š NOVO NEWS #05: The Music of Planet of Lana by Takeshi Furukawa
Hi everyone!
Takeshi Furukawa here, proud composer of the original soundtrack to Planet of Lana. Iām very excited to share a little bit about the writing process with you today!
Someone recently asked how I came to work on this stunning little indie opus. It all started with me aimlessly scrolling through my twitter feed one night (as one does) and stumbling across this image that immediately caught my attention;
Rather than the so often missed mark of something approximating photorealism, the artist seemed to have gone for a more unique, hand-painted look that really stood out to me. Of course it reminded me of a classic Studio Ghibli film, but there was also this sprinkle of sci-fi mystery that really intrigued me.
So for the first time in my career I decided to reach out to a potential client and see if a composer had been assigned to this mysterious project yet. Adam StjƤrnljus, our creative director and lead game designer, gladly informed me they had not. So fast forward past some boring formalities and we started the journey of bringing musical life to Lanaās home world of Novo.
From the onset, our directors Adam and Klas had a fairly minimalist vision for the game, which they initially felt should include the music as well. But after a period of exploration, and some gentle nudging on my part, we all agreed that the scale of the story and the world really called for a big cinematic orchestral score and that this in turn would serve to reinforce, rather than impede the more minimalist aspects of the game.
Having grown up in the nineties with Hollywood adventures like Jurassic Park, Iām a real sucker for big John Williams-like scores, so this was (pardon the pun) music to my ears. What resulted is an organic, almost completely orchestra- and piano-driven soundtrack full of carefully curated set pieces designed to complement the natural sounds of this colorful world. Because of the sci-fi nature of the story some synth elements are present, which was an exciting challenge to me, but mostly we inhabit the world of the classic hollywood scores of the nineties which i grew up with and love.
[previewyoutube][TGA trailer] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PEDn_dRFYQU[/previewyoutube]
The biggest challenge in finding the sound of a game is the thematic content. Thatās always where the journey starts. Once you find that theme or motif, youāve kind of written 80% of the score because the rest is just extrapolations thereof.
Now, Iām treading lightly here in order not to spoil too much, but in the case of Planet of Lana we knew that there was a strong musical element in both story, lore and gameplay and it was always the plan to return to this particular theme both non-diegetically in the score, and diegetically in the hidden corners of Novo. This is the opening piano and acapella motif (dubbed the āProgeny Themeā) that you are probably familiar with if you have seen some our trailers.
Finally, in May 2022 me and my long time collaborator Siobhan Wilson (whoās excellent vocals feature on several tracks in the score) met up in Budapest to record the final results. Recording orchestral scores with a live orchestra is something that I am extremely passionate about; The music is the soul of the game. Itās the emotion of the game. And you canāt create that with the computer, you need humans. And in our case about 90 incredible musicians brought the music of Planet of Lana to life by pouring their hearts out.
As parting words I would just like to say I really hope you enjoy Planet of Lana and its soundtrack as much as I enjoyed writing the music for it. It was nothing short of pure joy creating this game with the team at Wishfully.
For the next Novo News segment, Iām told our talented sound designer Francesco Ameglio will share some of his insights on designing the soundscapes of Novo.
Until then,
Takeshi
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1608230/Planet_of_Lana/