Cue of the Week: Light

Continuing the Anthem audiobook score series, this week's selection accompanies the protagonist's post-apocalyptic (re)discovery of electrical lighting in a dark cave.

Light

Cue of the Week: Second Meeting

This is the second installment in the Anthem audiobook series. This cue reprises the Golden One's theme presented last week, but prolongs and develops it to reflect her budding relationship with the narrator. (The scene in question is a kind of young-love proto-flirtation in the context of a dystopian society.) We will of course hear this tune with full orchestration down the line, since the novel has a happy ending. But I'll say no more for now.

Anthem: Second Meeting

Cue of the Week: The Golden One

This is the first in a series of cues from my score for Highbridge Audio's audiobook recording of the Ayn Rand novel Anthem. Though we didn't have production values comparable to some of the bigger projects I've worked on, I've always been very fond of the themes I wrote for this project. (I even have thoughts of writing a concert suite based on them one day.) Now, thanks to the miracle of blogging, I'll be able to share some of these pieces with you without all that gol-durn talking in the background.



Rather than go through the cues chronologically, I'm going to present them in a order that makes musical sense. Here's the first selection, which introduces the theme for The Golden One, the story's love interest.

The Golden One

The Cost of Innovation

GameSpot has a very interesting two-part article on the pressures against innovation in the game industry, including some apt comparisons with Hollywood. (Here's part one and part two.)

I see a kind of parallel evolution in the two industries, with the game business following Hollywood's history on a smaller timescale. Essentially, as games get more impressive on the audiovisual level, development costs skyrocket. Instead of a single programmer designing the game, there are managed teams. Instead of the a central programmer hacking out the graphics and gameplay at the code level, there are groups of artists, level designers, and countless other specialists. And turning to my perspective, music production values have climbed as well, with orchestral recordings and costly pop song licenses becoming increasingly common in prospective A-list titles.

Given the huge time and money investment involved in game development, there's suddenly a lot more to lose on the part of those ponying up capital. Publishers, pressured by stockholders, look for some assurance they'll make back their daunting investment. This makes everyone above risk-adverse, aiming for large audiences and proven formulas. The parallel to film is pretty easy to see.

This doesn't reflect a conspiracy of evildoers vying to squash out creativity, but just the realities of the marketplace. If I sank millions of dollars into a game or film, I'd be pretty nervous about where it went as well. And to be fair, for every innovative gem in either medium, there are countless eccentric failures.

The film world's solution is the indie film market, where even a microproject can make a huge splash if it captures an audience. (e.g. Blair Witch or My Big Fat Greek Wedding). How the game world can offer a parallel venue for creativity is still a topic of discussion.

Ultimately, with games and film, I think there's a place for both megabudget monsters and virtuosic underdogs. Hopefully we'll start to see more of the latter on the game side.