests. Christoph Zirngibl is an award-winning German film composer who has composed music for over 120 films as well as many TV series including the Apple TV+ series Where’s Wanda. It often strikes me that even with something as specific as some of Christoph’s advice about work flow for fellow film composers, that it can apply more broadly to all of us, whatever our pursuits.You’ll be hearing a few clips from some of his projects in different musical styles, as well as his reflections on his formative student years, the strengths of the apprentice system and his interest in many aspects of filmmaking. I have previously featured a few film composers on this series, and some of these episodes are linked directly in the show notes for you. It’s such an interesting career path, and I find that each of these composers have unique musical backgrounds. Like all my episodes, you can watch this on my YouTube channel or listen to the podcast on many platforms, and I’ve also linked the transcript to my website Leahroseman.com It’s a joy to bring these inspiring episodes to you every week, and I do all the many jobs of research, production and publicity. Have a look at the description of this episode, where you’ll find timestamps, and all the links, including different ways to support this podcast!
Hi Christophe, thanks so much for joining me here today,
Christoph Zirngibl:
Hi Leah. Thanks for having me.
Leah Roseman:
I was talking to my husband over breakfast about this interview and he asked who you were and I said this little bit about Jurassic Park changing your life, and he said, oh, you should ask him if he ever contacted John Williams. So that's my first question.
Christoph Zirngibl:
Oh, I never dared to be honest because he is a very busy man and actually it's funny, I never thought about that. Maybe I should do it because he's getting quite old, but a friend of mine who is a conductor is conducting lots of his film music, live to picture. Maybe there's a connection.
Leah Roseman:
Yeah. So actually do you want to tell us that story of how you saw that movie?
Christoph Zirngibl:
Yeah, well, I mean that's the first time I really recognized film music as film music When I was age 13 or something, I was a big fan of dinosaurs. In a magazine, I read about the movie at Jurassic Park that would be coming out and where you can see dinosaurs coming to life and I was really excited about that. And so I went to a cinema with an uncle of mine and I was completely overwhelmed by the combination of pictures and music and when the helicopter flew over the island and there was this big fanfare with the big orchestra and I thought, wow, I want to do that too. I really want people to react to my music in the way I reacted to the music and the combination music with the picture. And that was the idea that got stuck in my head. And from that time on, I really tried to get to know how to become a film composer, which was not that easy at that time. There's no internet and I grew up in a small village, so no connection to film composers, stuff like that. So was not that easy to go down that road.
Leah Roseman:
But at this point you've written well over 120 scores for film and tv.
Christoph Zirngibl:
Seems like it. Yes, quite a lot.
Leah Roseman:
Yeah. Jurassic Park is a score that my orchestra played with the movie. I think a lot of orchestras have been doing that and it has such a huge effect on the audience of course to hear the orchestra live. But I was just thinking when you saw it in the theater, it's not as popular now. People aren't actually watching movies in theaters so much and it's so much more of an impact for the music.
Christoph Zirngibl:
Absolutely. And I hope people that cinema will survive in a way because it's such an immersive experience and you're so focused and immersed in the story and which doesn't happen when you watch movies at home, the big screen and the big sound system, and it's just completely different world and taking you out of your world, which no streaming service can do in this way. So up until today, I think it's a really magical place. The cinema, every time you leave your comfort zone, which is your home and go somewhere else and experience art in its purest form, it's a good thing to do and it's very, very inspiring I think.
Leah Roseman:
So before we get into some of your music, I was interested to talk to you a little bit about your childhood because actually you're the first German I've had on this podcast. I've had people from over 30 countries just hadn't got around to
Christoph Zirngibl:
Wow
Leah Roseman:
Germany, so. Also you grew up in this village and one of the things I read is that you played in your dad's brass band that he conducted, which is the community band, is that right?
Christoph Zirngibl:
Right.
Leah Roseman:
This is not something that exists everywhere, so I was curious about that cultural aspect.
Christoph Zirngibl:
I see, okay. So yeah, it's just a group of non-professional musician musicians who normally gather around a leader who is more versed in music and they play all the church parties or the community parties or there are parades or stuff like that. So a lot of occasions and they play a lot of German traditional music and also American traditional music that is like marches, concert marches and stuff like that. And actually my father's community band still exists and they have a partner orchestra in Iowa and Boone and they shared scores and played concerts together. So it's a really cool cultural thing and very important for a village's community, people coming together and not just playing football or doing sports, which is quite common, but also playing music together, which is a really important aspect for people to come together I think.
Leah Roseman:
And another thing that struck me when I was researching you was that you were able to write the music for your high school play, sort of a first gig.
Christoph Zirngibl:
That's right, yeah, because I was always into music and not so much into the normal school things, and that's where my German teacher approached me whether I was interested to write music for some poem that was used inside a theater play, which ended up me writing a complete score for the school play. And that I think saved me also my high school exams because I wasn't really that good at maths or all the other stuff that you have to be good at when you attend school. And so that was my really first experience in music interacting with the story. And of course there was the people were happy that I wrote music and there was no really criticism about it. It's the case today when you write music for a movie, it's always an interaction with a director or producer and that wasn't the case at that time. Mostly people just were happy. I wrote music and it was placed in the theater plays and that was a really cool experience. Did it I think for about four years.
