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TVTranscript
00:02It plays a major part in the video game world.
00:06You have your programming and your design, which is one-third.
00:09You have your visual, animation, motion capture, that's one-third.
00:13And you have your audio, which is one-third.
00:16And has grown, just like the industry that leads it.
00:19Back then, when I was growing up, it was all about bleeps and bloops.
00:23When the music was do-do-do-do-do.
00:26Originally with video games, it was so limited by what the systems can do.
00:31It was just like, God, it's almost painful to listen to some of the music they put in those early
00:35Atari games.
00:37But the people who create it often go unrecognized.
00:41I know the games and I know the music, but again, the composer name.
00:45And now Icons gives credit where credit is due.
00:51This is the story behind the magic of music and gaming.
00:57I would love you.
00:58Say, oh yeah!
00:59Oh yeah!
01:00Oh yeah!
01:02Ah yeah!
01:02Ah yeah!
01:03Oh, Rosie!
01:04Ah yeah!
01:10Ah yeah!
01:13Ah yeah!
01:15Ah yeah!
01:16Oh, Rosie!
01:17Oh yeah!
01:25Ah yeah!
01:25There in Reaganomics, music and gaming was little more than beeps and boops.
01:30But despite these technical limitations, a small group of talented music makers began to make their mark on the gaming
01:36world.
01:38Two of these pioneers were Clint Bajakian and George Sanger, a.k.a. The Fat Man.
01:44But like many others, they had humble beginnings.
01:48The Fat Man, George Sanger, was a promising physics engineering major in a small liberal arts college in California.
01:56There was the potential for him to do something really great in the scientific world, but he got distracted by
02:01a couple of things.
02:03Number one is that the band was doing very well, you know, and the promise of being a rock star
02:07seemed very nice.
02:10I marched in a marching band at my elementary school in Concord, Massachusetts.
02:15Then I moved on to guitar.
02:17And I just started to play, you know, rock and roll and folk and everything.
02:21These two aspiring musicians become inspired by greatness.
02:24I had this idea that the Beatles just sort of stood out above everything else in my life.
02:30And I thought, what is it about them that makes them so great?
02:35And how can I capture that and emulate it and spread that kind of goodness to people?
02:39I then discovered that I really loved classical music, mostly through Beethoven's Fifth Symphony.
02:43And it was then that I decided to get formal with a guitar.
02:46I took classical guitar at the New England Conservatory, also majored in music theory,
02:51and then finally got my master's in composition at the University of Michigan.
02:55It seemed like in normal music, how, that all the trees had been cut down in that forest, you know
03:03what I mean?
03:03So I decided, nonetheless, I'd dedicate myself to my band because that seemed like the thing to do.
03:08And then my grades kind of fell off a little bit in the physics area.
03:11And I got myself a music major.
03:14Fate steps in right around graduation.
03:16I was just finishing up my master's degree at the University of Michigan, about to step off into the real
03:22world.
03:22And I got a phone call from an old friend of mine, Michael Land, who had answered an ad in
03:27a newspaper in the San Francisco Bay Area for a composer and a programmer, and he could do both.
03:34It turned out to be, at that time, Lucasfilm Games Division.
03:37He got the job as the one-man sound department, and very quickly, in 1991, the need for full-length
03:45scores came into being, and he gave me a call, and I moved out to the Bay Area in a
03:50heartbeat.
03:52Soon after, Quint is working on his first game.
03:55It was Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis with Hal Barwood.
04:06As well as The Secret of Monkey Island with Ron Gilbert.
04:13And the fat man begins to make a name for himself.
04:16After college ended, the band broke up.
04:20And there I was, promising, smart guy, should have had a career, and I got nothing but this strange admiration
04:25of games, which seemed like rock and roll used to be.
04:28By a stroke of luck, a friend of my brother, who was in the Intellivision company, and I offered to
04:35empty his wastebaskets for free if he'd let me into the game business somehow.
04:40He said, well, you're a musician, aren't you?
04:41And I went, yeah, well, I'm not really a musician.
04:44He said, well, right out of tune for this game, and I did.
04:48I rose and rose.
04:49I was about the only person in the business for many years.
04:54He puts together an ensemble of musicians called Team Fat, and together they begin to make musical history.
05:01It was a game called Wing Commander.
05:04The producer, Chris Roberts, said, can you do something that's sort of like Star Wars and sort of like Star
05:10Trek the movie?
05:13It was unquestionably not just a breakthrough game for having introduced this idea of cinematics in a way that no
05:21one had experienced before.
