Takeshi Furukawa ( @bafta Nominee) | Podcast #151
hello everyone and welcome to the UEA podcast today I am joined by my co-host Griffin how you doing Griff
good excellent and our guest of honor Teeshi Furukawa thank you guys for having me it’s the pre pres I can’t speak i the pleasure and privilege is all mine it’s Thanks for having me here
no worries at all um we I believe are beaming to you at around about 6:00 p.m your time i believe some coffee is involved as well absolutely i’m I am a coffee fiend i drink way too many cups of coffee every single day and then I tend to pump the brakes at night with a nice bottle of wine if if my schedule definitely pumping the brakes there but uh um well obviously uh for folks who have come to this chat either from the Reddit link that I posted on the team um subreddit or if you found your way through Instagram or through Griffin’s Instagram or even through Teeshi’s uh through the tagging and and sort of co-involvement and algorithmic fusions that I’ve uh been doing wherever you’ve come from welcome uh the podcast has been going on since uh 2018 uh but Griffin who I posted one of his uh clips uh on the Instagram you’ll be able to see a bit of a recap of his kinship with works uh going back to yeah the early 2000s same with me um and I suppose that is a pretty uh uh good touch point to to launch things off of uh with yourself for Teeshi i’ll start with one of my questions and then Griff if it ends up covering one of your questions just I suppose um we’ll do and you can move on to your next one so um obviously before becoming involved in um I’m going to try and not get choked up because it is my most uh cherished and beloved alltime work of creative expression in any medium and that’s no exaggeration uh the last guardian um the music that you that you created for that obviously we can we can build towards that but um uh your kinship with Oeda your earliest instance of touching um uh like having that touch point and uh with him I would love to know that Teshi sure um my well first of all my earliest um with uh sorry uh uh our our roads kind of crossing is Widowan wouldn’t have known because I was just a fan i was a player and a fan of his game i did not play Eco in real time um but when Shadows came out um my good friend was just an avid fan of that game and he was playing it and I was watching him play i always I always was uh not a game like player myself i loved games when I was small but um after I grew up into you know adulthood I was more of like a watcher than a player so my friend was playing it um so that was my first instance of getting to know UAN as a fan and then um I mean I could go off on a tangent about my background as a as a musician or sorry as a composer um I came up in uh actually TV um working on projects and then at one point um you know I was um trying to so I started off as an assistant um working for a very established TV composer here and um like all assistants do at one point I was trying to just venture out on my own and scoring you know small projects here and there and by a stroke of luck and fate um I had an opportunity to submit a demo for a unannounced or unknown game um but you know the ref images come through and it’s like oh okay well this is the last part so um I had a chance to submit a pitch for that and um I guess I must have by again stroke of luck and the stars aligning must have done something correct because it seems like my demo struck a chord with Urasan and his team and his audio director um and I was selected as the composer for that project and um really it was just a fortuitous I don’t even know how to mention it cuz like you know it was my first solo video game project working on The Last Guardian and when you are there in the moment just working on it you don’t really realize how big it is because you’re just keeping your head down you know um your eye on the mission which is to to serve the project write the best music possible um so yeah it’s it’s it’s a it was really a surreal experience for me just even like thinking about what was happening back then right now in 2025 talking to you two about it is almost unbelievable well it it would almost be I guess Griffin if we’re looking at our timelines roughly 10 years since that activity would have been happening because you know title came out 2016 that 2015 time frame we are looking at almost an inadvertent 10 yearish anniversary for when you started to get involved um I wanted to throw it to you Griff any comments for for Teeshi based on what he just said and uh you can feel free to go into one of your questions as well yeah well actually one of my questions was like uh how and when was uh your first start at composing for um for like games and movies and you said television what was like the the first thing that really felt like the first step that shot you into the trajectory that you ended up going in
so uh if time allows I’ll I’ll just allow me to give you the long version of it i’ll just start at the very beginning um you know I was born in Tokyo but then I was raised here in California actually the suburbs of Los Angeles and I started kindergarten here so for all intents and purposes and by the way um for the audience as well I’m I’m so sorry I can’t turn on my camera i’m not trying to be mysterious or all that it’s just I’m traveling right now and I’m in like this rowdy environment so I sincerely apologize that you guys have to
I thought you were just being Yeah I’m just like not moving um so I grew up here um and um so sorry I was about to say uh I look Japanese but for all intents and purposes I consider myself a you know American because that’s I’ve grown up here um studied music my Asian parents right so like they wanted me to be a doctoral lawyer and it’s like oh you have to study violin you have to study piano um my father put me in karate class for a small while there because I guess it’s the Japanese boy thing to do when you have a son it was back in the days um and then um took like swimming lessons and all that you know typical parent stuff but I I really gravitated towards music i think there was something that really like deeply struck a chord with me and I liked it um however the only thing that my teachers did not like was I was changing stuff all the time like if you are trying to learn classical literature and pedagogy and trying to learn classical piano you know you have to be very very accurate and um to to the tea with the the sheet music um I was doing none of that i was like changing excuse my language but I was changing [ __ ] left and right and the my teacher was like “You cannot do that this is not composition.” Um so I was like “Well then if that means I can’t do that but that’s what I like then I must want to be a composer.” So that was always kind of like you know stirring in the back of my mind um even like in high school um actually I just jumped the timeline there but like even like in high school or middle school um you know we here we have to do like community service um as a part of like your college application process and we would go to like senior centers and perform or we would um you know go to like uh I guess Cherokee venues and perform and I would like make arrangements for that and stuff so I was you know kind of unprof not not at a professional capacity but acting kind of like an arranger composer/arranger orchestrator kind of already early on um what really made me want to pursue this was Jurassic Park so I’m kind of going back in time um my timeline’s all like jumbled up right now but I believe it was 1994 so you know I was like in my early teens watch Jurassic Park um I’m sure that was a big film for a lot of people my age you know like young teenage boy dinosaurs epic music it hits all the right spots and I think for like a lot of composers slightly above my age level um Star Wars was just that for them whereas for me it was Jurassic Park so that really kind of opened my eyes and um made me think like oh okay so there is a path to be doing music professionally and making money and I think I was drawn to the orchestral sound even more so because um I know I mentioned study string studying strings i did study actually I started on the violin but I pivoted to the viola very quickly um was horrible at it um I was moderately okay with the piano so I was mainly you know performing the piano