Leah Roseman:
And you had access to a digital audio workstation for that project?
Christoph Zirngibl:
I think that was one of the points that also made me interesting as a collaborator because I was able to sketch out my ideas without any big, without needing any logistics of musicians or something like that. I just recorded some stuff at home or at school, brought my own microphone and recorded cello player or a singer or something like that. And it was not just pop songs or something like that. It was, it was quite film music, like music at that point.
And what was quite interesting that at one point I was able to transcribe the music and get it performed at one of the concerts we had at school. So being able to listen to my music played by live musicians. Then the other way around was a really important experience for me to see that people actually know what I'm feeling, what kind of music I'm having in my head and they can actually play that. I was not very versed that writing down notes, it was a back and forth process, but I learned a lot and I really caught fire then and I thought I really have to do that. The other aspect that's interesting is why I wanted to become a composer is that I never was a really good musician. I didn't, I wasn't into practicing and studying Mozart or Bach or something like that. I always wanted to write my own stuff and never got into practicing really, which is really a shame because I wish I really could be, could play the piano properly or the drums properly, but I always thought I can write and other people can play it so I don't have to practice. That was another reason for getting into composing.
Leah Roseman:
So you write an incredible range of music and often in one project as well, there has to be this quick pivot. And so in this playlist we're going to be sharing what should we start with? Let's see, the Flight of Bryan is a really inspiring story. Maybe you want to tell us that story a little bit.
Christoph Zirngibl:
Yeah, it's been about two years since I worked on this project, so I will see if I can tell you a lot about it. It's a really inspiring story about the first manpower flight and about a guy that flew a plane that had no engine or something. It was basically a bike where he sat on a bike and there's a propeller or something that was driven by the bike and then he got over the English channel, which is quite a distance to go and it was a challenge back then. You could win prize money when you did the challenge. And yeah, it's a very inspiring story because it took a really long time and was the team that set up this plane where all nowadays you would diagnose them as neurodiversity, something like that. So they were all no engineers, but they were very passionate about what they wanted to do and very focused.
So they built that plane over the course of over a year or something and then got from America to England and set up the plane that in the end made the way over the English channel and the director, I worked with a director before on a Netflix documentary called Skandal Bringing Down Wirecard, which was quite a different story and was more a thriller like story and Flight of Bryan is somehow a complete opposite because it's more like a very band driven score. It's about funky music, heavy basslines, Motown horn sections and stuff like that. And so it was really big fun doing this music and also connecting it with this weird story of those non-engineer guys doing this absolutely insane adventure. It's a really fun movie to watch it. I think it's in the us, you can watch it on Amazon Prime. So to check it out, it's really worth it.
Leah Roseman:
Thanks for that. This is a clip from the Flight of Bryan.(Music).
Let's talk about where's Wanda. So that is very cool. So I I just started it. I'm
Christoph Zirngibl:
Alright.
Leah Roseman:
And I understand you composed some episodes or is it composed with Ralph?
Christoph Zirngibl:
Yeah, Ralph composed the first episode on his own and then from second episodes to eight we composed it 50 50. So it's a teamwork from then on. Yeah,
Leah Roseman:
Yeah, I'm really glad I found out about that show. And it's interesting in terms of the cultural landscape of TV now. So for Apple Plus, this is their first German show. I was just thinking Netflix, one of their successes I think has been getting productions from all over the world and getting those audiences hooked. So it a good move, I think, on Apple's part.
Christoph Zirngibl:
It is. I think they have shows from England and Spain already, but this was the first German one and I was really excited about working with Apple TV because I really liked their shows. I mean Severance is one of my all time favorite and all those heroes of mine, like Theodore Shapiro, Lorne Balfe or all those big guys doing the music for the shows. And then there's my name alongside Ralf's in that cannon of really great artists. That was really something for me.
Leah Roseman:
And this mythical creature the Nuppelwocken, is this a real thing or?
Christoph Zirngibl:
No, no, I never heard about it before and it's also a very funny name. It doesn't mean anything and I think it's just how people outside German consider German words to be. So it's a really funny, funny thing.
Leah Roseman:
And in this score, you guys have some songs with English lyrics. Are they written for the show or are they licensed? How does that work?
Christoph Zirngibl:
No, the songs have been licensed all we just wrote the musical score without the lyrics.
Leah Roseman:
Okay, I was just curious about that aspect. But sometimes for some projects you'll be asked to write in the style of somebody in order to avoid licensing, correct? For that sort of thing.
Christoph Zirngibl:
It didn't happen that often to me. I mean I got asked to write songs because I like to write songs and my wife is also singer and lyricists, so it's something I can offer to productions and there's something, sometimes it happens that there is a song they want to license and they can't, but I don't like to write sound alikes or something like that. I just try to convey the emotional impact of the song and write and translate it into my own language. I think that's more interesting than just doing something that sounds like Stairway to Heaven or something like that.
