Released earlier this summer, new hero to the Ultraman universe, Ken Sato, who takes over the Ultraman hero position from his father.

Ultraman: Rising has incorporated many unique ideas into the new entry, from its family-forward plot line - which surrounds Ken raising a baby kaiju named Emi - to its eclectic soundtrack. The film’s music, which comes from composer Scot Stafford, incorporates everything from 8-bit musicality to Taiko drums across its score. Previously, Stafford has worked on projects like the miniseries Lost Ollie and the television show Trash Truck.

ScreenRant interviewed Scot Stafford to discuss the recording process, the biggest challenges of composing the animated movie, and how he used musical palettes to make Ultraman: Rising’s family moments more impactful.

Ultraman: Rising Was "One Of The Hardest Things" Stafford Has "Ever Done As A Composer"

"Adding stuff is quite easy, but then you end up with a gigantic mess."

Screen Rant: Can you discuss the creative challenges you faced in composing such an eclectic score for Ultraman: Rising and balancing the massive battle scenes with the more intimate moments in the film?

Scot Stafford: You basically just summed up the whole score. That was the challenge. It's actually fun to add lots and lots of elements. I love the idea that Shannon [Tindle] wanted 8-bit video game consoles, the sounds of them anyway, in the score. I love the fact that he wanted orchestra. I love the fact that he wanted Tim Henson. I love the fact that he loved the Pocket Miku Japanese electronic musical toy. I love all of these ideas, and I added three times as many myself. Adding stuff is quite easy, but then you end up with a gigantic mess.

To me, what was so important, because ultimately beneath all of the action, beneath the incredible animation and visual style and graphics - and I mean, the art in this is just peerless, in my humble opinion - visually beneath all of that is a surprisingly intimate story about a family, about fathers, daughters, sons, mothers, and to never lose sight of that and to be able to have such an eclectic, impossible diversity of musical influences.

But I didn't even mention the Japanese percussion and Japanese scales that I pulled in something. I needed something to pull everything together, so I thought, "Okay, I'm going to have a single solo instrument be the heart of the whole score, pull it all there. It's going to all about family. It's going to be all about that early scene." It's the first scene after the prologue. It's the opening scene of the movie where you see mother, father, son making ramen, watching baseball together. That's the only time we see them together, and so I wanted the harp to be this warm hug around people so that the second it's taken away, it's devastating.

I want to talk about that actually, because what did you find most challenging about composing music that transitions seamlessly from this epic orchestra sounds to this more intimate solo performance on a dime?

Scot Stafford: Yeah, that's the same scene that I was just talking about, the opening scene. It's such a simple - I want it to just be a classic. I just wanted to feel like the beginning of a great sort of timeless, classic movie. They're doing some stuff that's just so warm and cozy and you just love it, and then suddenly Gigantron is coming. You see the projected image of Dr. Anda for the first time, and he's younger, but he's looking scared, and I need to set up very quickly.

The music is going to suggest very lightly Gigantron is about to kill his wife and daughter, and then as soon as that's done, I have to go back to the family again to have this sort of emotional moment where a dad's going off to work. That was really hard. That was actually probably the hardest, even though it had very few instruments involved, it's not a lot of time going from a hug to terror to a tearful, "Bye, daddy," was one of the hardest things I've ever done as a composer.

Stafford Knew He Wasn't "Going To Get Something Authentic" Out Of Ultraman: Rising Alone

"It's working with a team and hiring people that are better than you at certain things."

One of the most important things about Ultraman in the film is Ken finding balance. How do you approach integrating the cultural authenticity elements into the score while maintaining balance and emotional depth throughout the film?

Scot Stafford: That's a great question. I think the smartest - if I did anything smart in this - was to involve really great people that weren't just playing instruments and reading every note that I gave them. I certainly did that. But I also gave, for example, I worked with Kaoru Watanabe, this wonderful Japanese flautist and percussionist who did music for Isle of Dogs. I had him choose an ensemble in a studio in Tokyo where we recorded the musicians, I had them to decide which instruments to bring, and I also had them spend nearly half of the recording session - which never happens - improvising.

We have all these incredible performances, whereas I'm just not going to get something authentic. As a white American composer, as much as I love Japanese music and have studied it for actually a lot of my life, it's just not going to be the same thing. So rather than pretending to be authentic, I'm just like, "Guys, do your thing, and I'm going to see if I can find ways to pull it in there." So it's not doing everything yourself. It's working with a team and hiring people that are better than you at certain things and letting them express themselves.

With the diversity of instrumentation, including the Taiko percussions, the vintage 8-bit sounds, and the solo harp, what was your process in ensuring this cohesive musical narrative?

Scot Stafford: A lot of it was based on building a family of themes. I've never heard of this being done. I'm sure I'm not the first, but the idea is: what if I could create all of my themes around a central theme, and that they all directly correlate with each other, so that what you're doing is you're limiting the melodic palette so that everything is kind of all in a pocket. They have shared DNA, you're taking all of these different emotions, these different scenes, these emotions that turn on a dime, these different sounds that you're pulling together.

You're going to have a very limited melodic palette, so that on this theme is the same theme as the family theme with one note different, and there's a lot of other interrelationships between the themes. I'm just like, "Let's pull everything back, and have everything interrelate, so that you never forget the fact that every single lead character, important character in the film, is defined first and foremost by their role within a family."

You mentioned that the script had an abundance of sound detail written in it. How did this influence your composition process, and did the early details provide a unique either advantage or challenge for you?

Scot Stafford: Well, it's great to have sound written into the script. Because, first of all, it makes the dialogue stop. We love our dialogue, but we also like when it stops. Because when you think of those great cinematic - I bet the top 10 of the top 10 of your favorite cinematic moments, I bet that more than half of them have no dialogue. When you think about these really big, important emotional scenes, it's literally letting all the elements just shine, whether it comes from cinematography or the sound design or the music.

So having those breaks, having those pauses, having that amazing scene - we're in the middle of the biggest battle sequence, all of a sudden, you cut to the most sort of mundane bickering between a mom and her mother and her child being too rambunctious in the back, and it's just such a relatable scene about being in traffic in the rain that gives us permission to do our best work. If you have silence to work with, and if you have someone who's just sensitized to sound and music the way that Shannon is. There's only so much that we can do without a director and without a story and without a script that gives us permission and flexibility to do that stuff, and so Randy [Thom] and I were really lucky that Shannon was that kind of director.

More About Ultraman: Rising (2024)

With Tokyo under siege from rising monster attacks, baseball star KEN SATO reluctantly returns home to take on the mantle of Ultraman. But the titanic superhero meets his match when he adopts a 35-foot-tall, fire-breathing baby kaiju. Sato must rise above his ego to balance work and parenthood while protecting the baby from forces bent on exploiting her for their own dark plans. In partnership with Netflix, Tsuburaya Productions, and Industrial Light & Magic, ULTRAMAN: RISING is written by Shannon Tindle and Marc Haimes, directed by Shannon Tindle, and co-directed by John Aoshima.

Check out our other Ultraman: Rising interviews here:

• Christopher Sean
• Shannon Tindle & John Aoshima
• Hayden Jones

Ultraman: Rising is available to stream now on Netflix.