So, you're sitting in a room full of creatives. Yeah. And one of them says to you, "That's the stupidest idea I've ever heard." Well, that's the guy I want to listen to, because the reason he says this is a stupidest idea I've ever heard is because it's so new that nobody can actually fathom（ 彻底了解） it. And it will sound like the most stupid idea, but as we sort（种类） of kick（ 踢） it around, it forms into something. It forms.
It becomes the answer to a question that we didn't even know we needed to ask. And you do this. I mean, you push people. Well, yes. I mean, look, maybe I should start a little bit at the beginning if you don't mind. I was going to say, you were thrown out of eight schools.
You took two full weeks of piano training. Well, that was one week probably too much. I remember the piano. I had a problem with authority（当局）, okay（好）? You haven't noticed that. Oh, no.
Okay, wait. German piano teachers are different than piano teachers in the world. They wrap（裹） you across the nuttles. And he did actually say after the two weeks to my mother, he said, "It's either him or me." And luckily, she chose me. I mean, it was a touch（触）-and-go（去） situation, of course.
But so, okay, career very well, did loads（负载） of movies, et cetera. But I don't think I ever didn't start doing anything truly（真实地） important or worthwhile（值得花时间的） until I met the man who is now 97 years old. So David Attenborough, and we started doing this. I'm suddenly going, "This is what I need to do. This is important." And I think mean, look, I am preaching（鼓吹） to the choir（唱诗班） here, but I am saying something in a slightly（轻微地） different way because my job is slightly（轻微地） different. I am not an intellectual（智力的）.
I'm not a scientist. I'm none of those things. What I deal with is immersion（沉浸）. What Sir David deals with and what we've been trying to do all this time is something very simple. We've been trying to make people fall in love with this little blue spot（地点） in our universe（ 宇宙）. Try to recognize that we're not alone on this planet and that we need the other creatures（生物） around us and that we need to support these other creatures（生物） around us.
And if we blow it, we're all dead. But we're not trying to scare（ 惊吓） you. We're just trying to make you fall in love. And I think that's somehow（由于某种原因） the difference, that sometimes to find（找到） the answers to the questions you are all asking, or the answers you have, you still have to communicate them to people who, when you say the word "climate change," just withdraw（收回） from the conversation or global（全球的） warming is now politicized to such a degree that I've actually been told that I cannot use these words anymore. So the only power I have left is to not use words but to use music and make you feel something. And hopefully Trojan Horse with that, all those things that you want to do and make it so that people want to embrace（拥抱） them and want to do them and want to go, I mean, people always laugh about the lemmings.
I don't think we should be laughing about the lemmings. We should be recognizing the lemming mentality（心态） in ourselves. And that's my battle（战役）. You were talking a little bit about why you feel at home on MIT and why you know so much about MIT. Tell us a little bit about your dad. Well, my dad was a scientist, and he died in 1962, so I was 60 years old.
But just before he died, he was a chemist. Okay, let me put it this way. We went for a long drive. We drove all the way to the Rhine from Frankfurt, which was really a few hours. And all he wanted to do was show me the pollution and say to me, say to a five-year-old, this is what's happening to the world right now. And he was involved in trying to -- this is 1962, right?
Working on biodegradable washing up powders（粉末）, working on every car in the company had to have a catalytic converter（转炉）. So these were things which were incredibly（非常） important to him. And as a five-year-old, I was basically（基本上） educated（教育） in the idea that we were losing this planet. We were losing our home. We needed to go and do something about it. So, of course, I became a musician, but weirdly, it turns out now that that might have been the best choice to go and persuade（说服） people and to get under their skin and to change make them feel the necessity（需要） as opposed（反对） to -- I think one of the things which is great about what Sir David does is he doesn't really control.
He doesn't patronize（ 屈尊俯就）. He doesn't bully（威胁） you. He doesn't tell you how bad things are. He does tell you how bad things are occasionally（偶然）. But really, it's still always back to having these amazing images. And I know the whole crew（全体船员） mean, we truly are friends by now.
I mean, we've been working on this stuff（材料） for so long. And the passion（激情） with which they go at these things to basically（基本上） not tell you, not you guys. You have a choir I'm preaching to. The other guys, you know, the ones that don't believe in global warming. Just to change their mind a little bit, just to make them be aware（知道的） a little bit. Just to, again, I mean, fall in love.
