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Originally Posted by Bayern4
Pierre Langer is one of the most successful composers in the area of computer game music. He was awarded multiple times and received the award for the best German movie soundtrack. He is graduate composer and founded the company Dynamedion in 2001together with Tilman Sillescu. In the meantime the company became German market leader for movie music. What is your formula for success?
First of all our formula for success is that our business is based on partnership – we complement each other very good. My partner Tilman Sillescu takes care of the creative part whereas I stepped back from the creative process a bit.
You don't compose anymore?
I don't compose anymore. About 2 years ago I had to quit and I am now responsible for the business part. In the past years we carefully recruited more and more composers and are now in the business for 8 – 9 years.
How many people are you?
We have 10 composers, 4 sound designers – the people who create the sound effects – and me, the only one who has nothing to do with the creative process directly.
How do you proceed?
We get our assignments mostly at a point when the projects are in a state in which we have the basic background for the scoring. We know for example, the background story, the characters. It always depends on the genre. In most cases there is a background story, characters and specific locations in which the game takes place.
Then we agree with the developer on how to realize the music. If we are working theme guided or if we accomplish the music in an emotional way. At the same time technical specialties are discussed. Games have to be interactive. In the most cases you don't know what the player will do next. Thus it is far away from a linear progress of a movie, but this also depends on the genre. In more movie-like genres it is much easier.
What is your top-product at the moment and which is the game you think your music was the best?
The top-product at the moment is the new released game Battleforge of EA Phenomic. This was a high-class production. From my point of view I would say that our best soundtrack hasn't been released yet. We will present it to you later on , but the game hasn't been released yet.
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Are you creating music, that reacts on player actions, like a construction kit that can be triggered depending on the way the player reacts?
There are many different technological possibilities. It depends on the genre quite much. In some games it's not desired as it distracts the player too much. There are also some games with the aim to sound as cinematic as possible. Then we have to work very technical and try a lot to get a 'construction kit' music that doesn’t sound like a ‘construction kit’ music.
How do you measure the emotions of the player?
The direct events are made by using sound scores. If we want to realize the emotional layer musically, we can look for example, how close the player is to an enemy, are the chances high that the player attacks, how close is an enemy getting to the player.
If we take a look at the typical fantasy setting like the Lord of the Rings: If a dragon is close there could be a dragon theme. If the player gets closer there might be a music illustrating a combat in which the dragon theme is included. Theme guided work is very important in these areas. There are many different levels to influence and measure emotions and these have to be adapted to the game very precisely. There is no general recipe for that.
Do you take the suggestibility of the player into account? You react on something you see, but you also react if you hear something.
Definitely, in cinematic games, those who are very linear, e.g. adventure games, this is done in this way. If you know the player is at a certain spot, something will be triggered – even if the player doesn't notice this, and the music changes drastically. This would be the Hitchcock example. A tensing music starts, that notifies the player to be careful. On the other side, the player can be notified to be careful, but in fact he doesn't have to.
So you can confuse the player?
No doubt, yes.
We hear now a collage of Black Prophecy. Tell us something about this.
This is a collage we built especially for the show today. The listener will hear a signal tone at certain points, so don't wonder. The signal tone shows that the situation in the game will change. The game is a Science Fiction game in which you fly through space in your spaceship, complete missions and of course survive in enemy regions. We start with normal background music. The main theme of the music can be heard in the deep strings. After the first signal we hear an evil force manifesting and attacking. In the third part the fight slowly becomes better, but stays dangerous. In the fourth part the fight finally turns against the player and he loses. Then we are in a new situation. There is new background music at the end that sounds more threatening, because the enemy has become stronger.
[music]
Cinematic orchestral soundtracks create a fascinating atmosphere. This was a music collage of the game Black Prophecy. The game hasn't been released yet?
No
Your colleague Tilman Sillescu wrote the music?
Most parts of it.
How complex is something like this? How many people were working on such a score?
In this case it was a soundtrack of about 100 minutes. The work for this was very much as for a movie with regards to its scale.
We start to compose as I described earlier. We submit the tracks in agreement with the developer. If the developer gives his approval, our composers start the pre-orchestration. This pre-orchestration are submitted to orchestrators, who create the final score. This will be given to an orchestra and recorded.
How many musicians were participating?
In this case we had 70.
Does the soundtrack contain synthetic sounds?
There was no synthetic element in the example, but we are mixing a lot. In the soundtrack there are lots of ethnic instruments which represent the different nations in the game are sampled in later. The choir is synthetic, but the whole orchestral sound is real.
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11-05-2009, 11:32
Black Prophecy soundtrack on air
Linear Mode