Leah Roseman:
But I was thinking about in terms of what the creator wants, it must have happened in your long career that they just don't like it and you have to completely change your idea. You think it's great and they're just
Christoph Zirngibl:
No, it happens all the time, especially in tv. And I have to say nothing, I think there's nothing really wrong with that because to talk about music is really, really hard. And I always try to make the director talk to me like he's talking with an actor more about emotionality and dramaturgical aspects of scenes and movies, not so much about the music as music because there are a lot of things you can, the vocabulary of non-musicians maybe that it's not always the same in line with how professional music and musicians and composers talk about music. I mean best example is someone always talked about horns and really meant trombones or I mean there's also this jazz and classic vocabulary, so much things you can really make not be on the same page very quickly. So it's better to talk about emotionality and stuff like that.
But also when directors talk to you about emotionality, there's a lot of ways how to approach it. And so it's a process and it sometimes takes time to find the right language for a movie or for a scene or the right instrumentation or I mean if you have an orchestral score, it's kind of easier because there are of course a lot of statistics in how to orchestrate things, but the general sound is pretty clear and how an orchestra sounds, and there are different settings of an orchestra and sizes, but the core sound is always the same. And when you go into a different direction and want to write a more synthetic sound or creating sounds from scratch, it's much more difficult to meet expectations unless you have a really strong temp track, which is that the music the director puts under the first edits of his movie to show to people what the emotional direction is he wanted to go with a movie.
And sometimes that is helpful in order to find the right sound for a movie, but sometimes it's really a journey. And I also like the process of throwing things away and starting from scratch and trying things out because often there's not so much time when scoring a movie and you go for first or second idea you have when seeing the movie and it's just you have to start and you write the music. And if then someone gives you the chance to revisit the scene and say, it doesn't work for me, try something different. It can also be very rewarding because maybe you just think the music isn't the best music you could write for the movie, but because of the time you just go for the idea. And so to make it short, I really don't mind starting from scratch or throwing away ideas. It's just part of the process. And it always helps you understanding the story and the emotionality of the movie a bit more. So when writing the second or third iteration of an idea, it's often easier because all the other aspects of the movie, the rhythm of the edits and every movement of the actors maybe much easier to write a second or third iteration.
Leah Roseman:
And music's always the last thing
Christoph Zirngibl:
Alongside with sound design or even visual effects. We are at the very end of the process.
Leah Roseman:
And Christoph, I was just thinking about TV shows as opposed to movies in terms of the story arc. Certainly in the last 20 years, even a show like Where's Wanda? I mean it's like this big development and as a viewer I tend more towards a series than a movie for that reason.
Christoph Zirngibl:
Yeah, I know what you mean because you can take a much deeper dive into the characters and that can be quite interesting if the series is really good, but it also can be really frustrating if it doesn't lead anywhere in the end, which happens a lot of times.
Leah Roseman:
This is a clip of Where's Wanda?(Music)
So when you went to a very competitive program in Munich where you live now for TV and film composition, and your mentor, Andreas Weidinger, he helped you a lot, you ended up assisting with him, but can you talk about those early days when you first got there and what that was like?
Christoph Zirngibl:
Yes. I mean, before I was entering that program I started studying music teaching at another university because I wanted to do something safe, but I learned pretty quickly that it's not my kind of thing. I mean I really love, I have really good teachers and they're very passionate about what they do and I admire that a lot, but it's absolutely not my kind of thing. So then I learned about the program in Munich and I learned that they only accept students once another student has graduated and they only have seven slots. So I thought I just go for it and if I get accepted, it's a sign and I should go down that route. And I was accepted luckily, and I really liked the student's life and because we were, the University of Music in Munich is a really big but also intimate place and there's rooms filled with awesome musicians and if you have an idea, you just open the next door, you quickly grow friends with violin players, harpists, percussionists can try out stuff you write and ask them how to write it down so they can understand it quicker and stuff like that.
So it was really a dream place for me. And we had a studio with lots of equipment where we were able to record musicians and also small ensembles, and I recorded choir, recorded small string ensembles for student films and it was all supervised by our professors and it was a really great time. And the only thing missing a bit was the connection with the film. There's also a film school in Munich, but there never was that of a big connection between those two because at the time those students didn't like the way what they called the big Hollywood music because they wanted to make different movies and more in the art house field and with no music or very small amount of music. So it was hard to make a connection there. But one of my best friends till today I knew him from school, was accepted there and I did all the music for all his movies up until now and that was one of the really great exceptions there.
Leah Roseman:
So I was curious in your role as assistant and you use assistants now, what do you think is the best way to train people or to make use of that help?
Christoph Zirngibl:
It highly depends on the people, but I mean at the university I learned a lot of the theoretical stuff, but the important part is to experience the process of writing music for a film, the time pressure and all the different aspects aside from composing, because composing is a maximum, it's half of the story. We have to do a lot of organizational stuff and technical stuff. And it's also very psychological job because you have to find out who is the leader in the film team who tells you what you should go after and stuff like that. So it's very complex and you can't learn that at university. You only learn that while you're in the job. And of course you can do students film where you're on your own, but being assistant to somebody who is in that role, there's a kind of a safe zone where you can experience stuff without being responsible on your own.