and that’s a very solo instrument you don’t get all the colors of the orchestra so that’s I think more of the reason why I was very very enamored and enchanted by big orchestral sounds and when it came time to apply for college um instead of applying to conservatories so there’s you know a lot of very prestigious conservatories here in the United States as well as well as Europe um but I had my eyes set on a contemporary music school called the Berkeley College of Music where they teach you more the um technology and the um I guess tools of the trade and what you need to know in order to just work professionally as a modern composer and like as a as a media composer a film composer a game composer rather than like a concert music composer so um I went to Berkeley um studied the technology got out of school um and then started assisting um a composer named Kevin Ker here um he’s um very big in television um some of his shows um you know I’m totally name dropping Kevin here um but he did like CSI Miami Star Trek Enterprise um he just recently did Ahsoka for Disney Plus um he’s been doing all the Star Wars Clone Wars stuff so I had a chance to first be running and getting coffee for him which very quickly turned into you know oh you can orchestrate okay then why don’t you orchestrate which turned to oh well you seem to write decent music I guess so why don’t you try this queue and you know one Q leads to another and um I started writing music I guess in the real sense of the word professionally then where I got paid to write music um and yeah so sorry that was a very long I’m sure you didn’t want that that you answered other questions too while doing that so that
Yeah no we were hoping we uh another thing that I really um really appreciate for podcasts is is the ability to go into granular detail um and I we wouldn’t have stopped you and like that was so kind of you to to kind of um wrap up a couple decades worth of I mean and you say you took your time but honestly um there were so many moments throughout I wanted to pause and say “Well buddy Jurassic Park uh you know uh where we’re talking massive creatures that have a sense of majesty to them it’s like the earliest instances of you being the perfect person for for Trio or Torico.” Uh I think um I think that that caused me to to ping and then obviously obviously with uh Kevin Kyner knowing his name being synonymous with Star Wars music again that grasp of u beautiful timeless majesty is is I think encapsulated in your work for sure uh Griffin yeah um I mean you you answered a few of my questions actually going through that um to to go off of that uh my other question was going to be what composer and or pieces uh did do you think had like the greatest impact on your personal style so I’m going to guess like I mean John Williams Jurassic Park
yeah absolutely um I think 90s scores is what I Well 90s scores and early 2000s um something about 90s scores you cartoons too like those animated movies
man yeah i I don’t know what it is you know i think like I’m kind of like swinging it here stream of consciousness but in the ‘9s we did not have the technologies and the tools modern tools we have now i think really the advent of that was the early 2000s right cuz I remember being in school um in college in the early 2000s uh these modern sample libraries were just starting to come out and like you know these modern plugins sound libraries and plugins that we use today to compose was were just starting to come out and they were very expensive back then so um there was definitely a barrier like a financial barrier to try to get into the composition um but also more so sorry it’s it’s less about the financial barrier i think I think you really needed to have command of the orchestra because that was your main tonal pallet you know there wasn’t like a cool drum loop that you could easily like um call up on a computer like we do today you know there were things like the Sinclair and you know like the synths back then with MIDI full MIDI capability but I I would venture to say and hazard to guess to say obviously I wasn’t there back then doing it so again this is all speculation i I would hazard to say it was a lot more difficult than you know the way we have it we have it easy I guess is what I’m trying to say so all the composers in the 90s who did those phenomenal you know scores um and even hybrid scores existed back then in the 90s right like James Newton Howard he’s one of my favorite composers as well um Thomas Newman um he’s another one um all these composers you know who are in the pantheon of deities for us right now who were very active in the 90s and even now obviously but you know those are the composers that had the most influences for my music and my formative years so again just to you know answer your question Griffin it would be like Williams Tom Newman James Howard Alan Sylvester um [Music] I know I’m missing Jerry Goldmith there you go yeah yeah yeah keep on going i know I’m missing a couple of people i I Yeah
yeah and you you mentioned um all those like sound libraries and stuff like that and how fortunate we are today and uh it’s funny you mentioned that i got the um I forgot what what uh sample packet is but it’s um it’s strings and percussion and woodwinds and stuff like that um for um specifically uh Air Studios um and I remember when I got that I immediately started playing um The Final Escape in the for your soundtrack and it sounded onetoone texturally like it was just incredible how just one note and you could hear that space exactly how it sounded in in that soundtrack and it was just like this is cheating yeah it’s it’s definitely like you you probably talking about the Spitfire audio sample libraries maybe
yes
yeah because that one was recorded by you know the London players who I consider one of the some of the finest musicians in the world um at Air Studios which is arguably one of the best studios in the world and it has that quintessential iconic film score sound that’s why a lot of film composers go there um to record um yeah you know we have it easy in terms of being able to source say like the paint equivalent of drawing um I think it would still take skill to be able to utilize that to effect but the financial barrier again I’m just repeating myself of what I said you know 10 minutes ago but has been significantly lowered because the entry point is just
Yeah you know you spend a couple hundred dollars and you have an entire orchestra um sampled by worldclass musicians in a world-class recording stage just at your fingertips and you could you could make that sound come out of your computer so it’s it’s it’s amazing
incredible
yeah i I wanted to get your thoughts just while we were in the Jurassic sphere obviously in a couple days maybe if you’ve already seen it through your connections and stuff like that but yeah Rebirth is is uh is specifically on the edict of Gareth Edwards himself going back to filming on Kodak and everything there’s there’s this big um push to to to recapture the the 93 film Sensibilities um and I’m you know I wanted to get your thoughts on Alexandra Desla as a uh as a composer as well
oh he’s fantastic yeah you know what uh no no offense to Alexander Desla i forgot to mention him as one of my idols because he definitely is he’s he’s he’s in there he’s fantastic um I just heard that one track that was released as like a single cut on Spotify a couple days ago fantastic amazing there’s already like you know it’s pulling at my heartstrings because there’s the the sense of nostalgia that gets conjured up and um
yeah you know man I I don’t know what it is it’s just the ‘9s was magical maybe it’s because I grew up with it too let’s do it let’s do an age check we don’t have to say specific years um I mean I’ll I’ll go and start with mine i’m an 88 kids so
yeah I was I was in that primo you know in 93 you know just that that perfect age they say that it’s around when you’re about 10 you know 10 to 12 to 13 yeah is when things you’re you’re you basically get your individual um like the fingerprint of your individuality culturally and in terms of art and entertainment and storytelling kind of takes place there griff I’m guessing you’re a bit younger than us yeah I’m 97
97
you you are a lot younger than us I’m a little bit older than you Albert uh I was mid 80s
