Tora The Title

Yup, we've changed the name of the film several times (you have no idea how many wine fueled discussions over the darned title have been had)! And yup, we've come full circle back to TORA. The very first draft of the script was titled Tora! Tora! Tora! It was a placeholder and (of course) the title of the epic film about the bombing of Pearl Harbour. It was never meant to stick. As we went into production we still hadn't found an appropriate title and even the clapperboard read TORA. It was sticking to us and growing on us. After many title changes - (the film became "Heir To It All" for a long time) ...we've come back proudly to TORA.

The 1970 film title, Tora! Tora! Tora! is made up of the code-words that were used by the Japanese to indicate that complete surprise at Pearl Harbour was achieved and is translated as "虎" or "tiger", hence making the code for achieved surprise "Tiger, tiger, tiger". There's not a tiger to be seen in our film but the bombing of Pearl Harbour was what precipitated the internment of Japanese citizens of Canada and other countries around the world and therefore, our story.

The shortened title is also an homage to that film. Tora! Tora! Tora! was an American/ Japanese co-production and was actually directed by two directors, one American and one Japanese. An astounding collaboration of two cultures broken apart by that world changing event. The film attempted to show both the Japanese and the American sides of the bombing and by interweaving the two stories, made a brave attempt at truth and forgiveness.

Our epic short film TORA also weaves two stories and cultures with themes of loss, hope and forgiveness. TORA remembers what happened post Pearl Harbour with hopes that "History won't fade as easily as it's lessons" in today's post 9-11 world.

What's a Story Without a Soundtrack?

To me the music in a film is one of the most important decisions a director has to make. It can make a half decent scene better, it can make a great scene incredible and occasionally it can save your ass. Wendy and I joke about the fact that Tora’s the most EPIC short film ever made. The “Gladiator” of shorts. The music had to match. Powerful and big, iconic, painful, hopeful and bittersweet. No easy task. Banjoes and kazoos were out.

I came across Rick Horrock’s website. Right from the start we felt he was the guy to do the music for the film, which is a little weird since we’ve never met him, never even spoken to him except by email. You see Rick lives in England and the whole score for the film was conceived of, described, written, adjusted and finally tweaked over the internet. Wendy thought I was nuts to consider having the film scored over the net but that happens a lot around here. (Wendy thinking I’m nuts). We sent him our winter sampler and a whole bunch of notes on what we thought we wanted. Within a couple of weeks he sent the music back for our trailer. It was stunning. If I remember right there wasn’t a single thing we asked him to tweak on the trailer music. It was perfect.

We shot the rest of the film in late June. Within about a month we had a rough cut put together. At this point it’s a bit of a chicken or the egg scenario. You want to be cutting the film to music but the composer can’t really begin to score the film properly until it’s cut. So we laid in temp music. Music from other films, music we liked, music that sorta worked for each scene. Then we sent it to Rick.

Along with the rough cut, Rick got reams of notes which I’m sure made his eyes roll into the back of his skull when he saw them. They were filled with all sorts of very non-musical descriptions like “we want a kind of creepy sound here but not too creepy”. Add some more do do do’s. This is a bit too poofy. Can you write something that sounds like Alien meets Old Yeller?

A few days later we got the first piece of music back. The theme that plays over the opening majestic helicopter shots of Kimiko and Lucy on the mountaintop. It was far different than we’d imagined but we loved it. As the scoring of the film progressed we started to realize that no matter how many suggestions or notes or comments we gave him, he was always going to come up with something better on his own… and he did.

Rick took our pictures, our words and our intentions and translated them into music. His ideas made our ideas better and that’s what every filmmaker needs. The score for TORA will blow your mind, and we’re looking forward to the day we finally get to meet the artist who contributed so much to our film in person.