Day: April 24, 2017

Aims – The aim of this project is to work alongside Colossal Creations to create sound design for their 3D Environment/Games level based off of H.P Lovecraft’s Cthulhu.

At the start of Audio Project #2 I set this as my aim. This has ultimately been achieved by working closely alongside the client and finding out their needs and meeting their expectations a professional level. The client is pleased with the result of the end product and has no negatives to be said after any flaws they found were ironed out.

Objectives – 

For the objectives I will write a short paragraph following each bullet point.

• Liaise with client to clearly understand their vision. – This has been achieved with the final product. The client explained their needs for the project and through careful questioning I was able to pinpoint their vision and deliver a professional final product.
• Record a wide range of audio and create sound effects for the clients environment but also building my own sound library for future projects. – This ojective wasn’t achieved for this project, however, through further conversations with both the client and individuals working within the Game Audio industry, as well as discussions had with David in tutorial sessions, I found that the need to record and create a sound library for a project such as the one taken on wasn’t hugely necessary. Individuals such as Barney Oram, Suddi Raval and Nick Dixon explained that within the industry you’re access to sound libraries overtakes the need to record your own – especially when working to a deadline. I would have enjoyed to create a sound library an have the experience of doing so, however liaising with the client drove the project into a different direction.
• Compose music working to clients vision; getting feedback from client throughout the process. – As the project went on, composing a soundtrack to work with the clients vision became the main focus. The client gave examples of how they imagined the level would sound in terms of referencing games such as the Uncharted series or the Tomb Raider series. This set a foundation for myself to build upon. After sending the final mix over to the client I got the feedback that it matched their vision and sounded like a “more sinister version of the Tomb Raider 2 menu theme song”, which is a reference track I hadn’t listened to. However instantly recognized from our childhood.
• Build sound to picture on a linear timeline using Pro-Tools. – For this project I didn’t use Pro-Tools. I found that my workflow naturally took to using FL Studio for the majority of work and only a few sound effects were added into a timeline whilst editing the visuals and audio together in Adobe Premiere Pro. This didn’t make any difference to the final product. However using Pro-Tools and gaining a further insight into industry standard software could have proven helpful when looking for employment.
• To create a finished piece of work which can be discussed and explored further into my personal portfolio. – This has been achieved and now all work from Audio Project #1 and #2 are currently hosted on my website; which can be found at http://benward94.wixsite.com/benwvrd 

Learning Outcomes –

• To improve skills with working to a client project at a professional standard for the real world industry.
• To understand  the standard work flow and job role of a Sound Designer within the games industry.
• To have researched sound design techniques & sound designers that can aid my personal development in reaching the games industry.
• To identify the key skills needed for a graduate needed to enter the games industry.

For my learning outcomes I feel like all four have been achieved and documented throughout my research blog. I am now a lot more confident with my knowledge within the game audio industry and community. As well I have found myself enjoying the creative freedom that comes with composing music for video games. I am going to continue working on projects such as this over the next year to create a professional portfolio of work and be able to create my own unique style, which will hopefully lead into a career path in this industry.

This project has been technically challenging but extremely rewarding. Working towards a client project is something I haven’t really experienced before so I felt like I was thrown into the deep end with it. However, I found myself thinking of my client as a regular customer at work which helped the experience.

Building a rapport wasn’t 100% necessary for this project as I was working for my older brother, so we were already on the same page and both really excited to finally be able to work together. I found it really important to approach questions, that either myself or Nick had, differently depending on the information that I needed to be able to gain, this is something that I have already reflected upon in my blog. Being able to match Nick’s needs for the project was a steep learning curve for myself; I wanted to be able to create the piece of music that I had in mind but as I am still learning how to utilize orchestral instruments within a virtual environment I had a lot of work to put in. David pointed me in the direction of Spitfire Audio and specifically the video LCO Strings – How To Blend Dry & Ambient Libraries Together which discusses the technique of mixing and automating VST orchestral instruments together. Videos such as this combined with producers such as Varien and his videos on creating virtual orchestral music made a huge diffrence in how I have thought about approaching my mix and hopefully has transferred into the end product.

Throughout the entire process I have been sending Nick various arrangements and mixes back and forth to get his opinion and tailor the sound to his needs. He has been relatively happy and in the instances that he wasn’t, he sent me reference tracks to keep the project on track. An example would be when discussing the strings sections, Nick couldn’t explain musically what he was expecting, so he referred me to the Menu Theme of Tomb Raider 2. This worked really well in being able to communicate ideas back and forth in a language we could both understand.

Learning how to extract information from a client has been one of the biggest benefits I’ve had from doing the project. It is a skill which I have found incredibly useful and is something that will be used in any client based work I do in the future.