yeah well um I as as you probably will hear have heard and will hear for the rest of your life you you absolutely cannot tell we white people envy you Asian people a lot for that um but I I wanted to ask actually with um with uh this current landscape of uh composing and and also of ideas being thrown around and again Griffin I know we had a bit of a pre-show thing about staying on track but we right before we went live uh audience we we all basically admitted that we’re big stream of consciousness people so I guess we’re going with that um I’ve been long manifesting a uh liveaction um nublar prequel uh kind of to do what Andor did for the 77 film but to lead up to um the 93 film and uh I recently posted this to the Jurassic Reddit and I was like Teeshi has to be the composer for that so I’m just going to put that out into the universe uh that you get approached for for that cuz um how cool would that be for sure you know what I mean
that that would definitely be a dream cake i I think my that’s very very far the star is very very far away from me i I would love that
you’re you know you’re all you’re all last airbended up you know what I mean like it’s all good man you’re on your way you’re on your way there you go um thank you that’s very generous of you to say
had to say it had to say it griff um our our uh one of one of your next questions if you wouldn’t mind
yeah um so this this actually goes back to um just writing in general uh when you’re about to like embark on writing for a new project what’s the first tool that you you grab whether it be a keyboard and mouse uh piano sheet music what’s what’s that usually look like
you know so I get asked this in different podcasts or interviews and that I think I admit I think I’ve been giving different answers every single time mainly because I’m not like lying my ass off for making you know stuff up on the spot it changes and like there’s there’s times when and when I say times like a period of time maybe like a specific like you know half a year period where I I really may maybe I’m just fancying myself like a a legit composer or something where I just sit down at the piano and tinker around and you know because oh this is cool this is the way like old composers used to do it um and then there are times when I just like go straight to the sequencer and like call up a sound um also because I think every project has different demands so um for example um just to touch up on tangentially like uh air bender Avatar the Last Airbender there is a lot of Asian influences in that and I admit I would be the first one to admit I knew nothing absolutely nothing about Asian traditional instruments i mean I knew of them um but even being you know of Japanese heritage I did not know any of the Japanese traditional instruments the mechanics of it you know what idiomatically they can do um and it was important for me to be able to utilize that color in the score so to again to answer your question Griffin what I did for that project specifically first was I just spent my own money set up a recording session with like certain traditional Japanese musicians and said you know just I’m just going to roll tape improvise me phrases um just just play and like and obviously the players understood that I was going to like take their improvisations cut them up and like use them for specific places in the score but um I did that i really leaned into the players and said just like teach me like I I need to understand these instruments i need to know what they sound like i need to know where and how they sound good because I don’t want to be writing out of range or straining you know like your tesatururo or doing something that doesn’t work for the instrument um so again uh just to go back to your question there are projects like that where really the musical um seed doesn’t begin with me it begins with the players and then like I might hear like a cool fruit phrase that they improvise and go “Oh that’s amazing i I bet I can cut that part and put that phrase and kind of make my own phrase you know
bastardize their their improvisation into like kind of my own.” Um and then that might serve as a starting off point for one of the cues you know maybe like that solo flute phrase might start a track and then I would transition that into 2D strings and they would take over and like play the same phrase with in the orchestral context um so there are instances like that and then also there are instances where it’s like if it’s like very melodically driven um like the Last Guardian um that was me sitting at the piano sequencer uh both both the piano and the sequencer and some cues would be you know my fingers going straight to the string um ensemble patch and trying to like write a a cool string phrase and that would be the beginning of the queue um so really it I I think there’s no really one answer to answer your question it really depends on context and situation yeah that makes sense i could totally relate to that i’m a big
uh throw things at the wall you know kind of kind of person just really make sure I like
get everything out there and then gravitate towards this that grab that oh this inspires me to do that so yeah I totally get like chopping that up and and doing all that
well all I was going to say is uh look I’m not musician but I do visual art and um a lot of my stuff is abstract with um there’s even some uh pulling into of uh things like the constructal law and morphogenesis and and ways in which uh nature presents its different patterns and um not to get too crazy esoteric uh but I wanted to say that I I tend to believe and I was raised a bit in Italy and I know about you know the muses and all that stuff and and for me the I don’t necessarily believe in that when like inspiration strikes or whatever but I do believe in the germ of of all of the best ideas at the very least to be like a mode of chaos like it is just going into that space of spontaneity or embracing something not being part of your normal routine or anything expected and I think David Lynch talked about this is like life exists the the origin point of life is the unexpected it is the um the dynamic and uh to hear that uh your answer for that like how do you do it which is like well all of the above it it means that you’re kind of really embracing that aspect that I’ve at least found ring true for for the creative process for sure
yeah you know I think the creative process right now especially for music is I mean you know it’s said that every single piece of music has probably already been written in throughout the course of history right because there’s just a limited number of iterations that sound pleasing to the human ear as we are in our culture so I really think it’s just like design um there’s really no like completely wholly new original piece and I I think Wesan talked about this as well in one of his interviews where he sees his game crafting experience as design as well he’s just pulling from all these influences and past experiences and what you know things that he’s made mental note of saying like “Oh that’s cool that also is cool let me see if I can put these two together.” So um music is the same for me as well you know and then um when I start a piece there are times where like as you said Albert like it’s it’s really chaotic where things might come out of there are instances where I might be able to conjure up some kind of a musical melodic phrase that goes “Oh that’s great that’s going to work great for that theme.” But that’s very seldom right when when something like that happens I feel like I’ve hit the jackpot because I feel like I’ve won it’s like “Oh yeah great.” something well almost quasi original kind of came from me but in most cases it’s like okay for this scene I remember there was this one scene in that film or that game which was you know um the music was doing this in a particular way and that was really cool so let me try to take that and see what I can do and like you know regurgitate my version of it um just really leaning into all these outside influences I and leaning into musicians leaning into your past like references and what you’ve seen so I I guess you know tangentially to speak it’s really important to I guess expand your horizons and experience a lot of things in life as well because that’s where you kind of get your inspiration and your musical seeds from