Tell us a little bit more about the process. How long does it take to get images like that? Once（一旦） you get those images, how do you collaborate（合作）? All right. One of the greatest MIT is a great place. It really is one of the greatest places on Earth.
And for me, one of the other great places on Earth is in Bristol, in England. The BBC Natural History Unit, which was really started by David. David, by the way, at one point started BBC Two, which was the only other television station we had. And he discovered somebody called Monty Python. So that instantly（立即）, you know, I mean, there was a bond（债券） formed right there. But within（在……之内） each program, each segment（段） is a different team.
And each team has three years to go and get the thing, get the shot（发射）, get whatever it is, which I know is complete luxury（奢侈）. But they always come back with new scientific（科学(上)的） data that hadn't been discovered before, usually finding new species. Usually finding new questions to ask, which, you know, the question is always more interesting than the answer in my line of work. And, you know, and then we go from there. I try to, I work with a team, by the way, I work with a team of young composers（作曲家）, because I need to know what the next generation（一代）, I need them to be involved in this thing. You know, so it's not just me, it's like a whole gang（一帮） of people.
And, you know, we start off for each series to try to figure（ 认为） out some, you know, the sound. I mean, I'm not going to get into the technicalities of it. But it's really about make, you know, I don't know if any of you that knows the scene we did some of years ago, which was iguanas and snakes. Anybody see that? All right. Okay.
Now, every director I've worked with in Hollywood（好莱坞） who filmed an action scene is envious of that scene because it was the greatest car chase（追赶）. That wasn't a car chase ever. It was the greatest action scene. And I treat（对待） what we do with David. I mean, I treat it like a movie. And the job of a composer on a film is to get under your skin without manipulating（操纵） you.
Just to open the door and say, you can feel something now. You can go and have an experience. Come on in. Have an experience. Just feel this. What do you feel?
I want you to have autonomous control over. So I don't want you, you know, I don't want you to, I don't want to do that thing where you start crying because the music is manipulating you. But just give you the opportunity to experience（经验） something, to make it a deeper experience. And I don't know if I totally（完全地） agree with Sir David. Well, I'll tell you anyway. He thinks, because so many young people are affected by what we're doing now by these programs, he thinks that the music has a lot to do with it.
I mean, you know, we work with people like Radiohead, et cetera, on these things. We got a song out now at the moment, which is 106 million listens, and it's number one in the English charts, and it's doing the same business as Taylor Swift did. So this for a nature documentary（纪录片） is pretty remarkable（异常的） because it goes to show that, yes, people are listening. People are not just seeing, but they are listening. And our message is kind（ 善良的）, and our message is about empathy（ 同感）, and our message is about, you know, we're all alone in this together. That's really it.
Talk a little bit about your mum, because you're such an interesting combination（结合） of a chemist and an artist. Mum? Oh, God. We're a refugee（难民） family. Mother left Germany pretty late. August 1939, which was like the last bus you could possibly（可能地） get out of the place.
But she was a pianist, but she could never, she could never fulfill（实现） her dream because the war, you know, with its brutality and everything just got in the way. But again, I mean, you know, there's an uncle who was there, you know, who was a South Pala explorer, you know, who spent 40 summers in Antarctica（南极洲）. And, you know, I heard those stories, you know, everything is about, you know, who tells stories are important, you know, to, you know, I've become a storyteller（说故事的人） because I grew up with these stories about nature, about the environment, about what we can do and what we shouldn't be doing, you know, and it's very important. When I was five years old, my father told me about pollution and global warming and things like this. A five year old doesn't take it seriously（严重地）. But as I grew older, I saw the ravages（毁坏） that, you know, we were making to this planet.
And when you have climate change deniers, you know, you either want to go slap（拍击） them, or you want to go write a piece of music that might just get under their skin. And maybe just for a moment stops them from having these, I don't know, politicized ideas and just feel the love that we need to feel for our planet. And as you're writing these pieces of music, you have to build an extraordinary（非凡的） group of musicians, tell us a little bit about who you've surrounded（围绕） yourself with. Well, most of the, God, I mean, most of the musicians are young, as I said, they're young. Weirdly, we have an enormous amount of refugees. We have a Ukrainian orchestra（ 管弦乐队）.
