Auditing Theory And Practice Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2500 words

Auditing Theory And Practice - Essay Example Maybe owing to your big size, the previous audit company needed additional resources in terms of man and woman power and facilities to meet your needs. When the previous audit company held a meeting with the directors in which their responsibilities and the responsibilities of Krypton were discussed in details. The Audit Company and krypton agreed to the terms of the audit engagement. The terms of engagement which they agreed upon were documented in a form of a letter of engagement. They then discussed and agreed on the basis on which the audit fee was to be computed and any billing arrangements. We then do not understand why this is still a problem yet to be solved The last audited accounts were those for the period ended 31st December 2003. As we conduct this audit, making comparatives to the year 2004, it will make good sense if we first conduct an audit for the year 2004. To determine the implications of the figures, analytical procedures are usually performed on the financial in formation. Analytical procedures consist of mainly trend and ratio analysis with information being inferred from the resulting figures. From the financial statements of the company, the following was established. Ordinarily, a 10.16% increase in the cost of sales should lead to a corresponding decrease in stocks. Yet in this case, stocks have increased by 58.20%. The stock turnover ratio has also declined from 15.60 in 2004 to 10.86 in 2005. The stocks were expected to decrease and their increase might imply that employees could be selling their own goods brought from outside. The audit shall then focus on the existence of the stocks and their condition. In order to ascertain the genuineness of the stock figure, a revaluation test of the stocks will have to be performed to see whether their increase was as a result of a revaluation.

Impact of Technology and Community Policing on Eliminating the Street Essay - 1

Impact of Technology and Community Policing on Eliminating the Street Gangs - Essay Example Since the entry of the technology in the market, the police force has been able to improve the security levels in the streets and public parks. In an example, through CCTV cameras and other technologies, it has become possible for the police to react on time, an aspect that has played a significant role in reducing cases of murder and extortions in the neighborhoods. This is an indication that the government and the people need to embrace the use of technology in curbing crimes and crime related activities. For instance, the police need to shift from the use of the traditional methods of communities and instead start the use of social media in order to receive the grievances from the residents. This would play a significant role in ensuring that there is no vacuum in the society which can be used by the gangs to terrorize the locals. In addition, it would enable the police to be up-to-date with what is happening. Moreover, such technology would be significant in providing a platform where the law enforcers can interact and share ideas on how to improve the security in the area. The local people are the ones who are affected. As a result, they might give options or ideas on how to eliminate the street gangs in the society. Street gangs exist in areas where there is no effective coordination between the law enforcers and the local population. In many cases, citizens accuse the law enforcers of complacency, especially when dealing with petty issues. However, when young generation is brought up in lawless areas, they are likely to fall into the acts of the gangs. Therefore, the parents and the police need to work together in order to ensure that all people are safe. This cannot be achieved when there are blame games between the police and the public.

The Major Components Of Green Computing Information Technology Essay

The Major Components Of Green Computing Information Technology Essay As IT has become a major component in social infrastructure, it plays a vital role in humans life. Computing is a fast growing area which consumes energy a lot. A computer which performs well consumes lots of energy. It takes a lot of energy to create, package and retrieve data. With the development of the technologies, people tend to depend on these technologies more and more. It will lead us to many problems as energy is a non renewable resource. It will soon cost more to power a computer in future, than buying a new one today. Therefore we have to find methods, where we can minimize the wastage of energy while utilizing existing resources efficiently. Since computer plays a major role in our lives, demand for the energy, cost and wastage also increase dramatically. According to the Climate Saving Computing Initiative, the half of the power input to our PC is wasted without even reaching to the processor, memory, disk or any other component. Further, they have identified that added heat of the computer systems, inactive sleep and hibernate state of the computer and mal practices of using electronic equipments has a great impact in this energy wastage. It is estimated that out of $250 billion per year spent on powering computers worldwide only about 15% of that power is spent computing. The rest is wasted idling. Therefore, Green Computing is introduced in order to maximize the energy efficiency and increase the recyclability of products and the factory waste. Green Computing is focusing on creating technologies that help to preserve nature and minimize the bad effects of the technological development. Overview Green Computing is an echo friendly approach to the modern computing environment. It discusses about the ways of using computers in environmental friendly way. Â  The main focus of Green computing is reducing the environmental impact of industrial processes