And that's a very, very healthy way approaching the job and you learn a lot of things and avoiding mistakes you could easily make and which can be very discouraging at some point. I mean you also have to learn to deal with rejection and stuff like that. Experiencing that secondhand through my mentor was one of the most valuable experiences I had and I try to make it possible for my assistant too. And I also with Andreas, for some time we shared studio plays and we often had some assistants we shared and gave them the opportunity to do the same like I did and just dip their toes into the shark water of the music business. And I think it's very important for people to have that safe zone without being responsible on their own.
Leah Roseman:
I was just thinking about young Christoph because if you look back like you did get in when you first applied, but maybe if you hadn't but you knew you had this drive and this talent, do you think you would advise him to try again, just keep working?
Christoph Zirngibl:
Oh, absolutely. Yeah, yeah. There's few things I would avoid, but I think the most things, even the bad things were really helpful during my path of becoming a big composer and they really shape the way I work and the way I think about music and films. I would say just go for it, try it out.
Leah Roseman:
When we started this conversation, I asked you about if you'd ever connected with John Williams, but I was thinking about networking because the internet's really changed the landscape.
Christoph Zirngibl:
That's right, yeah.
Leah Roseman:
And I know you've done some workshops on productivity for film composers for example, and being in Munich, I mean you're reaching out to people all over in this business
Christoph Zirngibl:
It has changed, but the workshops were in person at film music conferences.
I want to do it online at some point too because, and it's not fancy stuff, it's just stuff that composers don't want to think about in the first place. But it's so important to get your stuff organized so you have time to compose or especially have time to spend time with your family. I mean, I have two kids and the wife of course, and it's inspiring and important to spend time with them. It's important for them, but it's also important for me to get away from the studio and away from movies and just sitting outside in the garden and playing with sand or playing ball or stuff like that. Just reconnecting with the real life. And this is very important. It's healthy, it's inspiring, and to have time for that, it's really important to have an organized workflow. And so you really can enjoy the time of a studio without thinking about stuff.
Oh, I have to do that, I have to do write that email, I have to send those files. And I never thought about that. This could be interesting for other people, but especially when working with Ralph and various Vanda and I also helped other composers with their projects and I learned that things that were quite normal and natural for me aren't normal and natural for other composer at all. So I put together this little speech and it was amazing how the reactions of the people were because they never thought about some very simple things or thought about them, but never knew how to organize it or approach it. And it's really a great feeling to add value to other people's workflow or other people's life even to give back the things that I learned from Andreas and other people. So I really want to posit onto to a new generation of people.
Leah Roseman:
Hi, just a quick break from the episode. I wanted to let you know about some other episodes I’ve linked directly to this one, with film and tv composers: Adam Blau, Anže Rozman and Kara Talve, Kat Raio Rende, Pat Irwin, EmmoLei Sankofa and Colin Aguiar. It’s a joy to be able to bring these meaningful conversations to you, but this project costs me quite a bit of money and lots of time; please support this series through either my merchandise store or on my Ko-fi page; you’ll find the links in the show notes. For the merch, it features a unique design by artist Steffi Kelly and you can browse clothes, notebooks, mubs and more, everything printed on demand. On my Ko-fi page you can buy me one coffee, or every month. You’ll also find the link to sign up for my newsletter where you’ll get access to exclusive information about upcoming guests. Finally, if you’re finding this episode interesting, please text it to a friend. Thanks.
Can you share one or two tips from that?
Christoph Zirngibl:
Yeah, sure. I mean, some pretty simple things is organizing the folder structure of a project. I have an empty folder structure that are always copied to a project folder and starting a new project, it's very simple because you have dedicated photos for dedicated files, for pre film sketches, for the compositional stuff you compose to the movies. And then for stuff that goes out to producers or directors for approval and to the dubbing studio where the final music gets to get mixed into the movie. And that's one very simple way of staying organized and also finding your stuff very quickly and not just saying, oh, what was the last version I sent to the producer, or which version is he talking about? Something like that. So it starts with those very simple things and then going over to cue sheet organizations, cue sheet, a list of the music that is included in a movie and keeping track of the different versions, the recordings you have to do and stuff like that. So it's pretty complex job in a way. So it's really important to have a workflow that helps you have an overview over the work you have to do or you already did in one place very quickly.
That's basically what it's about.
Leah Roseman:
It points to some of the many skills you need to have to do your job. And I was thinking back to when you said you were in school and you were struggling with other subjects, but you just wanted to this, but had you been in an educational environment where you were able to just follow your curiosity and maybe not do all the traditional stuff would've been even better, right?
