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State Of Symbiosis - 1

Welcome to the first installment of our ongoing series of industry commentary, opinion and introspection: State of Symbiosis.  In this series, we hope to convey a little about our thought process in creating music and audio for games, as well as shed some light on what it is that we do as creators working in the game industry.

One of the greatest challenges I have in creating audio for games is in finding the space wherein the line between creator and gamer is blurred.  Emerson has this great quote in Self Reliance where he says, “It is easy in the world to live after the world’s opinion; it is easy in solitude to live after our own; but the great man is he who in the midst of the crowd keeps keeps with perfect sweetness the independence of solitude.” I think creating audio for games is kind of like that.

On the one hand, as a creator, I am influenced by the things I experience as a game and game-audio consumer - the sound design and implementation, the composition and orchestration, the voice acting.  These things challenge me to become better at what I do, force me to be critical of my work and make me strive to improve my skills.  I am constantly listening to the work of my peers and often challenge myself to match the quality and diversity of their work.  I think that as the quality of audio in games increases, we inch toward a certain hegemony, as we see in Hollywood today, where a certain kind of ‘sound’ almost always goes hand-in-hand with a certain type of game.  It is a great challenge to find a unique voice in your work, to NOT want to sound like Game X or Movie Y, and still meet the requirements of the devloper.  Unfortunately, working in this industry means fulfilling the requirements of the gig, regardless of creative misgivings.

Developer: “We really like your work and think you have a great sound.  But we want the music for this game to sound like the music from Gladiator.  Can you do it?”

Composer’s inner dialogue: “Well, sure I can do it.  Achieving that ‘epic-Media-Ventures’ sound is par for the course these days, isn’t it?  The question is, do I really WANT to sound like Hans Zimmer, or do I want to compose something that sounds like ME?”

Sadly, it isn’t easy to find a developer who will let a composer express their own unique voice and take the audio in a direction which may buck the trend.  After all, developers have publishers to woo, and if the game doesn’t sound like a blockbuster, it may be hard for them to get it to market.  And that, of course, makes it hard for guys like me to get anything other than cookie-cutter jobs.

The composer’s challenge stands in stark contrast, however, to the experience of a gamer.  As a player, the last thing I want is for an audio element to STAND OUT from the game in such a way that it removes me from the experience.  In that sense, it is often a good thing when a game sounds similar to games and films that have come before it.  After all, there is something to be said for having a ‘winning-formula’.  These types of images go with these types of sounds.  These are things we are used to experiencing together.  Chocolate and peanut-butter.

So where does that leave the audio creator?  Walking the thin line between sounding unique and sounding familiar.  Creating an experience that is aurally exciting and fresh, yet still able to allow immersion into the game world.

In college and the few years after, I spent a lot of my time studying, creating, and performing contemporary theater.  Directors such as Richard Schechner and Anne Bogart inspired much of what we did in those years.  Though I’m not actively involved in theater these days, there are a some concepts that I still carry with me.  One of those is the idea of being a creator and performer who lives ‘in the moment’.  This means different things to different people, and it may sound cliched at this point in our post-post-modern art world.  But what I love about this idea is the freedom it gives me to express exactly what I’m feeling in any given moment as a direct response to that which I am experiencing in that moment.

More important perhaps, or at least more relevant to my work as an audio creator, is remembering that the audience was as much a part of the performance experience as the play itself.  During those years, we spent a lot of time experimenting with audience participation and interaction, and there was never a time where we played as though there was a ‘fourth wall’.  Rather, we played as if there were no walls, and every part of the space was a part of the experience - audience included.

I am a young composer, and relatively new to this industry.  There are many things I have yet to experience, and many challenges I have yet to face.  But as I move towards a full-time game-audio career, I will continue to challenge myself to walk that line and to remember that I am both creator and audience, composer and gamer.  Inside of that, I hope I am able to convey a unique aural experience, while maintaining a state of symbiosis with the game as a whole.

Next entry: State Of Symbiosis - 2

Previous entry: CDM Article: 2005 Game Audio Review

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