and innovative technologies caused by the Earths growing population and the ways of utilizing computer resources efficiently. It talks about serving social needs in a way which reduce the damage happen to the nature. Mainly this is talking about creating recyclable products, reducing pollution, providing alternatives to certain technological areas and etc. It is a concept which is already used in the IT environment. Researchers have found that most of the computers are not used for most of the time, but they are left running and many personal computers are left on unnecessarily. It leads to the high wastage of energy. These kinds of issues are also considered in Green Computing. It also talks about proper disposal of electronic w aste. Eco Friendly Computing Green Computing is also known as Green IT. Environmental sustainability, Energy efficiency, and the cost of disposal and recycling also includes in Green IT. History The Energy Star program commenced by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency in 1992 was the first voluntary labelling program designed to promote and recognize energy efficiency. It is basically designed to promote and recognize energy efficiency in monitors, climate control equipments and other technologies. The term Green Computing immerged shortly after this Energy Star Program. The first function launched as a result of the Green Computing researches was the sleep mode function of computer monitor. Approaches to Green Computing In order to gain the environmental sustainability and efficient use of energy through computing there are four main paths to be taken. Green Use Using the computers and other related products in an efficient manner where the energy consumption is minimized. Green Disposal Reusing old computers, properly disposing and recycling other unwanted products. Green Design Designing energy efficient and environmentally friendly computers and accessories. Green Manufacturing Manufacturing computers and other related equipments in a way that they have a minimal effect to the environment. These four steps can be further spanned in to number of activities and areas. Efficient use of energy Power saving Server virtualization Environmental sustainable designing Responsible disposal and recycle Risk mitigation Use of renewable energy sources Eco- labelling Use of Green methodologies and assessment tools. As an initial step to the Green Computing the work habits of the individual computer users have to be changed. Most of the energy wastages regarding the personal computer usage happen because of the false beliefs regarding the computer usage. For an instance, people belief that when turning off a computer and turning on it back uses more energy than it leaving on. But the actual energy consumption of the computer when it boots up, is far less than the energy it uses when left on for more than three minutes. Further the use of notebook computers rather than using personal computers will also save energy. Moreover, people think that screen savers do save energy. But the fact is that they are designed to increase the lifetime of monochrome monitors. The screen savers will save energy if they actually turn off the screen or turn off the backlight of the laptops. By letting the users get to know about these facts will change their habits and it will lead to power utilization. When it comes to organizational level, many organizations have undertaken various kinds of activities as an approach to this Green IT. Telecommuting Virtualization VoIP Organizations have allowed their workers to work while being at home. This will help to reduce fuel emission at transportation. They are given all the necessary facilities to work. This is known as telecommuting. Virtualization refers to the consolidation of servers. It allows to two or more logical computer systems to run in one physical hardware. This leads minimum power consumption and maximum cooling. VoIP or Voice over Internet Protocol is a technology of voice transmission over internet or other packet switched networks. It reduces the telephone wiring infrastructure and is low cost. It is method of reducing metallic waste. Green business practices Green IT isnt just about energy efficiencies but also about operational efficiencies that can improve the organization. In most of the organizations, Green IT is practiced because of the explicit business drivers such as cost and the availability of the energy, cost of the equipments, cost of the data centres, business process optimization and performance and efficiency. When focusing on business optimization, few areas can be targeted which energy demand can be reduced and growth can be increased with the help of IT. Server and storage utilization and consolidation Server, storage, and application virtualization Technology and information life cycle strategies Energy measurement and management Green Information Strategy Under Green Information Strategy, the ways of managing and retaining information has been defined. The ways of collecting, classifying and archiving information are introduced in Green Information Strategy. It involves several key steps: Understanding the requirements for information retention and availability. Determining infrastructure requirements. Conducting continual strategic planning to meet economic and business conditions and demand. Measuring progress and adjusting the strategies. Information Lifecycle Management is a set of concepts which helps organizations to build processes and implement best practices for creating, storing, archiving, and dispose data. A variety of technologies and methodologies can be used in order to optimize the storage utilization. Then the amount of storage required and the energy used to power will be reduced. Maximizing data centre and server room efficiency Designing a data centre for maximum efficiency is complex and requires input from many disciplines not normally