Long time no see! Been busy these past months in my studio, composing movie scores and one of them was “Surat Kecil untuk Tuhan”, directed by Fajar Bustomi and has just been released last month. The movie was written by Upi Avianto and inspired by bestselling novel with the same title.
I worked with Fajar several times, and each of his movie had given me different challenges. In this movie, I learned that Fajar used different approach in directing and it was totally different from his previous movies. He wanted my score to be able to lead audience’s emotions, knowing the genre was drama and raised awareness about child organ trafficking.
I came with the concept of spiritual journey in my movie score. I wanted to add something very human yet dramatic, capturing the tragic but also reminding people that there was also hope when listening to it. That’s why I used various musical instruments from India, such as Sitar, Esraj, and Bansuri. I also combined them with string section, Oboe, and English horn to sum up the ambience. I also used synthesizer and electric guitar to give my movie score a modern touch, by playing them in experimental ways.
Hopefully the audience could also been carried away and felt that it was their own spiritual journey when watching the movie and the same thing also happened for all the characters.
This movie has made me realize that I’ve grown so much, from my selection of musical notation to the production scale which I managed alone. Hopefully I can develop more and be a much better composer. Enjoy!