Christoph Zirngibl:
I don't know, but I think maybe it's only possible because I went all the way up until now to learn those skills. I didn't know. I don't know whether I would have been, I didn't have that knowledge back then and not, I mean I always was interested in workflow and stuff like that because my father had a little company also, which grew bigger and logistics company then later on. And I think there's some stuff I learned from him subconsciously and that what finds its place in my workflow right now. But it really took some time for myself to really realize how to organize things, especially at the point when I got a regular assistant, you have to set up things so that other people can understand where you're at, which part of the project you're working on, and also which tasks they have to do. And that's really changed my mindset and my workflow. And so I think I wouldn't have been able to show it to people earlier in my life
Leah Roseman:
As a podcaster, I do everything myself, and if I ever had anyone helping me, it would be complicated to explain because maybe it's not so logical, it's a little chaotic, my organization.
Christoph Zirngibl:
I can imagine that. Yes, but you absolutely know where all your stuff is and you understand your workflow and that's fine. That's work for me for 10 years. But then there was some point where I thought, no, I really have to reorganize things, especially when I revisited all the projects and I couldn't find the latest files. And because when you're into the project, you always know where everything is, but a year later you won't remember that and it's quite hard to revisit stuff.
Leah Roseman:
That is a good point. I mean, I think for just general organization in life,
Christoph Zirngibl:
Absolutely. But I'm not very organized in my general life. I won't show you in my studio right now, but I try to be organized in my job at least.
Leah Roseman:
So the Unexpected Journey was a special personal project?
Christoph Zirngibl:
Yes. It's just one orchestral track. I recorded for my 40th birthday, which is I think five years ago. And we had some time left in an orchestra session I did for a comedian here in Germany. And I thought maybe I'd just bring along that piece because I wrote it for a pitch. So I wrote it for a pitch and it never didn't get the project. And also the piece didn't make it to the pitch, but it was a melody that always resonated a lot with me. And that doesn't happen a lot of times because you have to write such a lot of music and to really connect with it on a deeper emotional level is often not that easy. But there was this melody and I really loved it. And at this point I also wasn't able to write orchestra scores because writing for orchestra is one of my favorite things.
And I was doing a lot of thriller music during that time, which was very electronic driven. So I decided for my 40th birthday, I just have to do it for myself and just give it a go and record it. And that is what got single release, the Unexpected Journey, which also led me to new orchestral projects. Funnily, I sent it to a production company, searched for a composer for an animated movie that was the hero of Centopia, and I got the gig. And so it really gave a new twist to my career in a way because yeah, because I knew I wanted to go in that direction, but in Germany, orchestra scores aren't that common, so I had to search for different ways.
Leah Roseman:
What a beautiful story.
Christoph Zirngibl:
Thank you.
Leah Roseman:
Part of it would be style though, in terms of the, as well as budget in terms of not using orchestra.
Christoph Zirngibl:
Yeah, yeah, of course. A big part of it is style and it's also the way streaming services work and the stories work in streaming services that mostly don't need orchestral music, not that much music and more atmospheric music maybe, and not so much themes but more sounds and stuff like that. And that's all fine. I also like to do that in a way, but I always was about me personally. It was really, personally, it was more about having a great melody or a great theme, or even in music like Stravinsky who doesn't work with big themes like in Marvel movies you hear in Marvel movies. But there was always something driven stuff. And I really like that kind of music. And of course you can translate this into electronics somehow too and work with little motives. But I think orchestra, it's such an interesting and never ending story to write for orchestra because every time I record with orchestra and I did about 30, 35 orchestra sessions and for different occasions, movies and arrangements, and I played live with orchestras and stuff like that. And every time I learn something new and it's so fascinating and even working with different players and each orchestra has its own character in a way, and it's just so exciting to explore the territory.
Leah Roseman:
Germany's known to have one of maybe the strongest support of anywhere in the world for orchestras. There's been some cutbacks I understand in the last generation, but do you feel it's still pretty robust?
Christoph Zirngibl:
Well, I'm not an expert on that field, but it feels very robust in comparison to other countries, of course, yes, because we have states founded orchestras here and yeah, I mean I was part of a military orchestra for two years, which then got, what do you call it? It doesn't exist anymore. They cut down the number of military orchestras. And I think that happened to the community and states orchestras too, but not in such a big way. And I think we can really be happy about that because we have some really great orchestras here in Germany, Munich especially, and in Berlin. So I think it's something to be proud of. Yeah,
Leah Roseman:
I spent some time in Munich a long time ago. I remember you have that beautiful English garden and I think it's the same landscape designer at Central Park, right?
Christoph Zirngibl:
I don't know, maybe. Yes, I'm sorry.
Leah Roseman:
I think so. Yeah, it struck me as a very, very livable city in Munich. Yeah,
Christoph Zirngibl:
Yeah, it's a lot of green and I live at the end of the city and there's a forest around the corner and it's really beautiful. And it's also in a way small compared to other big cities in Germany, which I also, I mean I've been to Los Angeles for example, and it's just unbelievably how big this city is. And even compared to Berlin, which is also a very big city, but it's a never ending landscape of houses and quite overwhelming for a village guy like me, but also very inspiring place of course. And Munich seems to be the perfect place in between the really big cities and small villages, so I feel quite comfortable here.