associated with IT. But most of the organizations dont have data centres. They have their IT equipments in a sever room. Server room is a data centre operated in a small scale. Here are few facts that have to be considered when designing a server room. Raised floor in computer rooms was the general accepted norm since vacuum tube era. Variable speed motors can tailor cooling power usage to need, producing substantial savings, and may prove less expensive in the long run though they are more expensive to purchase. The trend in servers is to pack more CPUs in to a single track. But when power densities get above 200 watts per square foot, because of the high heat generated, too much air is needed to remove the heat. Therefore racks (19-inch EIA-310-D standard) with built-in chillers or even water-cooled servers, become preferable. Use a large server. Replace physical servers with virtual servers. Blade servers Blade servers put each processor, memory and hard drive on one single card called blade. These blades are fixed in to a backplane. A single power supply, a shared cooling system, a shared network interface is used among the blades, which connected to a backplane. Replacing multiple servers with blade servers generally saves power and space. Green Storage Storage systems are among the systems which consume power and storage a lot. Drivers have to be full powered and running to be able to store data. Data Deduplication Data Deduplication is the term used for removing the duplicates. It examines the hard drive or the storage system and find out the duplicates and remove them. It effectively reduces the storage allocated for certain data file and allocates it to other additional data. It increases the capacity of your system. Thin Provisioning Thin provisioning is allocating right amount of storage is as needed. It helps to eliminate unused capacity. Storage can be used efficiently by allocating the required storage when it is needed and using storage management software to adjust it. As the storage is dynamically allocated the storage can be grown or shrink according to the application stored. Further storage management software can view applications simultaneously and allocate unused capacity as needed. Storage Virtualization Storage virtualization gets all the available capacity together from multiple storage systems and enables it to share, without requiring a change in storage hardware. By enabling sharing it avoids the trapped capacity, which is available but cannot be used by an application. Using Virtualization Multiple applications and multiple Operating systems can be run simultaneously with the use of virtual memory technology. Virtualization increases the utilization of computer systems by condensing applications into few servers. Therefore the number of required servers will be reduced. It reduced the power consumption of the data centres and the cooling requirements. Virtualization is one of the earliest paths to green, because when more than one application is run on a server (application consolidation) the number of servers required to support these applications is reduced. Fewer servers mean less power consumption and low energy requirement for cooling. Future Directions on Green Computing

Political Stress :: Papers

Political Stress Stress originally came from the Latin word â€Å"strictus† meaning strict. Stress causes mental or physical tension or strain, which can deform a person. In a sense, stress causes a restrictive hold on the body and mind, which causes a person to act in ways that are out of the norm for them. Stress can be described as the force itself, meaning whatever is bringing the force upon a person. Police work is very stressful due to the pressures of the job, and strict legal limitations. Many researchers have examined the basic stressors involved in policing. Violanti and Aron (1995) believe that there are two major categories mentioned by officers. These are organizational practices, and the inherent nature of police work (Spielberger, et al. 1981; Martelli et al. 1989; Violanti and Aron, 1995). Police stress has been examined by a variety of researchers, Evans et al. (1992) has reviewed a range of research studies on the police personality and coping. Most of the reviewed research argues that police officers change their coping strategies and behaviors overtime, with some of these changes actually contributing to officers reported stress experiences and stress levels. In everyday work duties, police officers are involved in a number of activities that may be very stressful, and constant exposure to these stressful events possibly leads to a number of psychological and physical outcomes (Evans, et al. 1992). Chan and Grossman (1988) studied the immediate effects of stressors which have shown that subjects report higher levels of helplessness and feelings of lack of control, and greater psychological distress including depression, anxiety, confusion and overall mood disturbances when they are stressed (Chan and Grossman, 1988). In longer terms, individuals may experience changes in their personalities, which reflect alterations of their typical coping strategies (Skolnick, 1973; Singleton, 1977). In situations of extreme stress, officers may display the symptoms usually associated with posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) (Evans, et al. 1992). It is common for individuals who undergo a traumatic event to experience such emotional states such as fear, anxiety, guilt, depression, sadness, anger, and shock. Cognitive effects include difficulty with decision-making, concentration, and memory processes (Reiser and Geiger, 1984; Mitchell, 1988). More distressing symptoms of PTSD include nightmares, vivid flashbacks to the event, difficulties relating to others, self-destructive or aggressive rages, and fear of losing control (Evans, 1991). Police officers also have a high rate of stress related illness.