05:23It also introduced the idea of orchestral soundtracks in a way that no one had approached before.
05:29The fat man started all out.
05:31I mean, he was the one who started us in this industry.
05:34So you just got to, you got to, you got to tip your hat.
05:38Meanwhile, Clint Bajakian makes some of the most memorable music and gaming at LucasArts.
05:43It was extremely exciting.
05:45When I first started out, I was with Michael Land and Peter McConnell.
05:49Michael Land is known for the dig.
05:53The monkey island scores in the beginning.
05:59Peter McConnell composed full throttle.
06:04And he could compose grim fandango.
06:11And he has a hand in creating a groundbreaking interactive music engine called iMuse.
06:16Michael and Peter really authored it, but I was on the fringes as a user and giving them advice.
06:23And the iMuse system was patented with the government.
06:25Fire!
06:26It was touted as being the only really hot interactive sound and music system in the industry at the time.
06:33I'm surprised no one ever really caught on to this in a big way.
06:39But the idea that LucasArts had, whereas as you're playing the game, the music shifts depending on how you're doing
06:43within the game and the events that are taking place.
06:46You won't do anything.
06:50And that was just a phenomenal breakthrough, a phenomenal idea.
06:53Houston gives us the go ahead.
06:55They went lost.
06:56Do it.
07:07Once we've gotten to the CD era, though, you've really seen that people started putting a lot more time and
07:12effort and energy into this.
07:13Going in and recording not only synthesizers, but bands in some cases and orchestras.
07:17It was at a time that games hadn't really experienced a lot of audio experimentation yet either.
07:23And so the game developers left me alone, let me do something fairly brave with the music.
07:30Now we're seeing especially that using a full-on orchestra as opposed to MIDI, it's more the standard.
07:35People aren't afraid to do it anymore.
07:37They're putting in the time and effort and money to do it because games have become a production on par
07:42with movies.
07:45The music composed by the fat man and Clint Pajakian leads gaming to another level.
07:53That's the stuff that really set the tone for the idea that we're going to have these real scores, these
07:57real arrangements, and this real lush feeling behind a game.
08:00And while they would never guess it, these two pioneers will help pave the road for a new batch of
08:04game music makers.
08:06Good shooting, mister.
08:19The fat man and Clint Pajakian, two very different music makers, have opened the door for followers.
08:25Like Tommy Tallarico, whose musical ambitions have him leaving his home in Springfield, Massachusetts.
08:31When I turned 21, I decided I'm going to go up to California.
08:34I'm going to do the whole, you know, be a rock star, move to Hollywood thing.
08:37So I literally got in my car, packed up, didn't have any money, didn't have a place to stay, didn't
08:42know anyone, nothing.
08:43Just wanted to be a musician.
08:45I drove all the way across country.
08:46I showed up in Hollywood.
08:48Meanwhile, on the other side of the world in Japan, another future music maker gets his first exposure to some
08:54American tunes.
08:55When I was junior high, I always listened to Led Zeppelin.
09:00And in the high school, I was addicted to listening to the contemporary jazz and punk and progressive work together.
09:12So it was very mixed in various kinds of generations, like 70s or 60s.
09:19And the European music, American music, Japanese music.
09:23So it's all mixed together.
09:26But things for Tommy in Hollywood aren't so glamorous.
09:30So I picked up a newspaper and I saw a job for selling keyboards at a guitar center, a national
09:36music chain.
09:38And I said, well, I can do that, I guess.
09:40I don't know.
09:41I went there and I got the job that same day.
09:44I was homeless at the time.
09:46I was sleeping on the beach.
09:47I didn't have any money.
09:49And they said, you start tomorrow.
09:50So I said, tomorrow.
09:51But an amazing stroke of luck changes his life forever.
09:55Next day, I come in.
09:56The very first person who walked in, I was wearing a video game t-shirt that day.
10:00First person who walked in happened to be a producer at Virgin, who had Virgin Records and Virgin Airlines.
10:09And they were starting a new video game company.
10:12And they said, hey, we're looking to hire people for video games.
10:15And just like that, Tommy gets his first job in the gaming industry.
10:19But it doesn't have anything to do with music.
10:22Now, I was originally hired as a games tester because they didn't need a music thing because they were just
10:26starting out.
10:27And I said, look, whenever you need music, let me know.
10:30I'll do it for free.
10:31If you don't like it, don't use it.
10:33Don't pay me.
10:34Whatever.
10:34I'll do it for free.
10:35And Tommy's persistence soon pays off.
10:38I bug him every single day.
10:39And finally, they gave me a shot to do music for a game called Prince of Persia.