yeah I wanted to to touch on that i’m not sure if either of you are familiar with the band Baroness but uh John Basley who fronts that band he um he said something about originality that really stuck out to me which was that um sure you can say that you know everything’s being composed and created however what ultimately matters like John Williams you you take him aside he’ll say well I I am essentially doing Swan Lake mixed with Cornold mixed with Hol mixed with Chakovski you know so and Venchikovsky if you asked him he would say well this is my my uh set of ingredients for who I am etc and that goes as far back as the big bang but what he said is look I can’t control when someone comes into contact with a certain work like and I think he talked about Tamman Pala and John Lennon like John Lennin sings like this and that’s that’s his way of singing it but if you come across Tamman Pala first and you create a bond with Tamman Pala’s music first you’ll realize that Tamman Pala is a mixture of Cream and Led Zeppelin and Black Sabbath and Jimmyi Hendris and and you’ll you’ll that that will be your entry point um into that theme and then for you hearing John John Lennon after that it’ll be like oh yeah sounds a bit like tmana you know and and that’s so the he basically said it’s it’s more about when and and the and the and the notion of inherent originality because you yourself teeshi were never born will never be born again so anything that you inherently do um outside of really conscious like you actually almost have to put effort into being a true plagiarist like it’s because we are so inherently unique in our in our manner of thinking and and where our brains go so those two things I kind of wanted to throw into the uh conversational pot um what did you think uh Tekashi
yeah absolutely i I think everything you’re saying is true and you know like in a way because of all these different things you know that we’re talking about i sometimes feel very vulnerable when creating something because you start secondguessing yourself where you know obviously you have the days where you’re very confident saying like okay yeah you know I know where the inspiration came from but I could feel very confident that I’m putting my own spin on it and then there are other days where you’re doing the same thing it’s like am I being original enough it’s like or what if I in inadvertently like this is especially with like melodic phrases where you think that it’s comes from your mind but it’s like what if I have been inadvertently requing from my mind but that might I might have heard that somewhere else um I think I heard a story i I don’t I can’t even remember when and where but like at a a a film so this was like a session here like a recording session in Los Angeles I guess years or decades ago some composer had written a piece and then you know the orchestra uh was laughing uh not laughing at him but was like chuckling like very kindly and warmly and the composer like what and like he was like “Oh you you do notice that you quoted such and such fromChaikovsky’s fourth symphony or something like that right?” I’m just making you know the Tchaikovsky fourth is just an example but things like that happen to like the greatest of composers so yeah it’s it’s um Yes I went off on a tangent again i was agree with everything you’re saying Albert
thank you but my wife and I we were just listening to some uh John Williams and uh just playing back the you know Harry Potter theme and and we we pulled up an old piece of classical music we’re like that’s his you change the tempo and one note and that’s what that is and the phrasing
and so but uh and again yeah going to what you’re saying but uh Griff did you did you want to jump in
yeah no I’m just on board with with Okay what Yeah you’re all saying um for sure i did actually have a question to tie this all in yes um it seemed actually very relevant since we’re talking about like influences and stuff like that um so you did uh the Planet of Lana soundtrack correct
that’s correct
this is embarrassing if I’m wrong uh yeah that’s what I thought um I was going to say listening to that you could hear so much influence uh from your work on The Last Guardian and I know you could tell that that game is just dripping with the gen design game you know influences so was that like a situation of them saying “Hey this is heavily influenced by this we like your work on this could you do something similar?” Or do you think that your style just kind of leaked through naturally and that’s why it’s so similar to The Last Guardian um well musically I have a story to tell you by the way about uh my involvement how I got involved in Planet of Atlanta but to address your question first musically I mean you know it’s the same person writing it so I think it would it would naturally um um I mean I wouldn’t even call it an influence it’s it’s just my my voice I guess or like you know what I tend to do when I’m just cut loose um there are projects Not unlike the last guardian or the planet of Lana where like you know you certainly know that a said project has a style or a convention or musical language um a universe that the music needs to kind of conform to um say again I’m just bringing this up as one mere example but say if I was like you know scoring like an Aliens franchise project or something that definitely has a musical sound that I’m going to have to kind of naturally navigate towards or if there was like a I don’t know like a Call of Duty type of project then that has like a sound i guess you know what Call of Duty is a bad bad example because they have many iterations of franchises with different colors well what what I try to say is for like uh Lana and The Last Guardian where I was very privileged to be given cart blanch essentially by the directors and say just just do what you do um you know I just wear my emotions on my sleeves and do what I do so that’s my natural voice I guess musical voice and what I like to do um but um a side story the way I got involved in Planet of Lano was I actually reached out to the developers because I saw an early image um and I don’t you know there was something very very capturing grabbing about um the initial hero shot for that project um I’m not sure if you’ve seen it it’s floating around on the internet it’s Lana um looking up at the robot that’s standing on the rock with the little companion and there was like a very particular art style um also I I liked it i liked the fact that it was nonviolent and you know it it felt like there was like a lot of Studio Ghibli influences as well um so anyhow like I I just reached out to Adam who was the co-director on that and say like oh I saw your image it looks fantastic by the way do you guys have a composer for this because if not I’d love to and he’s like and Adam tells the story better than I do but um funny enough like little did I know that Lana they had um Last Guardian and Eco and Project was one of their key influences like that they were kind of referencing so Adam had The Last Guardian on his radar and he I I’m not sure if he was listening to the music or not and then here I am like reaching out to him not like several months after he said he thought someone was playing a prank on him um you know impersonating me reaching out um
that wasn’t the case and luckily you know for me they were like “Nope we don’t have a composer yet you want it?” and um they offered me the project which I was very privileged to you know accept and yeah that’s how I got involved in it
yeah that’s awesome because I I saw uh that game when they were doing the like release a year later after it came out because I had never heard of it because it was believe an Xbox exclusive and I’m not playing Xbox um but uh I’m like why how have I not seen this game before and then I’m like oh this is just like dripping with Gen Design and Eco Shadow of the Colossus all those Last Guardian kind of vibes and then I saw that you did the soundtrack i’m like “Oh of course.” Like this this game has to be awesome
oh thank you very much the game is very very awesome please uh give it a whirl if you haven’t
i actually just played it this week in preparation for this it was amazing yeah
yeah where uh they’re working on it just announced uh they’re working on a sequel right now
i also saw that this week so I’m like “Oh this is just all all working out.”