Knowledge acquisition Essay

Jegrins Insurance Company is one of the largest insurance companies. Jegrins Company is a group of six other companies that deal with life insurance, property insurance, insurance exchange, property insurance and management. Jerkins Insurance Company is one of the largest casualty or property insurers and has so many policies. It deals with life insurance, asset management and casualty and property Insurance. Insurance companies have to maintain a competitive advantage in order to ensure growth. Jergins is one of those insurance companies that need to maintain a competitive advantage. The company has a very stable financial condition, works towards superior targets hence attains the aim of providing superior services. The employees of Jegrins Insurance Company are a very committed group who work towards the success of the company and ensure that the company grows. Jegrins Company has policy holders too that always set specific targets to be met by the company. They either set long term targets or short term targets depending on what they want to accomplish, agents of the company work hard in order not only to meet these targets but also to exceed them as a challenge to their policy holders. This company uses all these to ensure growth in the market as well as maintaining a competitive advantage. The company uses the capitalization’s risk adjustment as one of the ways of ensuring growth. It has a unique solid operating performance system as well, that it makes use of and views this as very important in the growth of the company. Another design in place for the Jegrins Insurance Company is the availability of the regional market that is well established. The advantage of the regional market, the employees attitude towards working hard, the adjustment of risk capitalization and the policies of the company that have to be met, place the company in a very high class among other insurance companies and enables it maintain a competitive advantage apart from just company growth. There are other factors that contribute to the growth hence high rating of the Jegrins Insurance Company. These are factors such as improvements on technology which has enabled the company growth on performance and service offering, low operating costs, a solid income investment, an increased sophistication on pricing and a well organized and well mannered underwriting. Jegrins Company cannot only depend on the already mentioned factors to be successful and to maintain a competitive advantage. It has to look for knowledge and how to manage it for the benefit of the company. The company therefore tried to change or implement ways of getting knowledge which it realized was a very important factor in maintaining competitive advantage. The company realized that by gaining knowledge from outside about other companies or competitors, it would be better placed, and apart from that, internal knowledge was noticed as essential for the general growth of the company. The company manager therefore decided to implement knowledge strategies to use for the companies benefit and be well informed about competitive advantage issues. The knowledge strategy of a company is the approach the company gives to the knowledge capabilities and knowledge resources to the company’s strategy in order to achieve what the company targets are. A knowledge strategy enables the company to increase its knowledge in a specified area be it internal or external knowledge of a company. Companies choose from the knowledge sources which are either internal or external or can choose to use both. Jegrins Company decided on a knowledge strategy that uses both the internal knowledge sources and the external knowledge sources. Jegrins company internal knowledge sources are those that the employees have in their minds, that is, in their behaviors, the duties and procedures they conduct everyday, the company equipments and the software of the company that they handle. Jegrins internal knowledge sources also lay in the various documents that the company has, the databases and the on line repositories. The external knowledge sources that Jegrins decided to use are such as consultants, from brokers of knowledge, universities, publications, personal relations and from professional associations. Jegrins company manager found out that internal knowledge source could be used to prevent imitation by other companies and to maintain the required level of knowledge requirement for executing the company’s strategy and maintaining its current position. The manager then decided to go to an extent of looking for external knowledge sources to avoid being beaten by competitors since competitors too have knowledge levels. The company has to ensure the gap between the competitors level of knowledge is closed down to ensure it is not down and cannot be out done at any time. Jegrins also creates new knowledge to keep in pace and to maintain a competitive advantage position. This extra knowledge, the manager feels is very important since the company will be better placed that the other companies. The company exploits knowledge to keep pace by looking for more information that is relevant. Jegrins insurance Company Internal knowledge management and knowledge acquisition: Without a knowledge strategy, the success of a company can be jeopardized. The company has since implemented a strategy of knowledge acquisition. This strategy has various processes that the company follows. The knowledge of the company since it was initiated was made available to the company employees for them to get to know more about the company. In knowledge management, employees are very important. Jegrins encourages its employees to get the information about the company and perform there duties on the basis of knowledge that they have gained. Internal knowledge is based on the employee knowledge, about their experiences, the soft ware in the company and other company documents. Since the company already had these, it was easy for the manager to go through this step of knowledge acquisition because the employees already had knowledge about the company, the software and had experiences in vast areas of the company. On the basis that this is a large company that provides services to other members and has so many policies, Jegrins has a lot to be termed as internal knowledge. It is therefore an important task to take a long term plan to ensure knowledge acquisition is not stopped after a short time but is continued over a long period of time. Jegrins made this decision just based on the nature of the business or company