10:43And I learned everything I could.
10:45And I sat down with the programmer.
10:46I didn't know anything, but I just knew music.
10:48And we implemented it.
10:50And the rest is history, as they would say.
10:54Back in Japan, Masuya begins a career of his own.
10:57I was a signed artist with Sony Music.
11:00I was composing music by using a computer.
11:05And I have a partner, a female singer, and just two people back.
11:12But the regular musician gets an itch.
11:14I wanted to do much more something.
11:18So it would be very easy to combine the various kinds of impressions together.
11:26So I moved here to be in this room.
11:29Back in America, Tommy begins to gain notoriety.
11:33And a big part of that is due to an earthworm named...
11:37Earthworm Jim.
11:38So that was really fun.
11:41And I'd come up with the voicings.
11:45The sound effects and music was kind of wacky and zany.
11:50Earthworm Jim is so successful that a sequel is made.
11:54Around the same time, Masuya gets a letter that will jumpstart his music career.
11:58I got a letter from vice president of the Sony Computer Japan.
12:04And the letter was, I want to make something on the PlayStation.
12:08That's it.
12:09How can I do that?
12:10And development of a strange new PlayStation game begins in secret.
12:14And during the development of the Parappa 1, almost no one didn't know about that.
12:21You gotta do what?
12:22I gotta believe!
12:23And the very end of the development, still, many people didn't think this is a game.
12:32Now kick, punch, punch, punch.
12:36Parappa the Rapper is released for the PlayStation in 1996.
12:39Once more now, kick, punch, punch, punch.
12:43And the response in Japan is incredible.
12:46The game like Parappa the Rapper, it's perhaps the first truly musical video game.
12:50It's almost like a hip-hop Moulin Rouge sort of thing, you know what I mean?
12:53Where the music is so in there and it seriously enhances the gameplay.
12:58Some catchy tunes are a huge part of Parappa's success.
13:10They found a way to take the music and make the music so much a part of the game
13:15that the fact that it was great music really enhanced the gameplay.
13:20That's because you just got your license.
13:23Woo-hoo!
13:25And Tommy Tallarico sets another benchmark.
13:28I was the first musician to ever do a video game soundtrack album.
13:32In 1994, I had a worldwide record release on Capitol Records called Tommy Tallarico's Greatest Hits Volume 1.
13:39But some people aren't impressed.
13:42I think the gamers, if they like the music, they'll listen to it when they play the game.
13:46I don't think you're going to see much of an urge for people to be driving around in the car,
13:50you know, blasting the soundtrack, you know, to a Final Fantasy or Earthworm Jim.
13:55You know, I just don't think it's going to happen.
13:57Tommy isn't deterred.
13:58The last CD soundtrack I did was for the James Bond game, Tomorrow Never Dies.
14:06And this is cool.
14:08You know, that's really neat.
14:15With the success of people like Clint Pajakian and Tommy Tallarico,
14:19a whole new generation of music makers begin appearing.
14:22And a bit of Hollywood influence will soon make its way into gaming.
14:37As the quality of music and gaming grows, Hollywood begins to take notice.
14:42Soon, music makers from Pentziltown try their hand at making music for a different medium.
14:48One day I was at E3, and I was looking at a game that had a very nice John Williams
14:55-like score.
14:57And I wasn't wearing the outfit.
15:00I asked the guy at the booth, I said, wow, I said, who wrote that music?
15:04And he said, well, I probably shouldn't tell you this, because it's a secret,
15:07but John Williams wrote that music.
15:09I said, whoa, man.
15:11Perhaps one of the most active Hollywood musicians to cross over is Scott Gershon.
15:15I started originally doing cartoons.
15:18I did Defenders of the Earth.
15:20I did Transformers, G.I. Joe.
15:23Then I made my way into television, a TV show called Beauty and the Beast.
15:27I've been very fortunate, I think, in my life to work on a variety of shows.
15:33I've done a lot of work with Oliver Stone.
15:35I really liked working.
15:38Born on the Fourth of July was special to me.
15:41So was JFK.
15:43It was just a very interesting way of utilizing sound design in a musical fashion
15:49and being able to have emotional impact with it.
15:54It was also fun working with John Williams.
15:57Scott's first video game project is a remake of a classic.
16:00My first game was Pitfall Harry, the Mind Adventure with Activision.
16:05And he has an easy time translating his skills from TV and film to games.
16:09The technology we always used in film were samplers and synthesizers.
16:13So when I saw a lot of the game consoles, to me, they were just another synthesizer.