Um
do we know and look hey we obviously fully respect what you can and can’t talk about are you involved with the sequels music
yes yeah that’s already been announced it’s out there um also the release date I’m not sure if a specific release date’s been announced but I believe it’s been announced that it’s coming out next year sometime next year um a quick Google search would probably tell you way more than I can more eloquently amazing well um that’s that’s Oh you got me thinking about all kinds of um you know like your proximity to various different projects and and music um I uh I I did want to talk just very briefly because I I um I do go all the way back to the eco days uh and I’m I’m wondering which which question to ask you about the soundtracks for each of those which are you know obviously Kotani and all of that but I I actually want to see if I get any of this right and you can be like “Oh you’re way off this is not how it happened.” But you know that Carter Burwell um uh you know Miller’s Crossing uh inclusion of the music in the very first teaser trailer for The Last Guardian back in 2007 um it uh I want to say that uh if you know if you were uh I don’t know if this this played out this is almost an opportunity to dispel or reinforce head cannon but did you see that trailer and and sort of treat that um mixture of the visuals and the music which for me I I really believe only surpassed by your work teeshi this isn’t glazing you it’s true over always makes me cry it just does because you you took what ka Bwell had for this unrelated project you know Miller’s crossing uh lament for a limmerick which is the sample that he used for that and and surpassed him for for the purposes of of last guardian but I will say that that trailer maybe is speaking as someone who saw it maybe a hundred or so times while we were waiting for the project to manifest itself over the nine or so years that took place after that but that was almost like the the flavor for Last Guardian and was there something that happened where you looked at that trailer and said “Hey I’m going to try and expand this almost use it as a prompt and say I’m going to turn this sensibility of a score into a dimensionalized multi- multi-act story.” Or or did you go in completely fresh and sort of say thank you Burwell but I’m just going to come at it just as myself um I would venture to say the latter because oftentimes well first of all I guess this is kind of always a constant thing with you know trailers and the actual score they’re very separated often where like the trailer music may or may not have not anything to do with the game um there are instances you know where like if say like if a new Star Wars picture is coming out then the trailer music might be a super hyped up trailer version of like the force theme um but there are instances where and I guess like this Last Guardian um was just that you know um well it was an artistic choice made by Widasan um and obviously his sensibilities are spot on so I guess um in a sense that’s probably um by him choosing that piece to complement the aesthetics of The Last Guardian was absolutely the right thing to do and I I think I was aware of the trailer but no I wasn’t saying like I need to follow in the footsteps of the trailer but I guess if I may without sounding pompous I’d like to give myself a pat a small pat on the back to for arriving at the same conclusion i guess in hindsight
exactly
in hindsight well there was a very convers Oh go ahead sorry
all I was going to say I I I just love that which is that you through your own finding your own way to it i think you know you you knew that chose it uh but then you went into your own space but then almost instinctively found your way there along your own path which I think imbused the project with that much more authorship of yours and and such a uh strong identity musically yeah for sure
the one creative conversation I had with Guasan and um Ittosan who was the audio director very early on um was that we did not want to pull too much traditional influences into the score um because the visuals you know he has a style and say like if I started using like Celtic influences um then it completely destroys the ambiguity of his world right the lore if I started in you know like using Japanese instruments then it infuses world with an Asian aspect which you don’t want to do the beauty of his his vibe and his atmosphere is that it feels like it feels realistic that it might exist somewhere in this world but you can’t quite pinpoint it so in order to you know avoid that and not do that the music needed to be very very I I don’t know um how to say this like I don’t want to say vanilla because that sounds a bit porative
I think timeless timeless because uh and and almost like uh culturalists in a way where there’s there’s the gentle hints that uh I mean that’s what lends it to maybe universality i think there’s a universality and a classicism um that that you imbued it with you know and uh going as back as far back as you know the earliest classical composers there’s just something that now has been become ingrained in us of what what we know to be like a classical score and um no I I can I hum over a lord to myself when I’m just doing stuff around the house and it just you really really captured that timeless skill so yeah that’s that’s the phrase I would use
universality is a Very good word thank you very much for putting it so eloquently
yeah I was going to say um you kind of bring this like ambiguous culture to it it’s like this
as as you said it’s it’s almost like it does exist but it it doesn’t
uh and I I feel like that’s kind of your style and it’s it I could hear it in like a lot of things you do it’s just it’s like an uncanny thing that just
I mean only you can really do that that’s just your sound i I’m going to interject and uh this is I’m I’m manifesting three things for you the third one closer to the end of the show the first one was the Nubla prequel Andoresque thing which you’re going to do the second is I’m going to directly beam to uh it’s Apple who are co-developing it i think it’s Seesaw Films who did Slow Horses they’re developing the Never- Ending Story and dude I’m just saying that Last Guardian with its Trico Falore analoges like that’s almost like a demo reel for you for that so going to put that one out for you there and I’ve got one more that we’ll uh talk about later but um but yeah sorry I had to jump in with that i I like wish good things to the good people in my life you know
i love it i love the manifestation putting out the energy out into the universe you know Griffin just uh I I was listening to you say uh first of all thank you very much for the kind remarks i was listening and one thing I wanted to um let you I I guess
um build upon is one of the things I love and adore is ballet and ballet music um and when we listen to like Tchaikovsky ballet scores or even opera like you know the composers back then they they conjure an otherworldly traditional feel using orchestral instruments like in the Nutcracker right there’s you know the the dances all the different dances where um like Trey is supposed to be I guess Russian or uh like a Kazak Kosak dance and he does it with orchestral instruments he doesn’t need to use like balikas and duduks and uh and that’s one thing that I’ve always admired of like the classical composers being able to conjure that feel with very traditional western instruments and I I guess maybe it’s just me but there’s a sense of classiness to the understatedness um of them doing so instead of going to you know like the the very
obvious choice which would be to go to the traditional instruments which are obviously beautiful and great in its own right but um I I think when I was doing The Last Guardian I was kind of also like gravitating in kind of in that mindset where you know being ambiguous with the culture is is great um in order to do that let’s let’s stick with the orchestral instruments that’s not you know bring in all these very loud traditional colors because that would surely get the job done but it’s going to be in fact too loud for Wan’s um ambience and atmosphere
so I just wanted to build upon what you were saying because that that was um in my mind
yeah the and the way I would describe it too is is your work it’s got this like etherealness to it it’s vast but it’s also got that sort of like ‘9s influence of like adventure but then there’s always like a note of mystery in there yeah
and like
there’s always like a little motif that’s like oh like what’s there’s something I don’t know