that does not go for days then close down. The manager decided on long term plans to avoid failure during operations in the future. Apart from the company knowledge that was readily available, the manager still implemented ways to encourage the employees to share the experiences they had and other organizational issues as a way to improve the company’s operational system. By this he encouraged learning through experience hence acquiring more useful knowledge to what his targets of the company are knowledge. External sources of knowledge: Jegrins acquires knowledge too from the external environment as has been stated. It gets information from consultants about the company’s operation steps whenever the manager feels there is a point where consultation is required. The company has evolved to an extent of looking at the other company’s successful methods and learning about them for the benefit of the company and to bridge the gap between the competitor and the company itself. When the company manager does this, he realizes that the other companies do not have more knowledge than the company does, and therefore are at almost the same level of knowledge and not left out yet the company still ranks above the competitors. This he realizes is important in maintaining a competitive advantage since knowledge about other companies is available to him and he knows the steps to make to avoid problems or going down the competitive advantage. The manager also involves the company in looking for information about the environment to which the company operates apart from the competitors’ information. The market is very important to the management of the company since the basis of the company being set up is to provide services to a specified market. Jegrins manager encourages research on the market for the advantage of the company. This though has been the company norm even before the manager decided on taking to knowledge strategy since it offered a lot of information about the steps to be followed for the success of the company. The manager realized that there was need for a strategy or method to be used to acquire just more information relevant for development. This kind of information gaining was meant for the purpose of just keeping in pace with others or being ahead of them which would be to the advantage of the company. The company therefore looked for external sources of information from universities, publications about the successful insurance companies, and other related information professional sources. Jegrins Information distribution: The manager of Jegrins Insurance Company adopted a system in the company that stored valuable information in an order that could be easily retrieved for reference. He also adopted the system of allowing information to be shared among the employees depending on the ranks and area of work so that when an employee does not accept an issue, he/she can explain it to others, discussed and a conclusion made. All these steps the manager considers as a good knowledge management strategy that has shown great success to the company after implementation. After knowledge acquisition, distribution, interpretation and general storage, the company’s knowledge management can be discussed. The manager so far has used this strategy to manage the company knowledge and is able to realize some bit by bit improvements from the previous level in which the company was before. The company though was at a high level, the manager had intentions of improvement and not just sticking to one level forever that may fall down in one time. The manager decided therefore to implement the knowledge management strategy to improve company performance and maintain competitive advantage. In all the knowledge management procedures, the manager had to take time to make sure that strategic knowledge creation is correctly done. He had to make the short term decisions in some cases and long term decision in others to make sure that there is a balance. This is because in some cases like the maintenance of the competitive advantage by the company, the manager had to decide on long term strategy since the future of the company has to be considered. After implementing a knowledge management strategy, the company has come to realize that knowledge is the key issue in the basis of competition. The company is always aware of any competitor steps that are relevant for the company in order not to be beaten by the competitor. Additional knowledge places the company at a higher class since more improvements have been made based on the acquired knowledge. Internal knowledge proved to be very advantageous to the company since it made the employees share the ideas out of the strategy that the manager created that allowed them to share ideas on the companies operations and make corrections and improvements where it was necessary. The result of these steps by the manager was tremendous, easy maintenance of the competitive advantage, noticeable growth, and increased class when compared to other companies and just being informed in terms of knowledge. It was success for Jegrins. Jegrins manager feels that knowledge strategies that suit respective companies are one of the ways to maintain competitive advantage in insurance companies since knowledge is the basis of competition and improvement. According to Jegrins’ manager, when the company has knowledge from the external environment, there are very high chances of improvement and maintaining a competitive advantage. Internal knowledge also contributes to the improvement and competitive advantage too since the main subject here is the employees and the employees have a big role to play in the company. They are the one who run it through their routine duties and experiences.

Hans Zimmer Essay

