when do you start composing? Are you brought on as a sound designer in the development process? Are you consulted during the visual designing process? Do you develop the sound effects before the compositions?
There was a fantastic link shared in the Animation Lounge that showed the in-game cinematics and the gameplay from beginning to end, and there are several levels that have musical cues and in-game instruments as part of the gameplay: https://www.stage32.com/lounge/animation/Rayman-Origins-Video-Game-Anima...
I also highlighted it in my recent blog: https://www.stage32.com/blog/SocialSaturday-Transmedia-Collaborating-Acr... I didn't think to incorporate Composing into the blog, but maybe y'all would know - what are ways that Composers could use transmedia? Or Transmedia Producers use composing?
2 people like this
Fascinating subject Kay. I must admit to only hearing of transmedia in the last few weeks thanks to posts on here, but it's clearly something that's going to be increasingly important as industry develops in the next few years, for every part of production. We composers are going to have to think hard about how we adapt too.
My best idea so far is to release an app simultaneously alongside a film solely being distributed to VOD. The app would sync to the video player on the TV for timecode and to tell the player to mute all music (assuming the video has been delivered in a state where that's possible), then the viewer could use the app to play their own version of the score using stems, alt mixes and additional loops or stings during the film, and hear the output come from the TV alongside the SFX and dialogue. It would be pretty complex and need a heck of a lot of coding, but it could be quite fun. Will keep thinking about it, the transmedia world has an almost overwhelming amount of potential.
To answer your questions, I like to start composing early, like, pre-production script stage early. It means you get time to get to know who you're working with, brainstorm ideas, prepare instruments/libraries, and even to start writing before shooting starts- meaning that you have a long running and established dialogue with a director which makes the working relationship way smoother, and like you suggest, you can consult with visual and sound designers and inform each others work. It's all very symbiotic and organic when things play out that way, and to me it's vastly preferable. Most of the time though it's the usual being bough in just for post which means limited conversations with sound designers at best. Frustratingly sometimes there'll be no conversation till the mix, and it kind of feels too late at that point.
Daniel Pemberton is the king of integrating sound design. He likes to sample unique stuff, like typing and these incredible DJ scratches (and probably the sound of Octavius screaming from Spiderman 2, though he never publicly 100% confirmed that!) in Spiderverse. I've not heard him talk much about sound designers but his work always integrates with it super well.
2 people like this
My experience is that Interactive media and film scoring are the same job but two different things in terms of process. Often in film you never see any other audio team members - at least on lower budget films. (My best feature film I worked closely with the sound remixer and the final audio was amazing)
I worked in software development as a composer for content creation for about 10 years. We always started early but still had production crunches for many things as deliverables came along during the development phase.
So yes, would try to stroll down the hall to look at concept art, gather sounds palletes, etc. As early a start as possible! But you still had to score that intro movie in one sleepless night!