Leah Roseman:
So you had mentioned carving out family time as a priority, and other film composers I've talked to have said it can be so unrelenting, the deadline pressure, but you do have a very strict work schedule for yourself. It's very full on during the day, right?
Christoph Zirngibl:
Yeah, I think we should add my wife now for that topic to see if I'm right. But normally I really try to work, I bring my daughter to school and my wife brings our son to the kindergarten and then we start working at around 8, 8 30 and pick her up at school at two, which is a nice break in getting out because I can do it all by food, so it's also very healthy. And then I stopped working at six o'clock in the evening when we have dinner, and I learned that in a masterclass with Michael Giacchino in Spain. It's quite some time ago, I think it was 2009 or something, and where he told us that the most important thing for him is to have breakfast with his family and to have dinner with his family and everything is wrapped around that schedule. And I thought that's quite interesting because you spend a lot of time procrastinating and if you have a set timeframe, that can be really annoying at times, of course, because you wanted to stay in the flow or something.
But it also can be quite relieving because if you are out of ideas and at six o'clock I can go up and be away from the studio and there's a new day tomorrow and I can start with a fresh mind that's really very helpful. But it's also very hard to do this during really tight schedules because you have to stay on time and you have to deliver and to make a break and not using all the time you have up until the deadline is really tough. But over the years I learned that I never missed a deadline, so why should I miss this deadline? Just because I'm having dinner with my family, it doesn't make sense. So over the years I try to stay in that timeframe. Sometimes I have to work over weekends and stuff like that, but I really try to avoid it. And that's why I also am very fast most of the time writing stuff because it's very focused. And also spending time off the studio, it always helps because my mind is working on the score when I'm sitting at dinner or sitting playing with my kids, or my mind is still working on ideas subconsciously. And once you get back to the writing desk, there are new aspects that come up that wouldn't be there if you hadn't spent time off the desk. So I think it's a really important aspect and cannot be underestimated.
Leah Roseman:
So the hero of Centopia writing a score for a kid's animated feature, having young children must sort of change your view of it than when you were younger writing something like that?
Christoph Zirngibl:
Yeah, yeah, that's right. It's all about the perspective. I mean, I wrote for children's movies earlier before I had kids and writing for kids movies always a lot of fun because you can't do stuff you can't do with grown films for grownups most of the time, and especially with animation, you can go rogue and can write music that doesn't make sense in any other context. And with the Hero of Centopia, it was a really, really dream project. And also working with people that are into animation is a quite different workflow than working with fiction people because it's all about imagination.
They work with very raw sketches from the beginning and then over the course of one or two years, the film takes shape and everything before that. Taking shape is all in about imagination. It's all in our head. The movie doesn't exist. You can't go out with a camera and shoot the movie. It just takes a lot of time to draw everything, to animate stuff. It's a really long process and that's why you really are in a zone of imagination, and that's really connecting them very much with the mind of a composer because you also, everything is in your head and you have to sketch it out, write it down, and do demos and stuff like that. So the process is very similar and that's why I felt quite a great connection with the animation crew and also animated movies ask a lot for orchestra stuff, and I really always wanted to write something like the Hero of Centopia and was really happy to get the chance to. And also writing some eighties infused stuff. For example, the Flight of the Storm Unicorns is one of those strikes that of the direction of Neverending Story if you know that music written by Klaus Doldinger a German film composer, and there's a lot of things that just felt right and made a lot of fun, and I'm really happy how it turned out.
Leah Roseman:
This is a clip from the Hero of Centopia (Music)
Christoph Zirngibl:
Nobody knows yet, but I'm working on a new project with the same crew, so here we are.
Leah Roseman:
Wonderful. I was curious about a few things. Some of the media composers I've spoken with are interested in filmmaking themselves, and I was just curious if let's say you had a parallel life, like fantasy world, would you be interested in direction or writing or acting or any other aspect because the industry? Well,
Christoph Zirngibl:
Yeah, I mean I would be highly interested in directing, to be honest, because it's hands-on working with people on set and really, yeah, it's really an art form. It's also very technical, like film composing in a way. You have to know all the camera stuff, the lenses and lighting and everything. But it's so interesting when you look through a camera and just have this focused space out of the big setting and you can carve out a story out of this small, it's really fascinating. And also working with actors, it's like working with musicians, telling them what you want the story to what the emotional emotionality of the story should be, and then letting them do their thing. Like a really good musician who knows to interpret a melody or interpret a line or something. It's the same with actors. So I think being a director would be really some interesting thing. Indeed,
Leah Roseman:
It's such a benefit to people to immerse themselves in storytelling. I think that people maybe take for granted that there's all this great content to watch, but a lot of us are going through pretty tough times now in the world and just being able to escape to story.
