Lauded every bit 'game music's eclectic daredevil' by MTV, award-winning composer Olivier Derivière has been scoring music for animation, film and video games for over 10 years, having scored for Assassinator's Creed Iv Freedom Cry (2013)and Remember Me(2013).

Olivier Derivière at Game Music Connect 2014 / Photo by Dan Griliopoulis and Jinnan Wang

Olivier Derivière at Game Music Connect 2014 / Photo past Dan Griliopoulis and Jinnan Wang

Music has ever been an integral part of Derivière's life. In fact, he began studying classical percussion at the age of five, and then studied moving picture scoring and jazz at Berklee College of Music with a scholarship. The feel undoubtedly gave this composer a sharp insight into the scoring world, and fueled his aspiration to bring talented performers to video games. Spurred by this desire, Derivière brought the National Opera of Paris'due south Children's Choir to his start video game score for the horror game ObScure, with a spooky effect. He besides commissioned the Boston Cord Quartet for ObScure two: The Aftermath. This innovative approach of imprinting these video games with such a human touch gives Derivière'south scores a truly unique feel, which plunges the player headfirst into the game.

Get Even Original Soundtrack

Get Even Original Soundtrack

Become Even (2017) is a first-person shooter video game, which centres effectually a man who wakes up in an old, abandoned aviary. His only memory is the attempted rescue of woman with a bomb strapped to her. This commencement-person perspective gives a thriller-atmosphere, and the game has a poetic quality mirrored in his music, evoking questions almost the understanding of justice and reality. We had the pleasure of speaking with Derivière most his masterful work for the game, and his wider career.

Score It Magazine: Get Even uses interactive music. How do you approach the challenge of composing for an interactive video game?

Olivier Derivière: I believe the term 'interactive music' is equally wide as the term 'video games'. Candy Crush, Uncharted and Journeying are considered video games although they don't share much in terms of experience. Such is the aforementioned for interactive music. Composing for video games tin be extremely different from one composer to the next. My personal approach to scoring a game is always finding out what the core gameplay mechanics are, and supporting them as much as possible in social club to give players more than just illustrative emotions. The starting time claiming is to identify the vision of the Creative Director of your project, so trying to support it as much as possible.

The game employs 'ii.0 techniques and 3D sound tech'. Can you explain these technical aspects, and how they affect the composition procedure?

I used the term two.0 considering I broke the barrier of having the the game's sound pattern on one side of the game, with the music on the other side. Also, some parts of the music are happening in real time, significant that the machine is processing all the sounds you hear without any pre-recorded elements, using diverse techniques like MIDI protocol. The 3D aspect of the music means that it is happening around you lot, and not in an abstract dimension or a diegetic element. This improver of all the sounds surrounding yous, which act like instruments, creates a musical layer.

Get Even is a psychological thriller game. The track 'Wake Up' especially channels a chilling atmosphere. As a composer, how did y'all achieve this ambience?

Have you lot ever felt a panic attack? If not, this is how information technology feels. If yes, well, I have sympathy for y'all. In Go Even, without spoiling anything, this very music happens at the very showtime of the game. You enter a succession of rooms and you end up trying to save a daughter who has a bomb strapped to her. Unfortunately, the flop volition explode. It creates a trauma but I can't really explain why here due to narrative spoilers… Sad.

You combined organic electronic music and live orchestra, peculiarly noteworthy in your track 'Reascending the Tower'. What was the process of merging these two very different genres?

The one rule I took upon myself when starting to work on this project was that whatever music should starting time with a diegetic audio and get musical. On this very track, it is all about the animate. What you hear is the main character'south jiff that the actor controls. It is even more than pronounced during the game. I love working with post-processing on live and natural sounds, and this game was a perfect fit for that. I couldn't exist happier!

A lot of string instruments feature in the score for Go Even , particularly present in the exquisite tracks 'Consequences' and 'Rehearsal'. Are there whatsoever other scores or other composers that inspired you for Get Fifty-fifty 's string-heavy sound?

I tend not to listen to music when I score a game, similar any creative person I believe. I am a sponge and I really don't want to absorb anything else autonomously from the game'south atmosphere itself, in guild to create the right feel for it. Nevertheless, I take been a big fan of composers such equally Michael Nyman, Arvo Pärt and Steve Reich. Despite all of my denial, you tin withal feel that they're effectually.

Moreover, the tracks 'Trauma', 'Tracking The Truth' and 'Making Queries' comprise very hit elements of electronic sound. How is it different composing for a track which solely comprises of electronic music as opposed to classical music?

I know it might sound weird, simply I am much more than into electronic music than classical music. I love artists such as Aphex Twin, Kettel and Ochre. An creative person I similar that you could very much discover a connectedness with in Get Fifty-fifty is Bola. Composing these tracks was a necessity for the game. Get Even is a lot of things: a thriller, an action game with a sci-fi setting, simply most of all, it's a very elementary and human story. I had to support all of these aspects, notwithstanding brand sense from 1 to the other. And so, whether it's concerning a string or synth section, my approach is the same: to give pregnant to each composition.

As you have previously mentioned, Get Even is about regret and guilt, ii very raw emotions. What journeying did you take equally a composer to have these emotions and ultimately plow them into such a piercing score? You lot certainly achieved this in the rails 'Regrets'.

'Regrets' is the central piece of the game. Yous hear it the very first fourth dimension you lot see the girl, in the very outset level. And so you hear it here and there, but not that much… Yet, it is there. If you listen to 'Nosotros're Family', it is the same theme besides, simply in a major key. I can't really tell you why until the game is out. However, to compose such a piece was very personal. We all have memories that we would like to change, because at the time we didn't know the consequences. Sometimes y'all think to yourself, what if I'd done something differently? Simply, you know that thought won't change annihilation. We all have been and will exist through this existential burden. This is what Get Even is about.

(Olivier Derivière explains how Auro-3D engineering is used to tell a unique story through sound)

Do you lot play video games yourself?

I sure do! Once a gamer, always a gamer!

Do you have any advice for whatever aspiring video game composers?

Listen to well-crafted and meaningful music, cultivate yourself through reading books and watching movies that are non merely for amusement, because video games demand more maturity, and I call back it's getting there… Get Fifty-fifty is proof of this!

Tin can you tell us about your future projects?

I am currently finishing Vampyr for Dontnod which has a very different score, of course! I tin can't talk much well-nigh the next project, only I tin can't wait to share information technology. It will be a slice of fine art!

Interview prepared, conducted and transcribed by Amalia Morris.

Edited by Sylvain Pinot and Marine Wong Kwok Chuen.

Author: wpscoreitcm