This case study will explore the life and works of one of the most prominent and inventive film and music composers of modern times, Hans Zimmer. His extraordinary ability to span an extensively wide range of genres and formats with extreme competence is extremely influential and inspiring. Zimmer is a pioneer in his field, with his use of both electronic and orchestral elements within film scores. Zimmers success in creating the scores for some of the most celebrated films, and his ability to encapsulate in the music the overriding themes, and personalities of the characters in modern day cinema is what makes him so special. I have chosen to write on this subject as it is completely relevant to my interest in the field. This case study includes a discussion of the early life of Hans Zimmer, his entrance into the world of Hollywood composition, his influences and growth as a composer and leads to a more in-depth discussion of the work on his most current films, as well as a brief look at the studio and equipment he uses. Born in Frankfurt, Germany on September 12th 1957 Hans Florian Zimmer is acknowledged as one of the most pioneering, innovative, successful, influential and sought after composers in Hollywood today (IMDB, no date). His interest in music began at a very early age and he began playing the piano at the age of three, although he had little or no formal music education or training throughout his early life (Gillespie, 2001). Despite his lack of training, Zimmer knew he wanted to be a composer by the age of six and this coincided with an important event in the young Zimmer’s life; the death of his father. He is quoted as saying in an interview with CNN Worldbeat; â€Å"My dad died when I was six, that’s when I decided I was going to become really serious about music, because it was my refuge† (CNN Worldbeat cited by IMDB, no date). During his early teens his family moved all over Europe before settling in London when Zimmer was 14 years old. Throughout his childhood his passion for music meant he neglected his schoolwork and as a result was expelled from several different schools (Shelton, no date). After finally finishing school he began his professional music career by composing advertising jingles for Air Edel associates and playing in rock bands (Ankeny, no date). It was during this period that Zimmer found success as a member of The Buggles, an English new wave synthpop group, and had a hit single with ‘Video Killed the Radio Star’. It is said that this worldwide hit helped ‘usher in a new era of global entertainment as the first music video to be shown on MTV’ (IMDB, no date). His talent on the keyboard and synthesisers would continue to be significant throughout his career although this is perhaps the first event that might have suggested at the huge amount of success and appreciation he would go on to enjoy as a composer. Zimmer is known to have favoured the Moog synthesiser when performing and creating music for these groups, a preference that has endured the span of his career. It was also during this period that we see Zimmer first combining the use of computers with live music on stage with other successful groups (Shelton, no date). This combination has been a constant throughout Zimmer’s professional career and his talent in merging the two elements is part of what has earned him the success and appreciation he currently enjoys. The diversity of his talent is also seen in his ability to span genres such as new wave UK punk, as well as Spanish pop music. However, Zimmer would not remain a part of the pop scene for long. He felt inhibited by having to write in just one style of music and felt his creativity was restrained. It was at this time that he first went to work with Stanley Myers who began to teach him about scoring films (Shelton, no date). This partnership would prove to be a collaboration of great orchestral elements combined with the most up to date electronic instrumentation available (Abodos, no date). Zimmers technological fascination in these early years has proved influential in his later and most successful works. Perhaps it is this preoccupation with technology that has kept him at the forefront of composition. It could also be said that the use of both technological and traditional orchestral elements has ensured his popularity with all generations of audiences. It was with Myers that Zimmer co-founded the London based Lillie Yard recording studio (Wikipedia, no date). A demonstration of the combining of the elements mentioned above is showcased in their early works, an example of which is seen in the film ‘Moonlighting’ (1982). The fusion of moody undertones performed with synthesisers and clean orchestral pianos combine to create a dark, unnerving, suspenseful atmosphere in keeping with the films subject and the emotions portrayed by the characters. His talent for creating music spanning the genres of different films is also seen in this early collaboration with Myers. Further examples of this are his compositions for films such as ‘Success is the Best Revenge’ (1984) which is a drama and the films ‘Insignificance’ (1985) and the acclaimed ‘My Beautiful Launderette’ (1985) which have comedic elements and demand that a completely different atmosphere is created. For example, ‘My Beautiful Launderette’ features a much more upbeat electronic production with less orchestral elements as the subject matter of the film requires. From 1982 – 1987 Zimmer worked collaboratively on productions. It was not until the film ‘Terminal Exposure’ (1987) that Zimmer would produce his first solo-score (Wikipedia, no date), based heavily on electronic production encapsulating the 80’s pop culture era. His next collaboration with David Byrne and Ryuichi Sakamoto would lead to his first taste of Academy Award success – winning the Oscar for Best Original Score with the picture ‘The Last Emperor’ (1987). The theme tune of which combines influences from both traditional Western and Eastern cultures, again allowing him to experience new found inspiration for his future creations. At this time he also created one of his most durable works for the UK television game show ‘Going for Gold’, about which he was quoted in an interview with the BBC as saying ‘[it] was a lot of fun. It’s the sort of stuff you do when you don’t have a career yet’ (BBC, 2008). This demonstrated his levelheadedness despite his new found success. This is also another example of how Zimmer was able to span the genres of music composition whilst enjoying his work, which arguably has been crucial to his success. The next film score composed by Zimmer was the small budget movie ‘A World Apart’ (1988) about apartheid South Africa (Shelton, no date). This was his first excursion into composition for a movie set in Africa, perhaps leading to his continuing interest in this area (seen in his work on the later films ‘The Power of One’ (1992) and ‘The Lion King’ (1994)). The soundtrack to ‘A World Apart’ featured traditional African instruments such as African drums and shakers giving the soundtrack an authentic feel. At the same time, these are combined with powerful synthetic strings which strike emotion and also bring in a Western element, which mirrors the films subject. 