16:18So all of the memory constraints and everything else that we had to deal with
16:22was just par for the course.
16:24And I don't know, I've always been a fan of games.
16:26And we just kind of grew it from there.
16:28And like many others before him, he pushes the envelope.
16:31With Pitfall, when I saw the engine, I said, great, can we do interactive music?
16:34I want to be able to turn tracks on and off.
16:36I want to do this, I want to do that.
16:38And they're all looking and going, well, yeah, the box can do it,
16:40but we don't have the software.
16:41I said, great, can we make it?
16:42Can we write the software?
16:44Yay!
16:44You know, and we did.
16:52But Hollywood hotshots aren't the only people getting involved.
16:55A new breed of young composers blaze their own trails.
16:58Steven Rippey and Kevin McMullen's work on Age of Mythology from Ensemble Studios
17:03is a great example of modern sound design and music in gaming.
17:07We started off the project knowing that we wanted to build up our libraries as much as we could.
17:11We took trips to the zoo, some water parks, and around the office with mics and tape recorders,
17:17and we hit things, and we hit each other, and we yelled and screamed.
17:20And at the end of the day, we have what we hope sounds like a bunch of minotaurs and pegasi.
17:29In this game, we've integrated a lot of live instrumentation.
17:36We bring them in and incorporate them into the music,
17:39and this music system is also a dynamic music system,
17:42so while you're playing the game, it changes moods based on what's going on.
17:47Whether there's a lot of action or if you've had a big loss,
17:50the music seamlessly mixes down to sort of a mellow mix version.
17:54And if there's a big battle, the battle music cuts in,
17:58and it's this big orchestral kind of thing.
18:03Scott's work is good, and the work keeps coming in.
18:06We've done a lot.
18:07One of the things was I was the lead designer of Soundlux
18:10and created Soundlux DMG.
18:12I'm the founder of it.
18:14The things we've done is Rainbow Six.
18:20We've done all the quakes.
18:23We've been able to do Undying.
18:27We've been doing McWarrior 2, and on and on and on.
18:32But Scott enjoys the anonymity
18:34and never forgets that it's all about the games.
18:37When somebody sees one of my projects,
18:39whether it's a game or a movie,
18:41I actually don't want them to be concerned who I am.
18:44I don't want people to know who I am.
18:47Because I want them to enjoy the movie or the game.
18:51They shouldn't be going,
18:52wow, what great music, what great sound design.
18:57Because if they do that, they're not enjoying it.
18:59I'm taking them out of that.
19:01Music and games has made progress in leaps and bounds,
19:04and nobody forgets how it all began.
19:07Back then, when I was growing up,
19:09it was all about bleeps and bloops.
19:12When the music was...
19:15Originally with video games,
19:16it was so limited by what the systems can do.
19:20It was just like, God,
19:21it's almost painful to listen to some of the music
19:23they put in those early Atari games.
19:26You know, these kind of annoying, repetitive, catchy, sometimes, tunes.
19:31It was the kind of thing, if you turned it up too loud,
19:33you felt like your speaker was going to explode.
19:36They're putting out soundtrack albums,
19:38and it's been a funny progression.
19:41Yeah.
19:42I think we're at a great stage in video games right now,
19:45and things are only going to get better from here.
19:46And as far as the music goes,
19:48it's better than it's ever been before.
19:52And I'm sure the future holds more interesting twists and turns.
19:55And the industry is still evolving.
19:58It's a constant learning process,
20:00and you just get to expand and expand.
20:03I don't see how I will ever run out of new and exciting things
20:07to learn about music or sound
20:08or the applications of those in a game.
20:11So hopefully we get to keep doing it for a while.
20:14It's so exciting to be in the video game industry right now.
20:18It's such a new industry,
20:19yet we forge ahead every single day.
20:22It's an amazing industry.
20:25It's just been fun.
20:27I mean, the graphics have grown.
20:28The technology has grown.
20:29The ability for us to be more powerful with audio
20:32has expanded incredibly.
20:35And while things just keep getting better,
20:37the true trailblazers have a bit of advice
20:40for the next generation.
20:41The first thing I would do is study an instrument.
20:45Piano is a very good foundational instrument,
20:48but any instrument is important.
20:50Flute, guitar, trumpet, drums.
20:54And keep an eye on the games industry.
20:56Play games, enjoy games.
20:58Read the periodicals about games.
21:00And try to get to know people who create games,
21:03because that's where the real war stories happen.
21:06That's where the real rubber hits the road.
21:08Okay, that's it.
21:09Good luck.
21:20Good luck.
21:23I love you, Baba, I love you.
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