A Gigantic Storm Pierces through the Heart Participating in bright future Pacific 231 (Shigeomi Hasumi + Takemasa Miyake)

“Well, I’d like to have one piece evoking something like destiny, but I leave other music in your hands. I will use the music I can use, but I will not use the music I cannot use. This is my stance this time.”

During the initial meeting, director Kurosawa talked like this to the two composers. Although the two composers who had never scored the film music before, the director seemed not to have the slightest anxiety. Hmm… We considered that that is the biggest pressure because it’s like we received a tacit order, “What is bright future? You have to figure it out by yourself.”

When we received the edited film and the script, we concentrated on trying to figure out what the bright future is rather than starting composing the music. We had unshaken intuition that we cannot compose the music unless we figure it out. It took one month for us to reach this realization -- “In order to confront the film, more than anything else, we have to express ourselves honestly what the Pacific 231 figures out for the bright future.” We don’t know whether the time we took to reach this conclusion is long or short.

We heard that director Kurosawa often directs actors by saying “Mr./Ms. XX (name of an actor), please remain yourself.” That’s it! The Pacific 231 should also remain the Pacific 231, shouldn’t it? We interpreted the director’s words for our own sake and we started composing the music.

By knowing the film more, we intuitively felt that we need to create the music which will induce its viewers to think the following. “We are not sure if there’s hope or anxiety nor if there’s future or nothing. In any case, all of them are true. We also don’t know what will happen next in the story.” Because the viewers will take trouble to come to the movie theater to see this film, we cannot ruin their film experiences by the music which easily gives the answer to the further development of the story. Yes, we want to keep this stance this time. This appeared as tacit understanding between Hasumi and Miyake.

In this project, we divided our work, but we never discussed the direction of where the music should go. Why didn’t we discuss it? Because Hasumi and Miyake both could easily immerse themselves into the world of bright future. Director Kurosawa must have found the common elements between the music of the Pacific 231 and the story of bright future. That’s why he commissioned us to write the music. This might be another interpretation for our own sake.

To be honest, neither of us remember well how we composed the music of bright future. We are only certain that we wrote the music by living in the same world with Yuji and Mamoru. This might be a little exaggeration, but we are actually quite confident that we wrote the music as if we were one of the characters in the story of bright future. At one point, we were even feeling like jellyfish.

It is very hard to compose the music in the world of bright future. In this world, the storm is raging and we hardly see what is in front of us, nevertheless, we have to keep going. The world of bright future is something like this.

On the last day of the entire dubbing (MA) process of assembling music, sound effects and real life sounds, at the moment we finished everything, both of us realized that a gigantic storm had pierced through our hearts. We strongly hope that you share the same feeling as ours after seeing this film.

P.S. What surprised us the most by participating in this project is director Kurosawa’s sense of selecting music. The music “evoking destiny” which he requested at the beginning was formed by director Kurosawa who connected the first half of one piece and the second half of another piece. This music is used in one of the climactic scenes. In another occasion, he placed the piece which we originally composed for a certain scene, in a totally different scene and it actually created surprising effects. We were astounded by Kurosawa’s sense of selection. We truly hope that director Kurosawa will play as a DJ at some club in the near future.

Pacific 231 Profile:

A music unit of Shigeomi Hasumi born in 1967 and Takemasa Miyake born in 1968 has released two albums, TROPICAL SONGS GOLD and MIYASHIRO. In 2001, they also became popular by their TV commercial song, Seiyu Kayou Toku no Ichi (Seiyu Tuesday Bargain Market). Official website: www.tsunamipacific.com 

Original Sound Track for the bright future Music: Pacific 231: Shigeomi Hasumi and Takemasa Miyake UPLINK RECORDS
 

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