4 – Word Count: 3459 Student no. 15735 The success of this soundtrack led to Zimmer’s involvement in the critically acclaimed film ‘The Rain Man’ (1988) after the Hollywood director Barry Levinson’s wife introduced him to Zimmer’s work (Wikipedia, no date). Zimmer would follow an individual process when composing; â€Å"It was a road movie, and road movies usually have jangly guitars or a bunch of strings. I kept thinking don’t be bigger than the characters. Try to keep it contained. The Raymond character doesn’t actually know where he is. He might as well be on Mars. So, why don’t we just invent our own world music, for a world that doesn’t really exist? † (Zimmer cited by Young, 2008). This allowed for the score to contain escapist, other-worldly elements reflecting the character played by Dustin Hoffman. The Rain Man’ (1988) was Zimmer’s first venture into Hollywood. The soundtrack was created by the use of a lot of digital synthesis from the Fairlight CMI which was able to do sampling as well as additive synthesis where Zimmer was able to draw his own wave forms. In 1989 the score was nominated for an Academy Award and won Best Picture (Shelton, no date). His success would only contin ue. He was approached by the director of ‘Driving Miss Daisy’ (1989) the score of which consisted mainly of synthesisers and samplers. The Roland MKS-20 synthesiser was used for piano sounds about which Zimmer jokingly quoted â€Å"It didn’t sound anything like a piano, but it behaved like a piano† (Zimmer cited by Wherry, 2002) showing the unpredictable nature of digital synthesis. Within the same month as ‘Driving Miss Daisy’ Zimmer also created the score for the film ‘Black Rain’ (1989). In involving himself with both these films which were of entirely different genres he felt that Hollywood would not be able to typecast him (Young, 2008). This is further evidence of Hans Zimmer’s drive to think outside of the box, never wanting to be constrained or restricted to create just one type of music. His broad horizons were demonstrated further in 1992 with the film ‘The Power of One’ where Zimmer expressed his thirst for gaining authentic samples and knowledge of different musical cultures by travelling to Africa and sampling indigenous choirs and traditional drums. He gained a police-record whilst in the country for his work on the film for being labelled as subversive (Wikipedia, no date). It was ‘Power of One’ that led to his first expedition into the world of animation with the 1994 film ‘The Lion King’ which followed the African theme. Zimmer originally created 48 different theme tunes for ‘The Lion King’ (1994) before he was happy with the outcome (Hans-Zimmer. com, no date, a), displaying his meticulous nature. It can be said that this contributed to the film’s success and it went on to win an Oscar for Best Original Score and Golden Globe awards (Ankeny, no date). The African drum and choir samples used in ‘Circle of Life’ (the theme tune for the film) convey authenticity, whilst the use of a Western vocalist meant that a Western audience could still identify with the track. This maintained its resonance with the films main demographic, and the score was later adapted into a Broadway musical. After years of orchestral development Zimmer went back to his roots of synthesis with the Grammy Award winning film ‘Crimson Tide’ in 1995. However, his success post-Lion King meant that the celebrity lifestyle was in danger of catching up with him and his first attempts at the composition for ‘Crimson Tide’ were described by its directors as ‘crap’ and ‘rubbish’ and Zimmer is quoted as saying that â€Å"reality came back really fast for him† (Zimmer cited by Young, 2008). In the following years Zimmer went on to work on the scores for many more successful films. It was in the 2000’s, however, with the postmodern preoccupation with film that he became involved with even higher budgeted Hollywood Blockbusters. The following discussions of his works will describe 5 – Word Count: 3459 Student no. 15735 in depth how Zimmer’s creative processes lead to an extremely effective way of making sound for movies. The first of these discussions will focus on the film ‘Gladiator’ (2000). It is important to note Zimmer’s preoccupation with imagery and how the sound will translate on screen. It can be said that rather than dictate with music, Zimmer will take elements from the scenes, the characters and aesthetics of the film to set up the tone. An example of this is seen in what is arguably the most iconic scene of the movie, set in a wheat field, which is extremely poetic. Zimmer argues that the music gives the artistic license to be so poetic (hans-zimmer. com, no date, a). He talks about the collaboration with the artist Lisa Gerrard on this scene, and describes this relationship as a meeting of minds, finding her to be a ‘true’ artist. This collaboration is clearly effective in evoking emotion as the guttural vocals by Gerrard coincide beautifully with the imagery. Whilst watching the movie, it is found that the same piece of theme music is used in different places and in scenes that are worlds apart in terms of emotion. Zimmer’s ability to create polarity with one piece of music clearly displays his strategic ability to place the music effectively. For example, one piece of music is used in a scene where two people kiss as well as just before a battle scene. In the former, the effect is one of tenderness and romance, whilst in the latter tension and violence is alluded to. A further example of this is how the use of music conveys the humble theme of the movie (the personal life of the character) while at the same time can be turned into thousands of different emotions. (hanszimmer. com, no date, a) Additionally, the tone of the music clearly changes as the film moves around geographically in order to represent the location. For example, the battle scene set in Germania consists of sustained, powerful strings and other skewed instruments which create a frantic and tense scene as well as authentically representing the location. Furthermore, for the scenes set in Morocco the sound is generally more tribal, dirty and gritty giving the sound in the movie a bigger range and representing the change in locations effectively (hans-zimmer. com, no date, a). The composition throughout the entire movie is mainly orchestral and this has the effect of transporting the viewer to the appropriate period of time in history that the film represents. All of this amalgamates to an all-round epic and large scale experience which is at the heart of the Gladiator’s subject matter. Another interesting aspect of Hans Zimmer’s work is to see how he portrayed one of the most iconic villains in modern day films in the Batman movie ‘The Dark Knight’ (2008). From