Music for Media
Video Games
I have been playing video games since I was six - my first console was a second hand PlayStation 1 - and from those early days, I found myself entranced by the music that was in those games. The poignant and action packed orchestral soundtrack of Michael Giacchino’s Medal of Honor; Jessica Curry’s heartbreaking music to Everybody’s Gone To The Rapture; the thematic genius of Gareth Coker’s Ori And The Blind Forest. All of these have left a profound impression on me, deepening my conviction that video game music really is as important as story or visual aesthetic.
Aside from the composition and production of music for video games, I also have a working knowledge of implementation via Wwise and FMOD.
Case Study #1 - Fantasy Roleplay
In this compositional exercise, I wrote some music that may well be heard by a campfire in a fantasy roleplaying game. I wanted to set the scene for respite or a reunion, a place where the adventurer can rest and recuperate.
The footage I used in this example is from Baldur's Gate 3, which is the property of Larian Studios.
Case Study #2 - City Builder
The bustle of the city and the beating heart of its transport links, inspiring players to keep building - this is what I set out to write with this track, showing what I may write if I was asked to compose music for a city building game.
The footage I used in this example is from Transport Fever 2, which is the property of Urban Games and Good Shepherd Entertainment.
Case Study #3 - Horror
I’m not a big disciple of horror films or games (I’m a bit too easily scared), but that also gives me the sensitivity to know what to do to heighten tension when it needs it. I take my cues from Jason Graves’ Until Dawn, and also Stephen Deutsch’s understated yet chilling soundtrack to the 1976 BBC adaptation of The Signalman.
In this exercise, I am scoring a scene and a cinematic from the 2014 game Alien: Isolation. It goes from the tension of exploring a deserted spaceship to the terror of a xenomorph encounter, finishing with a brief cinematic that leaves more questions than answers.
The footage I used in this example is from Alien Isolation, which is the property of Creative Assembly and SEGA.
My demo showreel, showing tracks I wrote as exercises in three genres: Fantasy Roleplay, City Builder Simulator, and Horror.
Film and Television
As with video games, I have had a long fascination with music written for the big and small screens. I can remember being awestruck by George Fenton’s masterly scoring of Blue Planet; engaged by Alan Parker’s rich and varied scores to BBC’s Coast; taken through an emotional rollercoaster in Tolga Kashif and Mark Sayer-Wade’s music in the short film First Snow of Winter.
My own film scoring journey started with some comedy sketches that my friends had put together during our A-levels, and practicing my skills on such things as NASA footage of Space Shuttle launches. This progressed further once I went to Trinity Laban, where I scored a couple of short films with students at Central St Martins. This developed a sensitivity to the subtleties of film scoring and my abilities, as a composer, to do my own storytelling in service of the action on-screen.
Today, I write music for production libraries and for film and television, where my predilection for music reflecting character, and admiration for composers that weave aspects of a film’s story into the very fabric of the music itself, really comes into its own.
Case Study #1 - Documentary
A nice tie-in with my lifelong fascination with steam locomotives, I was thrilled to be offered the chance to score a documentary about one. Filmmaker Chris Eden-Green is a specialist in documentaries about railways and the steam engines that ran along them, and this particular film tells the story of Locomotion, one of the oldest in the world. Chris wrote the introduction and credits music, while I scored the central section.
I used a relatively small orchestra to score this documentary, taking after the music of Ron Grainger. To emphasise the age of the subject lcomotive, I incorporated baroque instruments into the score such as harpsichords, recorders, and wooden flutes. The cues I wrote ranged in scope from overviews of a museum piece to a triumphant run along a main line railway.