MUSIC+SOUND AWARDS 2024 WINNER SPOTLIGHT
BEST ORIGINAL COMPOSITION IN A FEATURE FILM
Best ORIGINAL COMPOSITION in a Feature Film
Kensuke's Kingdom
Composer: Stuart Hancock
Directors: Neil Boyle + Kirk Hendry
Production Company: Lupus Films
2024’s Best Original Composition in a Feature Film went to composer Stuart Hancock for his sweeping, soul-stirring ‘Kensuke’s Kingdom’ score.
Starring the voices of Cillian Murphy, Sally Hawkins and Aaron MacGregor, with Ken Watanabe as Kensuke, ‘Kensuke's Kingdom’ is the new hand-drawn animated feature film from Lupus Films, based on the beloved Michael Morpurgo children's book of the same name.
Let’s hear how Hancock helped bring this project to life with his music…
After a long period of development and financing, "Kensuke's Kingdom" was finally greenlit into pre-production in the summer of 2020, with the bulk of production and animation taking place during the challenging circumstances of the pandemic.
With around 74 minutes' worth of music across the film's 84-minute run-time, Stuart Hancock's symphonic score plays a crucial role in the unfolding of the narrative, given the minimal dialogue between castaway characters Michael and Kensuke. The visuals and music take time to breathe and gain breadth, transforming the survival of the two leads into a deeply moving human story. It's a proper adventure score in the traditional sense, full of action and excitement, but at the same time it's extremely gentle - like the film - with a complex emotional core.
The music was recorded with the Bratislava Symphony Orchestra (in various ensemble sizes up to 60 players), together with the Holst Singers and various solo musicians (including the composer on piano) recorded at Air-Edel Studios in London.
A central flashback sequence in the movie gives us Kensuke's origin story and a depiction of the demise of Nagasaki, for which Stuart made an epic choral arrangement of the haunting Japanese folksong "Sakura Sakura". 8-year-old Kotoko Wertheim delivers a poignant vocal solo as part of this sequence. Other cues required a musical chant for Kensuke to summon the island's orang-utans. The notes of the chant motif creep in subliminally in the orchestral score as soon as Michael is washed up on the beach, establishing the island setting as a character in itself. Stuart had the pleasure of recording the singing of actor Ken Watanabe (remotely in Tokyo) for the chant proper, and it returns later in the movie as an emotional duet between Kensuke and Michael (voiced by 11-year-old Aaron MacGregor).
Not only did Hancock win the MASA but also Best Original Music at Mon Premier Festival and Best Music at the recent British Animation Awards, where it also won Best Writing and Best Feature Film.
Author Michael Morpurgo is on record as declaring this his favourite film adaptation of any of his work, and feels it's even better than his original book!
Congratulations once again Stuart.
Visit Stuart’s site HERE
