Fernando Moura wrote the music for Lucia Murat’s first film “Que bom te ver viva” in 1989. In “Another Love Story”, he works again with the director, this time sharing the sound track with Marcos Suzano. Fernando and Marcos work 3 or 4 months per year in Japan, where they have a solid career, playing with local bands and doing arrangements for the pop world. In Brazil, Fernando works regularly for Canal Futura, and did the sound for their 10 years celebrations. This year he composed and was musical director for the theatrical show "Cordel do Quixote Doido" with libretto by Ruy Guerra. He responded to this interview from Japan.

How did you do the sound track for the film?

The work was difficult and challenging as we had to build the arrangements according to the edited film and on top of voices that had already been recorded and synchronized to the edited film, so couldn’t be altered. A sort of remix way beyond the capacity of any DJ that I know, because in their case they change or edit the beat and recombine some elements of the original arrangement. In our case all this had to be created in synchronism with the voices and the images, which after all is the function of the sound track of any film.

The film has a rap chorus that punctuates and narrates the story. Rap music today is very strong in the periphery. Was it difficult to use it into the film?

Not just in the periphery. You should see the number of hip-hop groups and singers here in Japan... It’s hilarious, they copy as best they can, but it’s difficult to know if it’s worse hearing them sing in English or in their own language, which definitely does not adapt to the rap beat.

The musical concept for the arrangements and the film sound track is on top of rhythms and grooves which are the most important part of the music today and thus the major strength of communication with young people. Better than using an American hip-hop loop and repeating it eternally, accompanying the voice, we used Brazilian rhythms and Brazilian sonority in the beats, always following the editing of the images in detail, so that the track would tell the story from the sound point of view without using just the concept of the American Musical from “Daytime Television”, where the film stops for the musical entry. Our major concern was to follow, comment and interact with the images, and this came out very well after mixing the music in 5.1 Dolby Surround.

The amount of hip-hop was already defined in the filming, and our task was to make sure that this didn’t sound simply like a series of loops, but had its own musical feeling within the narrative of the film. The amount of hip-hop was already defined in the filming, and our task was to make sure that

What other influences are felt in the film?

The rhythm. As I said it’s what predominates in world pop music and we are the country of rhythm, where many come to learn from the source and others shamelessly “incorporate” groove elements from our music.

Today however this is a two-way road, and to tell the truth, we began to do the arrangement for the film’s opening song (Favela) here in Tokyo to the sound of the last CD from the hip-hop producer Timbaland.

The sonority of the grooves done by Suzano with sounds from his electronic drums, plus Brazilian percussion instruments, latest generation electronic sound from the keyboards to which I have access here in Japan, and I re-harmonized the whole song using much of the harmonic variety that is so popular in Brazilian music. The original of this song was recorded in 3 minutes, but the opening scene was almost 7 minutes long! So we then had to “build” the seven minutes.

How was it working with Lucia and the rest of the team?

I received the invitation on the eve of a 3 week trip to Japan, so we started to work on a laptop with virtual keyboards, recording software, Marcos’s electronic drums and his percussion instruments. We worked in the hotel room during the intervals in a very tight Japanese schedule.

Mandávamos por MP3 as ideias para a Lúcia que ia nos orientando e quando voltamos ao Brasil, a difícil música de abertura, o Baile Funk e o primeiro Coro já estavam bem próximos do que foi para a tela e pudemos continuar nosso trabalho trocando o sashimi por um essencial feijãozinho com arroz.We sent our ideas in MP3 to Lucia, who gave us pointers and when we returned to Brazil, the difficult opening song, the Funk Ball and the first Chorus were quite near to what went on screen, and we could then get on with the job, and enjoy rice and beans, instead of sashimi.