"When I was a student, I started trying to shoot with a video camera because I wasn't good at instruments. If I had played guitar or piano at that time, I probably wouldn't have gone down the path of directing and become a musician. ”
Shunji Iwai is best known as a director, but over the years, he has played in a band and become a musician.
On the evening of May 13, Shunji Iwai will take the stage with the Band HectoPascall at the Shanghai Oriental Art Center. In addition to staging film and television soundtracks such as "Love Letter", "Swallowtail Butterfly", "Vampire", "April Story", "Enigma Transfer Student" and so on, it will also bring the band's new songs "Moving", "Winter Bird" and "Your Favorite Color".
Hectopascal Band
A Buddhist band with a very low production
HectoPascall was founded in 2013 by Shunji Iwai, and initially there were only three people, with Shiina Keito as the lead singer, Masako Kuwahara in charge of the piano, and Shunji Iwai as the head of the image. Gradually, the band joined several newcomers — violinist Momoko Arai, cellist Shunhei Hayashida, and guitarist Yosuke Miyauchi.
"When playing music, you will find that you also need violin, cello, guitar and other instruments, at the beginning we all asked musicians from outside to assist, performed two or three rounds, found that the current number of people can better show our musical feelings, and it was fixed." 」
Unlike those professional bands, HectoPascall is very "Buddhist", the production is very low, writing new songs plus cover songs, re-arranging old songs, and producing four or five songs a year. Sometimes, the band also scores Shunji Iwai's films, because there are deadlines, and they work faster.
Although slow, the band's atmosphere is pleasant.
As an example of her own experience, Mako Kuwahara said, "When working with other people, they will ask me to be faster, and the melody must be catchy." The director doesn't ask me to show dazzling techniques, but wants the notes to be equal to the emotions he needs, and sometimes I want to be lazy and use techniques to confuse the past, but the director will immediately find that the music and emotions don't match and let me redo. ”
In Japan, many audiences come to listen to HectoPascall's concerts, part of which is the film music of Shunji Iwai, and part of which is the voice of Shikina Koto, "Everyone has one thing in common, I feel the concert with my heart, this feeling is very subtle and emotional, just like some people like to walk on rainy days and read books on rainy days." Masako Kuwabara said.
"Making music, making movies, and writing novels actually shows the same worldview, but the expression methods are different, and the techniques shown are different."
Asked what kind of happiness brings to himself by making movies and making music, Shunji Iwai made such a metaphor, making movies is like painting oil paintings, making music is painting watercolor, the former is very time-consuming, and the latter can quickly see the finished product. Or, like planting flowers, there is a process of sowing and germinating, "I hope that the seeds that are planted will bloom beautifully, but before they actually blossom, I can't predict what the end will look like." ”
Making movies requires patience, and making music requires waiting for inspiration to come, "For me, neither of these things happens naturally, it's work, I have to push myself, I put pressure on myself." 」 ”
In the past three years, in addition to lyrics and composition, Iwai Shunji has also been practicing guitar hard, and when Hecto Pascall toured, he occasionally showed his hands on stage.
Shunji Iwai laughed and said that saying that he was not nervous on stage was a lie, and walking from behind the scenes to the front of the curtain was a very precious experience.
"To become proficient in a technique, you need 10,000 hours of practice, or I'm ten years." Working with musicians who have been learning music since childhood is like a beautiful ballet dancer with a terrible dance, and that's how I feel on stage. ”
However, when I really got on the stage, Iwai Shunji also gritted his teeth and went out, "I will cheer myself up, and slowly fall into the world of music, I think I play well, but once I have this idea, I will find that I played wrong, and sure enough, there is still a gap between me and professional musicians." ”
Interview scene
Always working with young people
In the film industry, most people want their works to conform to the trend of the times, but Shunji Iwai has never done so, "Needless to say, my films, even the soundtrackS I make for TV dramas, are styles that I have liked since I was a student, and they have never changed." ”
From an early age, Shunji Iwai showed an almost paranoid loyalty and persistence towards his favorite genre of music. Later, as a band, his creative direction is also to recreate the type of music he liked when he was a child.
Shunji Iwai started with oil painting, and later changed from oil painting to manga, from draft to final presentation, every step was done by one person. When he entered the university, he picked up the camera and tried to make images, from the script to the finished product, he also made it himself, even the footsteps were matched by himself.
Later, Shunji Iwai became a professional director, and on the scene, he found that the photographer, the lighting engineer, and the actors had more experience than him, the shooting was controlled by the photographer, the lighting was responsible for the lighting, the more professional the industry, the finer the division of labor, "They did not want the director to direct them how to do it." ”
Writing scripts is a habit that Shunji Iwai has developed over the years. Someone told him that the director could not maintain objectivity in writing the script, and could find a writer to help, and Iwai Shunji always insisted on writing it himself.
"It was my formative career, and it was because I stuck to my style in the face of opposition that I have the director Shunji Iwai today."
Whether it is the film team or the band HectoPascal, Iwai Shunji has always cooperated with young people, and the 55-year-old Iwai Shunji does not have a "sense of intergenerationality", but enjoys this state of cooperation.
In the past five years, Shunji Iwai has gradually wanted to teach the knowledge he has mastered to young people, and he even said that working with young people who are growing up is what he wants to achieve, because they can learn more from him, "If the staff around me have grown to a certain level and can teach others, I will say, you graduate, I want to start working with younger people." 」 ”
Working with growing young people, Shunji Iwai can also learn new knowledge and always maintain a youthful mindset. Therefore, he never defines himself and the people around him, for example, whether they will continue to cooperate, "If one day they become first-class artists, I may go to find fresher blood." 」 ”
Embark on a journey through Chinese cinema
Recently, the movie "Hello, Zhihua" directed by Shunji Iwai, produced by Chen Kexin and starring Zhou Xun exposed a group of posters, and Shunji Iwai, Chen Kexin, and Zhou Xun walked under the blue sea and blue sky in black clothes. The top-tier co-op lineup has garnered a lot of attention for the just-launched film.
"Hello, Zhihua" is the first Chinese film written and directed by Shunji Iwai, telling the entanglement of the past caused by the exchange of letters, and Zhou Xun plays the heroine Zhihua, who is the key figure in uncovering the entanglement of the story of three generations.
"Hello, Zhihua"
Shunji Iwai said that "Hello, Nowa" is a masterpiece that overlaps with his own life trajectory, which can be regarded as his "semi-autobiographical" work.
Shunji Iwai has a huge number of fans in China, and as early as ten years ago, he was asked if he wanted to make a film in China, because the time was not ripe, and he never nodded his head in agreement.
"Hello, Zhihua" can be completed, and I also thank my friend Chen Kexin for the lead. Every time I came to China before, as long as I had time, the two would eat and chat together.
"Maybe our wavelength and frequency are more in tune, and I have a good relationship with Chen Kexin." At first I was worried, I didn't know how he was an executive producer. During the shooting, he always led and guided me through the shooting. We are both like children, very innocent, maintaining a sense of the unknown and curiosity about the world, and he will not give me instructions from the authoritative point of view of his own rich experience in China, so this experience has been great. Shunji Iwai said.