that’s very generous of you to say i was never conscious of that um yeah i don’t know how to respond to that except Thank you that’s a That’s a very That’s just what I hear when I like that’s kind of like what I uh like pinpoint whenever I hear a track oh that’s probably his work
oh well I I also wanted to say like um and that makes me so happy to hear you know obviously Griff as an audio engineer composer as well Griff you’re you’re you’re sort of heading that direction as well
yeah um I’m not classically trained so uh I’ve got a little bit of imposter syndrome uh but uh you know with as we were talking about modern tools you know a lot of people have the ability to do stuff nowadays so
try not to be like yeah I can compose stuff but I I I am writing you know
well it just made me happy as someone hosting this to you know be able to open that channel between someone who’s who’s working towards where Teeshi’s at and then to convey that in person kind of had a moment of gratitude there which is it’s lovely and uh for sure um we can do a couple things at this point Griff if you wanted to go one more of your questions i know you prepared quite a few uh and then I’ll um I’ll throw one in as well go for it
yeah so I’ll I’ll ask a good one i mean this actually this answer just might straight up just be a no but uh uh when you were working on The Last Guardian and you were kind of learning about the world in preparation for it do you feel like you obtained anything that wasn’t necessarily like ended up getting revealed like any sort of like hidden stuff that when the game came out it wasn’t actually in there
oh uh I’m sorry are you saying were there things in the development that I knew that wasn’t in the final product or I guess I’m not understanding your question
like um anything about the world itself and like the lore and the story about the world that maybe was passed on to you just as like an example that’s very tactful actually Griff is saying obviously you know you want to maintain history mystery around the project but um um obviously I guess we’re assuming you played through it uh and
yes absolutely
there you go and and uh did you you like maybe telling you something about uh you know the valley or the master or or any of these other elements that he told you but you didn’t see in the game but you get to be like a you know that meme of the person in the corner of like in the at the party like no one knows that I know that
yeah I know what this is no one else do you have any are you carrying any of those and we’re not asking but yeah yeah yeah you know this is an honest answer I’m sure there were like you know a couple of things where like during the produ so the short answer is I’m sure there is I just don’t remember it because I probably have the memory of a goldfish at this point um there were instances where he was telling me certain things like okay this is you know this is the backstory this is what’s happening and then um because also the game development is very amorphous and things change over time um it either got cut or did not make it or withan decided to leave it out you know because he’s very subtractive in his design and you know um just distilling it to his core essence um so sorry short answer don’t know I don’t remember anymore
i think
yeah sorry you know but one thing I can kind of piggyback on to and remark about is like just the game development timeline um it’s it’s just what you see or what you don’t see in game developments and this isn’t just about you know the last guardian it’s it’s it’s with Planet of Lana too and it’s with other projects that I’m working on too things like evolve and change so much i mean it’s not uncommon for games to get rescoped and the narrative to get redrawn you know rewritten completely once or twice or even more so more times because of um you know just development timelines sometimes the tech changes because you know like um one of the big things for The Last Guardian was they were developing it originally on the PS4 and then PS5 came out so or was it the other way was was it for PS3 to three to four
three to four oh my gosh my timeline’s completely off yeah so like they had to and the engine changed um there are you know technical things like that and then there are also things where like you know the audience big games go through like audience testing um CI testing right and then like if certain marks aren’t hit then they might need to rescope things so there’s a lot of things that are changing and very very fluid in game development um which more you know I guess adds to the fact that there’s I’m sure there’s things that Wasan told me and then got not make it into the game or you know remained a secret or like almost like an Easter egg
for sure all right no that’s interesting i um I uh was thinking about um that process of uh you know again we we that’s all we we really have when we’re speculating about how how things came about and I am one of those people that I grew up on the Phantom Menace DVD and we had the beginning you know which was this big hour plus long documentary and um nothing makes us uh more you know thrilled I think short of the film itself obviously because that’s the the product of all of those efforts but behind the scenes is one of those things where Griff and I know all too well because he is a um gen design they they really do they chuck a little bit of a rockstar they they they step back when they create they don’t have cameras uh too much and documentaries and stuff and uh so um any any lenses into what was going on obviously respectful o of that that he he prefers to be bit more of a Willy Wonka kind of figure of of creating um from that point of view totally respect that but it is fascinating to get those little tidbits and uh I guess that that would um dovetail me into whatever you would feel comfortable a small anecdote perhaps of of composing uh where um for for the Last Guardian where uh that that that maybe strikes you as a bit memorable that that you that you might like to share with us uh anything that popped up in the studio or maybe him bringing you some influence that you weren’t expecting or Yeah would love to hear something like that
no although I I do have a fun story uh to tell you about this so it’s um you know one of the hardest music for games for me and I think a lot of composers may agree with me perhaps is combat music
um and it’s not the big boss fights it’s the iterative systemic combats where you know the mini um so in in the case of The Last Guardian it’s the soldiers right like you run into them and it’s they’re the equivalent of what a systemic combat is in an open world game um it’s for me it’s the hardest for any game because you need to strike the right balance between um just the right level of tension but it can’t be so invasive that because you’re going to hear it over and over and over again um because you’re going to run into these enemies and if the player is not skilled then it’s going to be on loop for 10 minutes because you’re trying to beat that small right so anyhow the balance is very very difficult um and oftentimes it’s the first game uh first cue or one of the first cues that we try to nail so that we can get the right vibe of the game so for the last guardian um that was the soldier queue we worked on it right and then um I thought I had nailed it it was working great until later in the development like I see my music in the game and it’s like so slow i was like what is going on and then they were like “Oh yeah we forgot to tell you but you know the video that you were working to that was an early like video and the frame rate was much lower so everything was like slower.” So the consequently the music that I had written for the systemic combat which is the soldier 2 was slower than the actual you know the pace of the game um I mean luckily that was an easy fix but again because the last guardian was my first solo game project and I was dealing with one of the hardest cues in in any game um it was just a memorable you know it was an anecdotal memorable situation for me that I still remember that moment i was like “What the heck is going on?” I was like “Oh okay i see.” Oh that’s amazing yeah were you going to say something Griff
oh I was just going to say when you mentioned those soldiers that song instantly popped in my head i got a little PTSD it was a lot slower yeah the original version was a lot slower that’s amazing and and needing to pivot to that hopefully it was not too much of a laborious uh fix where you were able to or did you have to go back and record re-record or