Christoph Zirngibl:
Yeah, I think what I recently discovered, which is of course somehow quite obvious, is reading books
Speaker 3:
Because
Christoph Zirngibl:
You stay inside one focused story and not just scroll through amounts of stuff and which is really, it is not giving you back something, it's just spending time and afterwards you just don't know what did you watch? I mean, unless you watch something like your podcast on YouTube, which is a longer form and you stay with it and stay focused and watch the whole episode, it's really just spending ten second times with a lot of stuff. So reading a book, it is better for the eyes in terms of healthiness, but it's also much deeper connection with the story or the topic of the book. And staying in a topic big for over the course of some days or hours at least. It's something very rewarding and also something very refreshing for the soul, I think. And also listening to, I mean, it's like listening to a symphony in a whole. People don't do that. I mean, people even don't listen to songs that are longer than two and a half minutes or listening to an album of songs like concept albums of stuff like that. And I think that's really something that could help us just focus in on some specific things that interests us and just spend time with them and not scroll through a thousand videos of different aspects of life and politics and stuff like that.
You get tired and it doesn't give back something that's really useful for you in life, I think.
Leah Roseman:
Have you just got back into reading books or is it sort of a new thing?
Christoph Zirngibl:
Yeah, my friend I talked about who is a director, he wrote his first book, which he spent quite a lot of time in writing and a new part of the story because it's kind of autobiographical and it's also some aspects of the book are included in the movie finished area, which we also did. And so that's how I really learned that reading books, I mean, it might seem quite ridiculous for people that are more into the arts and stuff like that. So obvious having a good bookshelf with some of the classics or interesting topics. It's such an obvious thing, but especially if you have family and it's fast-paced life as a film composer, it's really hard to really take the time to sit down and read in a book for an hour or something that's just sm There's time for that and one is exhausted quite a lot and it really takes energy and focus to do that. But it's so rewarding. And that's the thing I really want to, because in the early days I really read a lot of books. I spend my youth reading all the day, and it's really good for imagination because you can make your own movies in your head about the stories you read, and it's so important, such an important aspect of life. Imagination in general and reading books really helps a lot with that. I think.
Leah Roseman:
Yeah, I've always been a reader, but with the pace of my life now, I maybe only read 20 minutes a day. I don't have necessarily an hour to sit, but I do see, certainly, I think with the younger generation coming up now, people maybe never even developed that habit because they grew up with the internet, which is kind of sad. Anyway, you had mentioned Finis Terrae, this project, and there's music from that we could include for people to hear.
Christoph Zirngibl:
Yes, that's right. It was a really special project because it's a movie you can't watch now anywhere because it's a very small art house movie. And my friend Konstantin traveled the world for I think seven years and interviewed and filmed people who live in communist regimes like Cuba or Venezuela or even in Germany in Berlin, the story of the communist regimes. And the movie is held together by a very poet, poetic, voiceover text. It's like a one and a half hour poem. And we had the chance to make this a live experience. So I wrote, I think it was 88 minutes of score, and there was a film premiere in a theater in Regensburg, which is a small town north of Bavaria. And we got the score performed live to the picture. We had a big orchestra in choir, and it was I think 120 people on stage in total.
And it was quite a unique experience because people didn't know the movie. And normally you watch something like Jurassic Park or Lord of the Rings or Harry Potter and the film Inside Out and you just want to experience it once again. And initially the theater approached me because they heard some music of mine in the radio and they wanted to do kind of a film concert with a movie I already did. And I asked them, but you're a theater, how about trying something new? We just do this as an artful experience and show the people a movie they don't know and music they don't know and just see how people react. And it was only two concerts, but it was sold out very quickly and was very successful. People were very overwhelmed and for Konstantin and me, it was a very, very special experience. Of course, I mean we recorded orchestral scores for his movies, but the live experience and sitting in a room with people and seeing them react and people started crying. It was very moving and very rewarding I think. And it's really a pity so far. We couldn't get another concert of this project. Maybe we'll have the chance once again,
Leah Roseman:
This is an excerpt from Finis Terrae (Music).
and there's beautiful vocal music in that. I'm curious, being married to a singer, has that affected your development of writing for voice?
Christoph Zirngibl:
Yeah, I mean, I was always interested in the human voice and as the movie is about the voice of the people, of the common people, in a way it was quite natural using the voice as a musical element in the score too. But yeah, it has sharpened my understanding standing a bit, being married to my wife is not a professional singer in that sense, but she has a classical education, but we also had a pop band. And so again, I learned a lot writing for her and for the registers of her voice and which helped me, again, a deeper understanding of writing for boys in general and working with choir, which I always loved. And so yeah, it was always there, but it absolutely helped me gaining more experience with that. Yeah,
Leah Roseman:
This Finis Terrae, you said it's not available. Why doesn't he put it on Vimeo? And people can rent it there.
Christoph Zirngibl:
We have to ask him.
Leah Roseman:
Yeah, you should do that.
Christoph Zirngibl:
Yeah. I think the biggest problem, if you may call it, is that we don't have the money to dub it, to record the voice in a different language because it's a very poetic text and it's not easy to translate it. I mean, I think there is an English version he translated, but you have to record it, and it's a really tedious process to get it right in terms of pronunciation and the flow, so it really fits the music. But we are definitely thinking about that. He now has also two kids, and so life is in the way a bit. But yeah, I think we will do that at one point.
