Nathan Matthew David in the Philippines. Courtesy of DreamWorks/UniversalFor Nathan Matthew David, the composer behind the music of "Forgotten Island," the path to Hollywood began as a young musician trying to figure out where he belonged.
His mother's side of the family, the De Panos, had musicians in the Philippines, including Arnel De Pano and Ben&Ben's Andrew De Pano. At home in Southern California, music was part of the family atmosphere, from karaoke to piano playing. David followed his older sister into a high school band and soon found himself falling in love with the work of making music.
David had been playing in bands and writing songs when film scores began to pull his attention in another direction. A particular score changed the trajectory: Dario Marianelli's music for "Pride and Prejudice."
He remembers playing the CD repeatedly in his car, absorbing the score until the idea of composing for film began to feel less impossible and more like a craft worth pursuing.
David applied for the highly competitive film-scoring program at the University of Southern California, expecting little from the application. "Didn't think I would get in, you know, not many people do, and so it was very blessed and lucky when it happened," he said.
At USC, a master class with composers Teddy Shapiro and Ed Shearmur gave him an unexpected introduction to the person who would become one of the most important figures in his professional life.
The students were given a scene and a week to write music for it. When they returned to play their work, David noticed a long-haired man sitting casually in the hallway as the scenes were screened. That man was Ludwig Göransson.
By the end of the day, Shapiro had emailed on Göransson’s behalf with an invitation: "Hey, when you’re done with school, do you want to come work for us?" David said yes, and his seven years working with Göransson and Shapiro became an accelerated education in the mechanics of contemporary film and television scoring.
His early experience included assisting Göransson on shows such as "Community" and "New Girl," learning the demands of the job while working alongside composers whose approach emphasized modern production and experimentation. This also shaped David's understanding of what a composer contributes to a filmmaker's vision.
"I always remember in school, there was a lot of emphasis on the collaboration with filmmakers and making sure that their needs are met, which is absolutely true, even to this day," he said.
"And I also loved learning from Teddy and Ludwig, that you really want to try to give them something. Not what they need, but what they want, and that means you can introduce something that's completely different that maybe they didn't even think of. Once they hear it, it's like they have to have it as part of their story."
For a composer, the work can involve a peculiar form of authorship. The music can determine how a scene feels, guide an audience toward an emotional beat and give a character an identity, while the person who created it may remain largely invisible to the audience. David has come to see that invisibility as part of the nature of the job, even as he recognizes the importance of composers receiving credit for their work.
With "Forgotten Island," a DreamWorks film written and directed by Joel Crawford and Januel Mercado, that sentiment took on a deeper meaning. David served as composer and contributed music across the film, with the project giving him an opportunity to work directly with Filipino and Indigenous artists whose musical traditions became part of the score.
He had been preparing for that moment for more than a decade.
David with "Forgotten Island" writers and directors. Courtesy of Dreamworks/Universal
David grew up in the United States after his parents came from the Philippines. His father Bertito was an engineer, while his mother Eileen was a nurse.
The family spent time in Los Angeles and Houston before David returned to Los Angeles, eventually attending USC. Like many children of immigrants, he understood early that a creative career could sit uneasily beside the expectations of a family that had made sacrifices to build a stable life in another country.
"Being a child of immigrants, I think it changes. You really ride a line between what is practical and what is needed, and then what you ultimately want and love," David said. "And I knew I always wanted and loved music, and then I also knew that there was a practical side of: How are you going to make a living?"
The beginning was financially precarious. David spent a long period sleeping on his sister's couch and described those years as a struggle to find his way into a profession where talent alone offered little security. Becoming an assistant eventually gave him a foothold, although he was still "scraping to get by."
The other challenge was representation. David spent years entering rooms where he rarely saw people who looked like him, leaving him uncertain about how his Filipino-American identity fit within an industry that could feel foreign. He sees the recent expansion of Filipino stories in mainstream entertainment as part of a larger shift, one that made a project like "Forgotten Island" possible.
"I think maybe seven-eight years ago it would be impossible to think of a 'Forgotten Island' and that story being told," he said. "For many years there, I was in a lot of rooms where I didn’t see people that looked like me, or it was hard to really know how I would fit into this world that seems so foreign."
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"Forgotten Island" offered a different experience. The filmmakers’ intention from the beginning to showcase Filipino culture gave David room to draw deeply from a musical heritage he had spent years studying. He had begun learning kulintang music on his own, eventually connecting with Indigenous teachers through House of Gongs, an organization that helps members of the Filipino diaspora build relationships with teachers in the Philippines.
When the opportunity arrived, David knew the score needed to reach beyond the familiar sounds of Hollywood. He traveled to Lake Sebu to study with the T'boli people and spent time in the Cordilleras and Kalinga, learning traditions that differed dramatically from one another. He also recorded the bamboo pipe organ in Las Piñas and brought other Filipino musicians to Manila and Los Angeles for recording sessions.