No no luckily we hadn’t recorded it um we it was just a matter of going into the sequencer and adjusting the tempo because it wasn’t that big of a tempo difference which funny enough you know I I’m going to go off on another tangent this happens to me a lot more often now where like I write certain cues and this is for every project for games also for like TV where I find myself I I sincerely think it’s the caffeine and the alcohol at night i write a cue during the day like just high on caffeine just buzzing with like you know two cups of coffee in my system right and I think my heart rate is high I would listen to the same cue later at night just to revisit it and there are often times where I’m like wow why is this cue so fast for the scene or vice versa like I would write a cue late at night um you know having had like a glass of wine or two for dinner and maybe my like my heart rate is lower um the next morning I would listen to to it again and I’m sitting there thinking like why is this so slow what was I thinking so um I guess what I’m trying to say is musical tempo is important you need to nail that
no that’s amazing and and I think uh um you know what what a what a you know people when they describe things they create visual pictures and just the idea of um you know you I I love that you you fully own your relationship with coffee and wine i love that so much and it just creates this idea uh I don’t know if there someone close to you in your life is like okay we need to talk about this like uh I just I can barely can barely keep up with when you because you’re like why what’s going on it’s like you’re living almost like severance like two lives like in the morning and there’s couple differenties out there that’s amazing oh boy
i like to think of myself as a high functioning caffeine addict
that’s fantastic we love that um Griffin uh another question from yourself then I think I will because we we were conscious of the time coming up to the hour and um my last manifestation drop and then a question about uh just what you thought as a fan uh watching the Project Robot trailer but uh yeah Griffin if you had another one for us
um let’s see um let’s do uh what does your like workflow timeline kind of look like when you’re when you get a project like The Last Guardian or something do you write in bulk usually or do you spread it out
good question it’s usually games it’s it’s very much spread out because there are milestones um with The Last Guardian there wasn’t a very clear milestone set um so it was a little bit more loose um but we did know when the game needed to go gold which is you know everything’s done so we would always calculate backwards and say okay if the game needs to go gold on this date then the music masters usually needs to be submitted about six months prior because they need to get integrated into the game and then nothing can change like um the music can’t change they can’t even swap out audio files because who knows you know like changing out a wave file may cause a bug um so there’s like code lock you can’t just like you know you can’t change anything um so we would always calculate backwards with the last guardian um I was on it i I know the project in earnest started you going moving full steam ahead around 2014 2015 but I was actually on it since 2012ish just very loosely you know like
wow sketching here and there um well because the game was you know going through a couple of changes um with projects like Lana you know the um the milestone is more clearly defined like the game is broken up into chapters and they would tell me like okay by this date we need to have the synth masters for this chapter implemented um you can change it afterwards if you want to um but we need at least a first pass or something that you’re ready to record and put out um if need be by this date so there are games and projects which are more structured like that and just to you know jump to the other side of the fence talking about like TV projects um those you know sometimes we move on a very weekly episodic schedule so those go a lot faster it’s like not drawn out like it’s that’s like an intense one week of time for especially for like network episodic TV where the next one’s coming around just around the corner um you have to do that now with like streaming the advent of streaming and you know streaming’s um content being released in bulk and like having a longer development timeline um a lot of the streaming projects are no longer like that they’re more like video game developments where you know we would start working like say like um I just started working on the second season of Avatar the Last Airbender and um you know that I have like this bulk span of time to write all the episodes um and until we go to recording and then once we record it you know things can’t really change because otherwise you’re gonna have to re-record it but
right
um there’s less of a rigid like milestone deadline okay that’s a nice Yeah I I I find um um again touching back on like the origins of of of a project or a cue or or what have you any sort of part of that creative process the origins of it but then also yeah how how something tracks and then and then you know sticking the landing which um again in all of your projects so far you’ve you’ve very much done speaking of projects here it is and hopefully I don’t get eye rolls and I hopefully I get like some actual hype both to people watching this listening back and then obviously amongst yourselves and especially yourself Teeshi um so you’re you’re obviously uh and if Netflix know what’s good for them they’ll they’ll keep you on for many more projects uh we’ve got Nania coming up um and I’m I I said I would just be one but now it’s just the floodgates really of manifesting so you you’re you’ve got two projects now with the last in the title so we’re just going to continue that and they are working with Gary Witter who did the Rogue One screenplay he’s developing The Last Star Fighter so that’s that’s for you and um the remake and then also uh of all people I believe Fergie from the uh Black Eyed Peas is being involved in like they’re going to do a live action The Last Unicorn
so that seems like that’s going to be in your future too so I think uh let’s let’s keep that going with all these projects with The Last in it yeah for sure um but yeah that’s but that’s legitimate manifesting for you as well mate and uh
I appreciate it thank you very much i would be lucky to even be considered amongst hundreds of applicants for any of those projects i mean you would you would not believe how fierce the competition is for you know all these projects so
yeah I appreciate the manifestation
that’s that’s the as we say in Australia humble buffing over here humble buffin um all right well uh Griff do you think we should just pivot to a little bit just as we come over the hour uh and uh yeah discussing did you have any specific questions left before we dive into just a little bit of uh speaking only about the qualities of the trailer as is nothing else just as a fan obviously for for Project Robot but anything else you wanted to ask or should we just go straight into that um Griff
yeah I think we touched upon at least like a little bit of all the questions I had
all right okay so yeah I wanted to ask Teeshi uh Game Awards last year um I’m assuming either it came to you you were watching live or at some point it reached you about Project Robots uh this this more full reveal than we’ve ever seen we saw the postcards that were released um my unofficial name for it was the girl and the beast because there was these early um postcards shown seems like it changed identity a couple times or or just direction throughout the years uh since you know the first project after The Last Guardian what did you think of that trailer man
just watching it as a fan I think it’s it’s going to be amazing you know he he has a vibe and um I can’t say anything about the project so I apologize in advance um but just just watching it it was actually you know honestly the first time I had any information about that project i mean I know was working on something um but he’s very tight and that team as you said they just work in the background because they’re artisans and they’re master craftsman right like they they don’t need to be loud and you know announce what they’re doing they they’re just very very artisal in their mindset so they’re quietly working away and when they’re ready to show the world that’s what they do and that I was one of the mere fans um many fans of the world i saw it and I was like “Oh this is amazing this is great.” Like I’m Oh my goodness
i mean
yeah no you go ahead mate
no it’s just And then you know you see like these little touches of the universe right like uh what the sigil
um that’s that’s that calls back to Shadows and you know parts of the Last Guardian it’s like “Oh yep that’s uh that’s definitely on trademark.”
