Cue The Maelstrom

This is the story of a rescue operation undertaken by people who don’t commonly find opportunities for heroism in their professional lines of work. Nevertheless in this case, their joint actions saved money and reputations and kept a large project from unraveling after years of work. 

Cue 1 : Prelude — Adagio

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Licensed video games, by definition, start off with a cache of existing material: the groundwork for plot and character already laid, the tone and style somewhat pre-determined. If the video game is based on a feature film, there may also be pre-existing music from the movie score. Comparing the full listing of cast and crew for a film and a related video game on the Internet Movie Database (IMDb) might awaken in the uninitiated the idea that the video game is a comparatively simple enterprise.

But that is not the reality. A licensed video game can take much longer than a film to develop—as long as 3–5 years, have a great deal more music—as much as 4–5 hours, and may be less derivative than the typical description implies. It may adapt the characters and spirit of a movie and leap off from there, acquiring extra characters, extended plotlines, and new music as the game logistics are worked out. Or the game may be slated for completely new music from the start.

Sound is added after the corresponding game levels are complete, meaning composition can start about halfway through the cycle. And no matter how limited the number of new cues, if the music is orchestral, the coordination of a large number of people will be necessary to get those cues recorded.

The creation of a score with an orchestra is a process that has operational planning demands similar to those of any large-scale, extremely intricate, synchronized operation: a university graduation, the staging of a Broadway show, a plan to shut down the opponent’s defense in a pro football playoff game. Specifically, it requires meticulously prepared instructions in the form of a musical score that gives the conductor a detailed overview and tells each performer exactly which pitches to play for how long at what tempo and dynamic and with what technique and feeling for each split second of time. It also requires that this score be meticulously performed by dozens of people and captured by sound engineers in the shortest amount of time possible to avoid astronomical costs. The professional musicians who perform the score are expected to simultaneously provide an exacting rendition of what they see on the printed pages of music they have received only moments beforehand, as well as provide an often highly emotional and dramatic reflection of the video game’s plot, expressing markedly different moods and tones as they move from cue to cue.

What follows is the story of one video game score that almost didn’t get recorded and how it was saved in the end by the dedication and professionalism of people you may not typically think of as heroes: it was saved by music industry professionals.

Cue 2 : Death Monk Choir — Andante Misterioso

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Music, which has the power to evoke moods with enormous subtlety, has special significance in the horror genre, in which it often plays the role of creating or heightening, drama, suspense, apprehension, and danger, not to mention dread, panic, and abject terror. The video game in question, Van Helsing, was based on a horror movie, and behind the scenes preparations promised to be enormous fun as the composer and sound engineers worked to evoke the scariest, spookiest, most spine-chilling noises they could using any conceivable means.

This particular video game was slated to have completely original music—reusing none of the music from the film. Tom Zehnder was hired as the lead composer, working with Steve Kutay, with some help from Cris Velasco, and with Mike Reagan contributing the intro movie music; referred to in the game industry as the “Cinematic”. The goal: to reinvent classic horror.

Originally, there was no budget for live orchestra, so it was a small group at the start: Tom and Steve and a few sound designers who stepped in to help as needed. The cues were mocked up using a Vienna sample library, which Tom “worked” to make it sound more like live players, adding spot live recordings to pump up critical moments. Tom also amped things up with some specialty approaches, including 20^th century string scratching techniques and a prepared piano outfitted with dangling paper clips and kitchen utensils that would vibrate and clash as the harp was struck with various tools, like screwdrivers and soft mallets.

In addition, Tom brought in some goodies from his antique parlor instruments collection to enhance the menacing sound palette, including a Marxophone, a tremoloa, a ukelin, and a mando-cello, which he played to eerie effect.

The whole of the small group joined in for what Tom called his “Death Monk Choir,” which involved everyone crowding into Tom’s small office / studio and, all at once, sucking in air while vocalizing to make unholy creaky sounds that Tom recorded. All in all, they ended up with a total of about one hour of music sound design, which was typical of video game production at the time. The MIDI tracks were done, and everything was just about ready to go, which was important because the plan was to release the video game at the same time as the movie.

