"JOSUKE's sound" was solidified through "Hanagesho"

"JOSUKE's sound" was solidified through "Hanagesho", for which the music video (MV) for the 3rd release of the JOSUKE project, "Hanagesho", was just completed. JOSUKE was not only involved in the creation of the song, both musically and lyrically, but in the directing, color creation and color grading. This report will guide you behind the scenes in the creation of this piece.

This song, among with other already released songs "Yumenonakade" and "Serenade", are re-arrangements of the band SINSEMILLA, who were active from 2005-2008 songs. Even within these songs "Hanagesho" is especially important to JOSUKE.

"The first thing I was involved with in this project was 'Hanagesho'. It was arranged by music arranger Mr. Sugawara, and it's got an electro feel but sounds masculine. The trap beats and delicate tones are personally rocky and close to the sound I wanted from my band era. When I listened to it, I thought 'This is it!'. Even when I shared with the team, they also thought 'this is it'. My sound direction had been decided."

Kazuki Hagiwara, who was in charge of the arrangement, is also a programming-based musician who performs manipulations in line with his live performances. For JOSUKE, who had been creating music mainly as part of a band, he was a craftsman from a different world, but he could see the possibilities in collaborating. Then, in order to shape JOSUKE's new world view as led by an excellent arranger, he decided to take charge the music video direction for "Hanagesho".

I wanted to make something the way I wanted it, so I made it myself.

Why not employ an external director? The answer was that it was necessary to traverse the shortest distance towards one's ideal.

"In the process of making several music videos so far, I felt it was difficult to convey the image I drew myself to someone else. Of course, there are many reactions that arise from requesting this work from a specialist director. You can't express exactly what you are imagining without doing it yourself. 'Hanagesho' was a particularly important song for me, so I worked on this with enthusiasm."

JOSUKE thought "I want to create an music that conveys the pure feeling of love sung in Hanagesho and the lovely scenes of flowers dancing." A concrete image of beautiful flowers floated in his head. To make it into a video, JOSUKE did a lot of preparation on the reference framework and storyboarding.

"Even I think it may be a bit strange, but I spent a lot of time setting up comprehensive layouts. While setting up the layout, even putting photos together did not help one image come together. In the end, while we drew from images from different places, we somehow completed the music video. (Laughs) After completing the layouts, it seemed like we had done shooting in order to reproduce the AMV version of 'Hanagesho'."

"The hardest part was the flower wall placed in the background. At first I looked for a studio where the flower wall was already installed, but none would do the job. Ultimately, I was told 'It can be built more easily than you'd think', so we went ahead and built it ourselves."

The flower wall is 3 meters wide and 2.5 meters high. It was built through repeated trial and error, and was completed with the work of 8 people, glue gun in hand, in over half a day.

"While working on, I was always worried, thinking 'Does this look complete?' So when the flower wall was completed, it felt like we'd achieved something great, even when we hadn't started shooting yet."

JOSUKE's view of the world

Along with the bright flowers, he also readied the costumes himself. In the flower wall scene, a white shirt was prepared so that JOSUKE himself would be better seen, but he noticed that the flowers in the background would look faded if he did that, and decided to make sudden changes. Dressed in a gorgeous spring-like pattern that had him assimilating with the flower wall, it became a symbolic scene.

The shooting of the music video took a whole day to finish. JOSUKE himself feels the video evokes a good enough reaction.

"There were about 8 on-site staff, including the cameramen and hair and makeup staff. The moment I started recording the first scene, I remember everyone feeling excited, thinking 'we can make something great from this'. In addition to the creative production of Artory Co., Ltd., that I represent, I would like to show this not only fans of JOSUKE, but also to the business partners of Artory."

The completed music video can be seen at Artory's booth, at the 11th Promotion and Marketing Exhibition Summer Web Promotion Expo on June 19 (Wed) through 21 (Fri), 2019 at the Tokyo Big Sight.
We want you to experience JOSUKE's unique worldview and harmony with music.

(Written interview: Hiroaki Morino / Editing: Taiyo Tajima)