The field recordings became part of the finished score. David recorded chanters while in the Philippines, worked with musicians remotely, and arranged additional sessions so the material could be recorded under controlled studio conditions. The voices and instruments were woven into a score that could carry the story while retaining a direct connection to the communities from which the sounds came.
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His experience with the T'boli gave the work an added dimension. David encountered T'boli Dream Weavers who create T'nalak textiles and saw firsthand how they worked. "To see how much art there was out there and spirituality, it really moved me to say, if I can somehow feature this incredible music, and help tell their story and feature their artist, that would mean so much to me."
One of the artists he encountered was Waway Saway of the Talaandig tribe, whose chanting can be heard in the film. His voice opens the film, accompanying the transformation of the DreamWorks logo into the colors associated with the fictional world of "Forgotten Island." David also worked with Farid Guinomla, a Maguindanao musician who traveled to Los Angeles to record the kulintang and gong material.
The gandingan, or talking gongs, became one of David's most deliberate musical choices. He shared that phrases from the film, including references to the Manananggal, were translated into Maguindanao and then translated again into gong patterns. The result carries meaning within the fictional world of the film, giving the instruments a narrative function beyond their distinctive sound.
"When you hear those gongs in the film, it’s not just the unique sounds of these gongs, they’re actually intentionally saying something," David said. "That was an important thing for me, too, where these instruments were not just used for their uniqueness, but more importantly used intentionally, and that I spent time with these artists to really know like what their intention was with these instruments."
The recording process eventually took David to Abbey Road Studios in London, a setting that carried personal significance. He spent a week recording strings, brass, woodwinds, and choir with the filmmakers and producers present. The emotional connection became even stronger when David learned that the cellist who had played on the "Pride and Prejudice" score was also performing on "Forgotten Island."
"It sounded incredible. I'm so happy with how it turned out. I had no time to celebrate because, right afterwards, I flew to Manila to record the bamboo pipe organ," he said.
David at Abbey Road Studios. Courtesy of Dreamworks/Universal
The film also gave David the opportunity to bring contemporary Filipino pop into its musical world. BINI was brought into the film's musical world through "A Parallel World," an original song written and produced by David and Shawn Wasabi.
Universal Pictures music supervisor Angela Leus had the group on her radar from the earliest stages of the project. David said the group's chemistry and message made them a natural fit for the song, which accompanies an important moment involving the film's central characters.
The collaboration extended into the details of the recording. Annie Nepomuceno helped translate the lyrics, while BINI's vocal coach Anna Graham contributed to the sessions. David said the members were given room to shape the performance around their own instincts, including an improvised "Amping" from Aiah, a Cebuano expression meaning "take care."
Other Filipino artists became part of the film's musical landscape. SB19 recorded their own cover of Francis M's "Mga Kababayan." Ruby Ibarra and Carl Angelo can be heard in significant moments. Katseye's Sophia Laforteza, meanwhile, recorded a version of "Never Tear Us Apart," with David working alongside Mike Elizondo on the production.
There was another generational connection in the studio. David recorded vocalizations for the score with Lea Salonga, whose history in Filipino and American entertainment made her a significant presence in his musical life. Salonga is close to Sophia's family, and the two recording sessions happened only weeks apart.
For David, the most personal musical moment came through another version of "A Parallel World." He created an orchestral arrangement featuring BINI alongside Salonga, who received an expanded verse and bridge. The arrangement gave Salonga a space within the orchestral world before BINI joined her later in the song.
"It's one of my favorite things that I made on the film," David said. "From being able to work with Lea on the score and her vocalization, and then to have her do this song is just such a treat."
The experience has also expanded David's listening habits. He has been following BINI's catalog, continues to listen to Ben&Ben, and has become interested in newer artists including JMKO and Rafi. For him, the current energy around OPM feels significant, particularly as Filipino artists find audiences beyond the Philippines.
"Forgotten Island" is arriving at a point when David could recognize the distance between the young musician who once questioned whether a life in music was practical and the composer standing inside a project that gave him unprecedented creative freedom.
For David, the value of the project runs deeper than visibility. He sees the score as part of a larger effort to place Filipino artists and musical traditions inside a mainstream story without asking them to occupy only the margins of it. The opportunity has given him a way to connect the music he spent years learning with the world he had entered professionally.
"I take a lot of heart in being able to tell a story, and especially for 'Forgotten Island,' the fact that it exists in the world. I felt a lot of responsibility to make sure that the music is really good," he said. "To have it exist and have my music in there and help tell the story, that means a lot to me."
For someone who spent years figuring out how to make a place for himself in Hollywood, the significance of "Forgotten Island" is bound up with that sense of belonging. David grew up in America while learning to understand a Filipino lineage that had initially felt distant.
Over time, the music became a route back toward that connection, and the film gave him a chance to bring what he found there into the work he had spent his career learning to do.
"I had a feeling I’ve never felt before. Feeling so seen, and just being so proud and excited that, hopefully, other Filipinos will get to feel the same thing when they see it," he said.