Lost Issue Thursday

Jeremy Soule interview sidebar

FSM: What is the process for recording the music? With film, music goes in last but it seems to be there earlier in the game's development? How much gameplay do you need to see?

Jeremy Soule: I usually try to roll up my sleeves and get into the game as early as possible. It seems that games keep reinventing themselves and the technology keeps changing at an enormous pace. I benefit greatly from design documents and preliminary sketches from the art department. Games are never really finished until the last minute so there is a bit of anticipation needed to make the pieces fit. The process for me has been getting more refined as I have been gaining experience with many talented producers and designers. It has been my pleasure in particular to work with two very talented designers at Cavedog Entertainment. I recently completed a project with Clayton Kauzlaric called Total Annihilation: Kingdoms and am currently working with Greg MacMartin on Amen: The Awakening. Both of these designers got me into their games in the early stages. Both of them had very specific needs in mind and gave me numerous demos of their work in progress.

FSM: How does the theme of the game affect the musical direction? Obviously with a film, the music can turn a dark film into a dark comedy. Does music play the same role in a game?

JS: Music is a powerful language in any medium. I think a lot of game companies are realizing what great music can do for a product's feel and perception. At Cavedog, we have been experimenting with different aspects of music. For instance, Amen and Kingdoms involve epic themes but are musically quite different. With Kingdoms, Clayton was very specific in requiring a period score that reflected the Medieval age. For this score, I stayed away from the big orchestral sound and instead focused on small chamber arrangements that featured period instruments. I also composed in a more primitive counterpoint that simulated the mood of this era which I really enjoyed. Amen is different in that Greg wants a more traditional classical score in the Hollywood tradition which is why we have hired 82 musicians for a couple of days in April. I think that with both games, the music effectively brings a certain mood to the experience in a similar fashion to the way music affects a film.

FSM: Since a game is interactive and players may take several courses of action, how does or should the music affect these choices?

JS: The biggest challenge in music for games is how to tell a story when the story can change at any moment. In some ways, the designer has to have a musical sense in order to keep music involved in the creative foundational process. A designer is much like a director of a film. The choices made by the designer ultimately determine how well music works in a game. It is up to the composer to work within the design to provide the absolute best combinations of music possible. However, there have been instances where designers I have worked with have actually changed aspects of the design to better accommodate the musical experience! Greg has this Spielberg-like imagination and he tends to see his designs from the very start with music in mind. He most recently made some slight changes to accommodate a powerful musical moment that involved a subway train tearing through the tunnels of New York. The player would be on this subway train as it would eventually make a dramatic jump over a crater and come crashing onto the other side. Originally, the player could jump off the train before the happens which would have wrecked (no pun intended) the grand build-up of the music. After some discussion, Greg and I both realized that the train was moving fast enough before the big moment that any attempt to leave the train would result in death. So, a simple change in the programming was all that was required to ensure that the player would have this epic experience in perfect sync with the music.

FSM: Because of space issues the trend has moved away from including the music on the same CD...mainly because lately there isn't room on the disc, but with DVD will the score return as a separate track to be played?

JS: It will be interesting to see how the industry embraces DVD. Just as CD-ROM is becoming outdated, so are many mindsets in this business. I think that this industry could have had better music far sooner with CD-ROM but very few companies seized the potential even though the profits were there. Instead, many of the older designers saw no need to offer music any differently than they had before. Many games were shipped that only took up a few megabytes of the 650+ megabyte capacity CD without including CD music on the disc. Composers were still working with the cheesy soundtrack chips included on the various soundcards. I think it will be different with DVD. Music is moving forward in importance with all sorts of products. Designers have a better understanding of the optical media and large storage capacities. The industry has had time to experiment and I think that you'll see that music is included on the DVD and will be playable -- at least until space on the DVD becomes tight.

FSM: What types of games are easier to compose a score for, and what are harder?

JS: I think that depends on the composer, designer, the design and the game development staff. Some development staffs (and I haven't worked with any of these) are a living hell to work for. Egos in games can be just as bad as their film counterparts and the bickering tallies up into millions of dollars in cost overruns and missed deadlines. I think the number one culprit that causes headaches for many composers is indecisiveness on the part of the designer and management. Just as in filmmaking, sometimes a composer can't get a sure approval one way or the other out of the people that count. Instead, insecurity mounts and satisfaction on both sides evaporates. Insecurity often comes from a lack of experience many in this industry have. This business has really only been kicking around for about 15 years in any substantial way. Things are not as settled as they are in film. Sometimes I feel like a music sheriff in the wild old west. Things get a little crazy as the town is brand new in the middle of nowhere. The rules are shot from the hip. I think there might be a few "city slicker" film composers that would be chewed up in no time in this wild and woolly boondocks of an industry (insert tumble weed here).

FSM: Is composing done primarily on a sampler?

JS: Yes and no. I compose in my head -- it's far faster than anything a machine can do. However, I create synth mock-ups for the rest of the world to hear before we go to the orchestra stage. I am Classically trained so I tend to work with paper as well as the computer. I've also just ordered concert grand piano from Germany so I'm looking forward to composing at the bench again. I'm also don't want to give the impression that I'm not heavily into the synth process. My lean and mean studio supports around a gig of RAM chips on the samplers alone (which will sound like peanuts in no time). I do a lot of custom programming and I know every aspect of delivering a soundtrack -- especially at the wee hours of the morning (laughs).

FSM: How many themes does a game typically have vs. a film? Are there more type of incidental music that need to be included?

JS: My latest project, Amen, features over two hours of music containing various motif-driven themes. The plot in Amen is about nothing less than saving the world (what else?) and requires various arrays of music to picture (for the in-game cinematic transition scenes) and environmental and elemental music that is heard in its virtual world. The music follows the storyline and the music gets very intense in the action areas and less so in the exploration phases of the game.

FSM: Sound effects and music...do they affect each other more in a game?

JS: I think that music and sound plays the same role in a game as it does in a film in so far that you are trying to get the observer into a story and alternate reality.

FSM: What are your credits for the article?

JS: I've been composing music for games since 1994 and have worked on close to a dozen titles that have sold well over a million units. My work has also won numerous industry accolades and awards that can be viewed at www.cavedog.com <http://www.cavedog.com/ Examples of my music can be heard at www.jeremysoule.com.

FSM: And anything else that he might care to add of course?

JS: There will be a soundtrack for Amen: The Awakening! Stay tuned at www.jeremysoule.com for details as they arrive.

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