Leah Roseman:
There's one little cultural thing I wanted to ask you about on Instagram. You posted something about stollen this pastry and that. Okay, because a bakery near me that has it once a year, and you said it has to ripen. What's with this - What do you mean by this?
Christoph Zirngibl:
I mean, I learned that there are several recipes to do it, but my sister does it in a way you have to make the stollen and then you have to put it in foil or what do you call it? And take it into a dry place and wait for two weeks. It's like wine, which ferment.
Leah Roseman:
Ferment. Okay,
Christoph Zirngibl:
Ferment in a way. Yeah. Right.
Leah Roseman:
Okay.
Christoph Zirngibl:
And then it's ready to eat, but it really takes, it's a chemical process and which instead of putting it into the oven, you put it in the shelf and wait for two weeks and then it's ready to eat.
Leah Roseman:
It's delicious. Can you describe it to people who've never tasted it?
Christoph Zirngibl:
Wow, that's like talking about music, it's really tough. Well, it's sweet, but it's also very fruity in a way. And there is, what's the English word for marzipan or
Leah Roseman:
With almonds? Marzipan
Christoph Zirngibl:
Almonds, which I love. I really love. And there's a small part in the inside of the stolen is marzipan. And yeah, it's just really delicious. I really look forward to, because it's nothing that, as you said, at one time of a year you can eat that and then for the rest of your year it's gone. It's not available. And it's such a rewarding thing that something is not available all the time and you can really look forward to something. It's was a very healthy process in nowadays world.
Leah Roseman:
When I was just finished my studies, the first time I went to Europe actually was to play in Schleswig-Holstein Festival in Germany. And I remember one of my memories is we'd finished playing concerts a couple times and these small children would come up on stage and give us marzipan because one of the sponsors was like a marzipan company
Christoph Zirngibl:
Of course.
Leah Roseman:
So it was really cute.
Christoph Zirngibl:
Did you like it?
Leah Roseman:
Yeah, it was delicious. Yeah. Now, I thought the last cue we were going to include was Bringing Down the Wirecard, this Netflix documentary that you wrote about this financial scandal that happened in Germany.
Christoph Zirngibl:
Yes.
Leah Roseman:
So you must learn about all kinds of things being a film composer.
Christoph Zirngibl:
Yeah, it's really interesting. I mean, we knew, of course about the scandal. We had deep knowledge about it because it was all over the press over the course of the year that this happened. And it is, up until today, there are a lot of podcasts dealing with the story about the diverse people that are part of the Wirecard a process, scam. And I mean, if you would write a script for a film like this, nobody would buy it because people wouldn't believe it. But it was very interesting because the story was told out of the perspective of the Financial Times, a journalist who discovered all this stuff. And it's a perspective I didn't know about because in Germany, there's a different press than Financial Times in London, of course. And it was really very interesting to experience the story from a completely different perspective. And it was also interesting because I've been told, I was approached because it was an English production company from London who did the movie, but they somehow thought it would be interesting to have German composer because it's a German thing. And that's why they approached me. And that was really a very, very interesting and rewarding process.
Leah Roseman:
And in terms of scores that are more electronic, and I understand it's best to have sort of more bespoke sounds where maybe you're recording instruments and manipulating them or maybe using modular synths as opposed to just samples that are out there that anyone can use.
Christoph Zirngibl:
Yeah, yeah, that's right. But also you can do a lot of, we call it in the box, just using samples everyone have and mangling them with different tools or just misusing them in a way which makes for interesting sounds. So a lot of possibilities today with today's technology there.
Leah Roseman:
What's your favorite choice of those kind of options in order to produce something that people haven't heard before?
Christoph Zirngibl:
That's a hard question. I think what I really enjoyed was the process with the Flight of Bryan, where we recorded a band of guitar player, drummer, and bass player. And then I took those recordings and cut them into pieces and used electronic tools to really mangle those recordings and create something new, but with the groove and feel of a real live band.
Leah Roseman:
This is a clip from the Flight of Bryan (Music)
Christoph Zirngibl:
And I think that turned out really special. And it was a really interesting process also because we didn't have time for such processes in general at that point, but it worked out pretty well, and it was also really rewarding. I mean, working with musicians, those musicians were all very good friends of mine, and I don't have the opportunity to work in that kind of style very often. So it was really cool to revisit the band sound and also the dynamic that happens when band musicians play together. And it just, not just over that parts one by one, but really groove along to a track. And it's quite different than recording them separately. Of course, it's like a small orchestra in a way, but with a bigger improvisational part in a way. Yeah.
Leah Roseman:
Well, thanks so much for this today. Really appreciated chance to sit down and talk to you.
Christoph Zirngibl:
Thanks so much for having me. It was quite fun.
Leah Roseman:
I hope you enjoyed this episode. Please share this with your friends and check out episodes you may have missed at LeahRoseman.com. If you could buy me a coffee to support this series, that would be wonderful. I'm an independent podcaster and I really do need the help of my listeners. All the links are in the show notes. The podcast theme music was written by Nick Kold. Have a wonderful week.
