‘Shōgun’ Composers Spent More Than Two Years Composing Four Hours of Music
15.03.2024 - 00:25
/ variety.com
Jon Burlingame FX’s acclaimed miniseries “Shōgun,” now nearing its halfway point, sports a score quite unlike Maurice Jarre’s music for the 1980 original adaptation. While utilizing authentic Japanese instruments, the music takes a very modern approach that applies today’s technology and advanced sonic manipulation in ways that were impossible four decades ago.
Oscar-winner Atticus Ross (“The Social Network,” “Soul”), his brother Leopold Ross (“The Book of Eli”) and their collaborator Nick Chuba (“Dr. Death”) worked for more than two years on the 10-episode miniseries, about a shipwrecked Englishman trying to survive in the feudal-warfare era of 17th-century Japan.
The producers initially asked for something “epic” and assumed that automatically meant “orchestra,” but the Ross brothers had a less conventional approach in mind. “We could do something a bit more unique and match the scale without necessarily having to default to a big orchestra,” Atticus Ross tells Variety.
“We wanted it to be less about place and period and more about scale and psychology,” Leopold adds. “Not only the psychology of the characters but also the psychology of the audience.
We felt that if you did go the traditional Japanese route, the audience would feel very comfortable. When the Erasmus washes up on the shores of Japan, we wanted the audience to feel this incredible kind of wonder and unease that the crew feels.” They did months of research into traditional Japanese music and sounds, notably Gagaku — the imperial court music of the time — and recruited California-born, Japan-based arranger-producer Taro Ishida to visit multiple sites around the country and record Gagaku music (and, in at least one case, the vocal sounds of chanting
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