He has a thing with scrambly protagonists like always like just like never quite like elegantly running he has this thing of listen adventuring it’s messy business where we’re we got flailing limbs it’s amazing but then obviously counterbalanced with the the sort of mournful majesty of of the uh of of the the main Mecca figure i’m sure a lot of people watched that day and they immediately started watching the Iron Giants or Yeah any other boy and his beast stories you know um for sure uh Griff I feel like we could go on for like many more hours
i mean
I waited like eight years for that that trailer you know it’s funny because I I listen to the UAE podcast like
three times just like every year I’ll listen to it again just like hopefully the cereal will come it’s funny that you mentioned the the girl in the sleeping giant because whenever I listen to that that podcast like the first episode or something I’m like you’re so wrong that’s not what it’s gonna listen i have aspirations for I might be doing my Australian public servant thing in this thing on the side but damn it I’m gonna do a story one day
i mean we had no information that’s all the information we had
i’m just in hindsight
well both of you will forget this completely but indulge me i’m hiring you as audio engineer and Teeshi i will I’ll sell half of the house to hire you for some of my stuff maybe one day i think so yeah
it would be my pleasure and privilege and you do not house
all right teaser trailer it’s called The Quantum Myth and I’m taking what Joseph Campbell did scholastically but turning it into a narrative full stop elevator pitch okay
all right well listen guys um this this has been so fun i I I I have so many more questions but at the same time um we all have days to proceed with and Teeshi I would like to say two things one um did you have three things first did you have fun and did you enjoy being on the show
absolutely thank you so much for having me and again I apologize i wish I could have my camera on and you know we could have more of like a a face tof face conversation but uh this will have to do this time maybe uh you you would do me the honor of inviting you back again not
the second question second question was would you come back so that’s a yes and the third was um if you had um anything that you wanted to express to the community of either ua I’ll I’ll send this out to we have a last last air bender sub show as well i’ll send this out to them so to either of those communities I would probably say chiefly ua because that’s what sort of brought this about um did you have any anything to express to them yeah you know I guess I I just want to say thank you because um well I’ve gotten very very lucky that again like the Last Guardian which is helmed by one of the most notable directors in the video game industry um being you know for all intents and purposes um Avatar the Last Airbender is really my first big dramatic series and being able to be associated on a franchise like that you know again just like with The Last Guardian when I was scoring season one of Avatar the Last Air obviously I knew of the show um I’ve watched it and I knew how big the fandom is but you just really have to not think about that and keep your head down and then upon its release you know um I I I would hopefully I don’t sound pompous saying this many fans gave me very kind messages both you know via email and Instagram and social media um so it really like opens my eyes to realize like wow you know how privileged am I to be able to
contribute my voice to these big projects um the projects are you know great um I’m humbled to be a part of it and I just want to say thank you for the to all the fans to for giving me the time of their day to listen to you know the music and um having me as a part of their lives it’s it’s really a privilege because you know I I know there’s so much great music out there everyone’s lives are busy we have limited time and they have the world to choose from especially with Spotify and you know like all the digital you know outlets you could you could watch any TV show in the world so for them to you know consciously um give me their vote of confidence by saying like “Oh I choose to play The Last Guardian or I choose to watch The Last Air Bender.” Um it’s really a privilege and an honor thank you very much no worries man and uh you’re making some of the best of it out there so and and no deflecting that that you take that in um
I I humbly appreciate and accept your kind words thank you very much
no worries miss Griff any any closing comments for Teeshi before we uh we bounce
aj that was just such an honor to be able to have this conversation with you i could I never imagined i mean your work on The Last Guardian is what made a fascination with the gend as as soon as I heard the the songs in the Last Guardian I’m like “Oh no this is now my favorite media this is like you know it just put the bow on top like yep this is your favorite thing now
so thank thank you for for all your work such a privilege thank you very much i I appreciate it and I look forward to seeing your work on screen as well you know um as both as a composer and as an audio engineer
thank you
for sure appreciate that
absolutely wonderful and thank you everyone what were you going to say uh Teeshi oh I was saying and Albert too thank you very much for you know hosting this podcast and having me and again please invite me back uh next it’s happening you know
in the very near future please
oh it’s happening and like I said all of the manifested projects will come true you’re actually going to big time us a bunch of time so I’m just kind of already preparing emotionally for you just not having the time because of you’ll just be that the stratospheric rise for you man i’m serious like totally like for real so um uh I’m simultaneously saying “Yep I look forward to it but also I look forward to you big timing us because it means you’ve made it even further.” So
it’s your fault for manifesting all that stuff
i know i I manifested all these things for him he’s going to get too successful anyway oh well Teeshi big hugs i’m I’m daggy this way i do digital hugs whatever
all right
back at you thank you very much
i’ll be the third guy to find
thank you yeah
absolutely i’ll I’ll stick on with Griff but yeah take it easy take care be well bye guys and bye everyone
great bye guys thanks for having me bye
pleasure to talk to you
bye
Join Albert and Griff as they speak with legendary composer Takeshi Furukawa.
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