the outset it seems that rather than create a happy, indulgent score, Zimmer wanted to create something hateful and provocative, something that the viewer could invest in. The Joker is the focal point of the film and represents a change from its predecessor, ‘Batman Begins’ (2005). In order to convey the significance of the character the sound that accompanies him on screen displays the anarchy, mayhem and insanity inherent to the Joker’s eccentric personality. youtube. com, no date). In an interview on the making of the film, Zimmer describes his attempts at depicting the tone of the character through the use of razor blades on barbed wire and incessant tapping on tables and floors, but he eventually came to the extremely successful technique of playing two notes on a cello at the same time, which juxtapose beautifully. This gives the effect of a taught string that gets tighter and tighter but never breaks, paralleling the Jokers spiralling descent into madness. Also, the note of the cello slowly but consistently rises in order to draw the viewer in as the character also does on screen. This extraordinary quiet, high-pitched sound which creates rising tension appears to have a 6 – Word Count: 3459 Student no. 15735 slightly anxious and uneasy quality which syncs perfectly with the character and the viewer’s perception of him. To accompany the sound of the cello, and add to the ever-growing tension two heavily distorted guitars, almost unrecognisable as the original instrument, are played with pieces of metal, with the result of creating a completely anarchistic atmosphere. These effects are heavily processed with the use of distortion to create a more surreal experience, detached from reality. These techniques fuse together to form a rich and complex tapestry of emotion, the audial and the visual aspects are combined in a way that portrays harmony as well as contrast. (youtube. com, no date). The final movie that will be discussed in depth is ‘Inception’ (2010). In the New York Times Zimmer describes his own understanding of the films subject as being about time and its slowing down, and speeding up. The Edith Piaf track ‘Je ne regrette rien’ is used as part of the film to signify a kick to another reality. However, Zimmer has taken its use to a deeper level â€Å"all the music in the score is subdivisions and multiplications of the Edith Piaf track† (Zimmer cited by Itzkoff, 2010) representing his perception of the film as being based around time and its manipulation. In the same way Zimmer manipulates the Piaf track by using a single beat and slowing it down dramatically in order to create the trademark foghorn sound that the movie is well known for (Itzkoff, 2010). The momentum of the film is defined by the structure of the score that accompanies it. The intensity of the film gradually snowballs, becoming more and more surreal and penetrating. At the same time the music increases in intensity and level of depth as the film explores the different levels of the human mind. In an interview with Hans Zimmer (hans-zimmer. com, no date) he describes making electronic sounds from scratch on the custom moog rack in his studio, as well as using software synths such as U-he Zebra. In order to create the sounds he wanted he would play the synthetic sounds to his bespoke orchestra which consists of; six bass trombones, six tenor trombones, four tubas and six French horns in order for them to imitate the sounds. Combinations of the two create a euphoric and emotive atmosphere where deep and unsettling synthetic and orchestral sounds accompany and synchronise with a powerful and grand visual experience. Whilst Zimmer has admitted ‘The Dark Knight’ was heavy in its use of electronic sounds in ‘Inception’ this is pushed even further. In order to gain a further insight into what Hans Zimmer is influenced by, it is important to consider the setting in which he creates his momentous scores. His home studio in Santa Monica, USA is extremely gothic in its decor and can be perceived as having an overwhelmingly dark and eerie vibe – somewhat consistent with a large amount of his compositions. This can be seen in the pictures below. (Pictures sourced from www. stuckincustoms. com) In picture one, we see that muted decadence is incorporated with the feeling of comfort. It is hard to imagine that influence would not be drawn from these surroundings. – Word Count: 3459 Student no. 15735 The second picture, displays the core of the hardware at Zimmers disposal. Whilst it is hard to make out the various components, some are identifiable; his Quested monitors (5. 1 surround sound set up), his Doepfer LMK4+ midi-keyboard, and two analogue synthesisers which are mounted on the back wall – one of which is a custom Moog rack (as mentioned above) and a custom Roland rack, as well as two custom HP touch sensitive LCD screen monitors connected to his DAW (Steinberg Cubase as his main sequencer and Pro Tools for his final mix) (hans-zimmer. om, no date, b). The picture on the right shows a large amount of Pro Tools systems and a patch bay as well as various other hardware devices. He also has a custom built Bosendorfer grand piano. It is also worth mentioning the software used by Zimmer which as well as the DAW’s described above include various VST’s such as; Omnisphere, U-he Zebra, Atmosphere and thousands and thousands of sample banks. (hanszimmer. com, no date, b) Hans Zimmer enjoys an astonishing career with some incredible a ccomplishments, despite the fact that he has had no formal training. His passion is maintained and can be seen in both the way he talks about the composition process as well as the finished product that is heard on screen. Perhaps, it can be said that in his work he is still battling his inner turmoil at the death of his father as a young boy; â€Å"[composing] was my way of calming the demons in me or at the same time sometimes letting them roar, letting them rip, letting the monster out and seeing that it wasn’t so scary being able to look it in the eye. † (CNN Worldbeat cited by IMDB, no date). It is argued here that in his work Zimmer forces his audience to confront the demons on screen whilst creating an opportunity for escapism which is what cinema represents. His productions are both seamless and effortless whilst at the same remaining extraordinarily powerful and commanding. As a relatively young composer and with some of the biggest and long-awaited Hollywood blockbusters ever to be produced in the pipeline, such as the sequel to ‘The Dark Knight’; ‘The Dark Knight Rises’, his success can only intensify with time.