I mean, there were refugees when we booked them, but now, you know, we had to go and find hopes for them, which we did. You know, my friend who I did the Lion King with, I mean, when I found him first, he was a political（政治的） refugee（难民） from South Africa. I don't know, there's something weird（怪异的）, you know, refugees from Venezuela, they're all, they're extraordinary musicians. But the other thing is that they're extraordinary human beings（存在） because they've seen the, you know, they've experienced the hardships and maybe because I'm the son of refugees, I seem to attract（吸引） that. Or maybe, I don't know, but the other thing is we're completely multicultural and 40%, by the way, 40% female, which I mean, that's, you know, in Hollywood, that's a pretty good, you know, that's pretty extraordinary, you know. And you know why?
Because we don't sort of don't care, just come in, if you know how to write a tune（调子）, if you can move my heart, you're in, you know, that's it. I mean, that's the thing. And I think the multinational aspect（方面） is sort（种类） of important because people are forever（永远） talking about music being the, you know, the global language. Actually, you know, something, it's got loads of different actions and things which resonate（共鸣） in Japan absolutely（完全地） do not resonate（共鸣） in Colorado. And so you have to find, without compromising（妥协）, you have to find some sort of common denominator and not everything can be based（以…作基础） on, you know, European art music. So when you were talking about great musicians and how you're finding great musicians, Facebook, YouTube.
Facebook. No, like I work with the most extraordinary guitarists in the world. He's called Guthrie Garvin. He's not really that well known, but he's like the guitarist, guitarist. And I sort of found, I sort of wrote to him on Facebook. And of course, I got the message back（在后） going, I know you're just a 14 year old Uber fan, and you know, I know you're not who you are.
So sometimes it takes a long time to persuade these people to actually believe me. Oh, you know, you know, what am I going to do? Send my DNA? You also said that one of the things you're really looking for is the great musicians know how to listen. That is absolutely, that's the most important truth（真理）. You see, everybody thinks when you go and see a great band play or great musicians play, it's that they can play so well.
Every musician can play really well. I mean, you know, you start at age four, you know, with your piano lessons, et cetera. But the thing you really learn, you learn how to listen to each other. And that's the most important thing, because that's how you make beautiful music. You learn how to work as a team. It starts, by the way, if you ever watch a conductor give an entrance（入口） with a breath（气息）, and you all breathe（呼吸） together.
So now you're united in this endeavor（努力） somehow（由于某种原因） of creating something, and you're hoping that this will go across into the audience. And if you can go and communicate in this wordless way, and you see the whole audience sort of breathing with you, you know, you've achieved community. And you know that whatever message you're trying to get across, it's going to get across a little easier than with the harsh（严厉的） reality（现实） of words, which you won't believe because you're a man of words. So I, you know, it'd be safe to say that your life has become a lot more joyful（十分喜悦的）. You want to talk for a little bit about Dina? You mean how that shall be obeyed（顺从）?
No, no, of course, no, no. Yeah, no, I mean, I've been talking about love a lot, you know, and Dina is the person that she's right there, just in case anybody's wondering（想知道）, and you can stand up. So I wouldn't be able to do any of this. I wouldn't be able to survive（幸免于） if I didn't have somebody who intellectually（理智地） and emotionally（感情上地） supported me. And it's, I never quite say it to her, so I'll say it publicly and just get into deep shit. It's really important when I play her something new, I watch her like a hawk because if the reaction（反应） is bad, it would kill me.
Okay. And here's the thing, and this is what this conference actually, I feel is actually the bottom line of this conference. The fear of the new, you know, what we're talking about, what everybody's talking about is new ideas and new ways of dealing with things. I experience this on a daily basis（基础）. Everybody says to me, write something new, write something revolutionary（革命的）, write something we've never heard before. And then you pray（ 祈祷） to them and they go, oh, it's a bit too new.
You have to say to them, let time catch up, time needs to catch up, you know, the human, we are all at the best we can possibly be in our intellectual maturity（成热） at this moment in time. You know, we all understand each other, but there comes this moment where you're being asked to just jump ahead（在前） of the curve（曲线） a little bit. And then you have to, you know, swim（游泳） paddle like crazy, not to drown（淹死） and everybody doubting（怀疑） back to the first thing. You're saying to them, I have this idea, I might be the worst idea you've ever heard. And then all you're hoping is that somebody will pick it up and go, let's hear it and be kind to the idea and add their thing to it. And suddenly, ooh, it's a conversation and then it's a discussion and suddenly we're building the damn（ 该死的） thing, you know, and we're changing the world.
Ladies and gentlemen（绅士）, one of the greatest talents（天才） of our time, let's give it up for Hans Zimmer. Thank you very much.