EA did a great move with music in Command & Conquer 4, How difficult was it for you, to develop music for a famous game-production (Command & Coinquer 4)?
It was definitely challenging. We’d set a high bar for ourselves with the successful music for Red Alert 3 and the challenge was how to deliver something which pushed this quality bar even higher. We re-hired Tim Wynn and James Hannigan who had worked on the music for Red Alert 3, but also added Dead Space composer Jason Graves to write the GDI score. Our goal was to create a score that was more ’serious‘ than RA3. For CnC4 we wanted a completely different sound depending whether you chose to play as GDI or NOD, unlike RA3 which used the same ‚location‘ music no matter which faction you played. We built on the seamless interactive music techniques that were developed for the RA3 expansion pack, Uprising. This quickly changed intensity levels depending on how much action there was on screen or what the threat was. The most difficult part was figuring out a sound for the NOD score. GDI was pretty straight-forward. Dark orchestral music with a some stirring Gerry Goldsmith style themes. We had many tries at coming up with a style for NOD. The basic idea was to go for electronica made of processed acoustic instruments, but this ended up being too limited, because we wanted the NOD score to have the range of moods that the movie-score-like GDI score had. In the end we added a small chamber orchestra playing baroque style music for the triumphant bits.
Were there some problems in the music-production or was everything right?
Nothing major went wrong that I can remember. There was the challenge I already mentioned of conceiving a unique music style for NOD which offered the full range of emotions. The only other problem was keeping the total length of the score within our budget of 100 minutes. The full score came in at around 120 minutes, so we didn’t manage this, but did manage to stay on budget financially by being careful about what we chose to record live.
How do you have got this ideas for the soundtracks? Were they coming at night in a dream or did you have to work hard some days?
My role is to come up with inspiring ideas for the composers, for when they some direction. You have to put yourself in a place and a frame of mind where ideas can flow. Jason Graves likes going for walks. One of the other composers has great ideas in the shower. I go jogging every morning to get myself relaxed so that I can have ideas. I also like talking things through with a lot of people (not just composers and sound engineers) and listen to their ideas. A recent innovation that I love is programs like Last FM. You can use them to ‚accidently‘ find music you haven’t heard before, that can then be used as reference material for the composers.
How did you feel to work together with Electronic Arts. Do you want to work together at once?
I’d been at EA for 14 years before I did CnC4 so working with them felt very comfortable and familiar!!!
Did you ever ploay C&C4 self? How feels it? Is it the epic conlcusion?
Yes, I have played the game all the way through. I very much enjoyed it. The game has some awesome moments too that were fun to do the sound for, like the moments when the TCN hubs activate and the shock wave radiates out. I’d like to think we used the music to make the game ‚epic‘. The music themes for Kane and his ascension in particular are really epic and quite beautiful.
Tthe people who want to boarding into the world of music have it very difficult. Which are your tips as a proficomponist?
Creating music for the entertainment industry is always going to be very competitive and difficult to get into. Millions of people love music and want to be part of the music scene. I like that!!! My advice is to develop your own musical identity and stick with it no matter what anyone else is doing. You have to be the best at doing that special thing that you have to offer. Then I think you need to believe in yourself and your music, be very determined, don’t take ’no‘ for and answer and develop the ability to market yourself well. Either that or find a great agent to do it for you!!!
Did you ever had contact to the fans´? How did you feel to work together with the community or rather the feedback of them?
I think if you are on the CnC team then communication with the community is really important part of the job. After all, that’s who we are making the game for! The interaction with the community is a big part of what makes developing these games cool and special. On other games I’ve done, it feels like you’re working in a vacuum. You wonder if anyone out there cares about the game and anticipates its release. I like knowing what people think about what I’m doing and I like to be challenged, so all feedback is welcome! While working on CnC4 I twittered, blogged and wrote personal messages for people. A lot of that stuff is still on line somewhere. People would ask me for things like music scores so that their orchestra could play Soviet March and I’d chase this up for them. It’s my pleasure to produce music that the community will love, tell them the story of how we did it and help the music have a life outside the game in concert programs, dance remixes, etc.!!!
What are you doing in your freetime? Which hobbies do you have?
I’m a dad, so my family keep me pretty busy, but when I’m not doing that I write and perform music. I also like writing comic books and screenplays. For exercise I enjoy jogging, walking, cycling and horse riding. I’ve now moved to Montreal, so learning French is my newest hobby.
Do you want to say something to the great C&C-Community?
It has been a real pleasure to serve the CnC community and try to provide music which adds something to the gameplay and is memorable. I know how passionate you all are about CnC. Knowing that the great CnC community is expecting great things from us developers is what challenges us to the best we can!!! Thank-you all!
Best wishes, Nick
Note: The interview was done when CnCSaga.de and CnCHQ.de/HQBoard.net were separate pages, each with their own forums. The interview was conducted by CnCSaga.de at the time.
