December 10, 2007

Composers Cris Velasco and Sascha Dikiciyan Reflect on Beowulf
By Louis Bedigian
 
“It's rather like the Thanes primitive version of Guitar Hero actually!” 
 
Before beginning work on Beowulf, composers Cris Velasco and Sascha Dikiciyan started by revisiting the classic story. “I was very familiar with the original poem of course,” said Cris. “I don't think that any high school kid gets away without reading it at least once. I also re-read the story again to refresh myself with what happens.”
 
Next year the composing duo will score the main theme and action music of one of PlayStation 3’s most anticipated shooters, HAZE. When tackling Beowulf, they were aware that Alan Silvestri would be composing the film’s music but didn’t allow that to change their direction for the game.
 
“Our score needed to be unique to the game since it expands upon the plot of the movie and really explores what Beowulf did between killing Grendel and becoming the King,” Cris told us. “The game's music supervisor, Manu Bachet, had a very clear idea of the score and how that music would work within the game. We had meetings in Paris to discuss the score with him before a single note was written. Beowulf, also called the Monster Slayer, is extremely violent and more hands-on with his approach to combat. Our music is meant to really play upon this aggressive nature.”

 
The music comes to life at Skywalker Sound.

 
You guys are on your way to becoming the official movie game composers. First the TMNT game earlier this year and now Beowulf. Any thoughts?
 
Cris & Sascha: Well, out of the 16 games or so that we have collaborated on in the last 2 1/2 years, two of them have been movie licenses. The bulk of our work has been on new IP's (Stranglehold, Hellgate: London) or existing franchises (Splinter Cell, God of War) so I'm not sure we're really in the market to be the "official movie game composers." The fact is, we love working in games and we treat every project as a top priority. Whatever the project is, you can be sure that we'll be doing our best to make an excellent score, movie license or otherwise.
 
The movie's themes are pretty intense, but the game is obviously different. Even if it follows the same story, you still have the aspect of gameplay, which changes everything. Did this influence what you wrote for Beowulf?
 
Cris & Sascha: Gameplay does change everything. Every cue we write obviously needs to first and foremost serve the gameplay. But this doesn't necessarily change the style or sound of the music. I'm sure you could put any of our Beowulf cues up against the movie and it would suit the mood just fine. It's the structure of the music that is unique to games. The cues of course need to be able to loop.
 
But beyond that we're writing music that can also be remixed in various ways to lessen the fatigue you might experience after hearing the same piece of music 20 times. Another aspect of the music that is specific to gameplay are the mini-games. Beowulf often leads his Thanes in a short rhythm game to open doors, row oars, etc. We wrote at least 30 of these cues to accompany the action on screen. They were very simple cues that had some combination of short and long notes that coincide with button pressing. We're essentially giving musical clues to the player as they successfully navigate these obstacles. It's rather like the Thanes primitive version of Guitar Hero actually!

 
When you started to write, was Manu Bachet (Music Supervisor) your main point of contact?
 
Cris & Sascha: Yes he was. Manu is very knowledgeable about music and was a great asset to have on board. There was never a question about what he wanted. Sometimes it's hard to interact with an overseas company because of the time difference. But Manu would actually stay up, sometimes until 4 or 5 in the morning, just so he could be available to us for feedback if we needed it. It was really a pleasure to work with Manu and we're looking forward to working with him again.
 
How does the process of working on a movie game like Beowulf and TMNT differ from working on a game that has no existing license?
 
Cris & Sascha: I'm not sure that it does differ. Our job is still to write music that enhances the gameplay no matter where the game originates from. When a game and its movie counterpart are being developed at the same time there's generally no interaction between composers either. It's not like an existing franchise such as Star Wars where we might be required to use existing themes. For the most part it's just like any other game experience as far as we're concerned.
 
Were any of the game's tracks purposely written long or short to fit within the confines of a game?
 
Cris & Sascha: All of the cues we wrote were fairly short actually. Around one minute. However, we wrote them in such a way that Ubisoft could take each one and do many additional remixes.
 
Tell us about the experience of recording the score at Skywalker Sound.
 
Cris: Skywalker Sound is now my favorite studio to record at. Working there almost feels like a vacation. It's just a very rewarding experience to be there. Skywalker Ranch is located up in the hills of Marin County so you have complete isolation from the city. There's even an Inn, a restaurant, pool, gym, bike path, etc so you can just stay put and really immerse yourself in the project. The actual studio is all top-notch. It was designed to be a recording hall (rather than a converted sound stage) so the sound you can get out of the room is amazing. Leslie Ann Jones was our engineer. She is the resident engineer at the Ranch and really knew how to achieve the exact sound we were going for.

What other notable locations have you recorded music at?
 
Cris & Sascha: We've recorded our scores here in Los Angeles, Seattle, Prague, and Abby Road in London to name a few.
 
If this Beowulf project had been the reverse – if it were first a game and then a movie, and you were working on the movie, would you have made the same decisions as you did for this game? Or are there certain things about the movie and game worlds that just don't mesh, automatically requiring a distinct difference between the two?
 
Cris & Sascha: That's a hard question to answer since it's all hypothetical. However, you've hit upon one of the big stumbling blocks that's been happening lately in our field. We've noticed that some film composers that are hired to score a game often try to score it just like a movie. The music may sound incredible but it doesn't always serve the game. It's all about understanding the medium that you are writing for. Things like a seamlessly looping cue or music for one of the mini-games we discussed are definitely techniques that exist only in games.
 
Film scoring seems to be a bit more straightforward and linear in terms of writing. It's just that movies and video games are two different beasts. So no, we probably would have had to make different decisions had we been scoring the movie. While the tone of the music would have likely stayed the same, the application and process of our writing would have been very different.
 
Both TMNT and Beowulf are games based on computer animation flicks. Could this be a hint as to what your next project will be?
 
Cris & Sascha: Not at all actually. While we can't say what projects we're currently working on now we can say that they are original IPs for their respective developers. They are truly epic games and so far we've been able to expand upon our usual palette and write some music that is a bit different from what you're used to hearing from us.

Sounds good. Thanks for your time guys!

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