Cue 3 : Hitting the Jackpot —  Allegretto Mutamento

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Woohoo! From on high came the announcement that budget was available for live recordings in Seattle. The score would be performed not with samples, but—for the most part—by a live orchestra. For Tom and his team, this was a thrilling prospect, but it also meant some process changes.

For one thing, much of the music was going to have to be transformed from MIDI to music notation for the orchestra. Using the reference tempo and with the MIDI divided into instrument families, an orchestrator would need to convert the MIDI to proper conductor scores with tempo marks, dynamics and phrasing for every instrument. A professional music copyist would then prepare a part score for each instrument, which would include transposing instruments correctly, tweaking the layout of each player’s part so that he or she could turn the page when necessary without missing a note, and communicating everything so clearly and plainly that the group could walk in and get straight down to recording without questions or uncertainty. And once the individual parts were formatted, each player would require a book of all the cues, arranged in order for the recording sessions. Though certain elements of the set-up created challenges, there was plenty of lead time.

One of the reasons Tom was so excited is that it was his first time doing a big orchestral recording session and assembling a team. One key new player would be the orchestrator, the person who would “translate” the MIDI into scores. Tom conducted phone interviews with several orchestrators who had been recommended to him, including the orchestrator candidate whom he ended up recommending for the job, who seemed qualified, sounded nice, and was willing to handle the parts preparation, too. This orchestrator was ultimately hired.

Cue 4 : The Approaching Storm  — Allegro Inquieto

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In the meantime, preparations were underway for the recording sessions in Seattle using Northwest Sinfonia, a world class recording orchestra with over 100 feature film and video game soundtrack credits. Jonathan Merrill, from L.A. was retained to conduct the sessions. Discussions about booking the players for the sessions began with the orchestra’s contractor Simon James. Tom’s music was mainly in B-flat minor, with heavy use of viola, and although Simon convinced Tom to lessen the number of violas, the orchestra was still bottom heavy with 2 tubas, trumpets traded in for more trombones. Flutes, clarinets and oboes were bypassed in favor of three bassoons and a contrabassoon, giving all-in-all a 60-player ensemble. The plan was to record the 53 cues in three 3-hour sessions over the course of two days.

As the date approached, other staffing for the recording sessions at Bastyr University Chapel was also taking shape. Christian Johnson, Audio Creative Director for Vivendi’s Van Helsing game, hired an engineer, assistant engineer, ProTools editor, and monitor mixer. For the printed music, they retained Robert Puff as music librarian. It is customary for the music librarian to place the “books” for the session—each book being a compilation of a single player’s cues—on the music stands ahead of time, so that everything is set before the musicians arrived, avoiding the necessity of passing out music during the session, which is interruptive and can get the session off schedule.

Since Robert—a seasoned music copyist, orchestrator, arranger and score producer—was accustomed to performing multiple jobs on recording sessions, he asked if any assistance was needed with the music preparation (also called music copying) which refers to all of the important details of presentation that are carried out between orchestration and the music appearing on a music stand. No, he was told—there was no need: the team would arrive the morning of the session with all cues printed and ready to put on the stands.

Preparations continued. But as time passed, Steve and Tom started to wonder why they weren’t receiving any completed scores, despite the orchestrator’s reassurances that everything would be in place when it was needed.

Cue 5 : The Maelstrom — Vivace Precipitando

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It is a characteristic of the horror film that the choices and actions of a single being can cause massive confusion and threaten widespread destruction. It is often the case that no one realizes the magnitude of the danger until it is almost too late. In this case, life imitated art.

The studio team began to arrive in Seattle. Tom came the night before the sessions and brought his wife. He was excited about his first live orchestral recording session, but nervous.  The recording sessions were scheduled over a Thursday and Friday, and Tom and his wife planned to go out to dinner after recording was done on Thursday, enjoying a little “Seattle get-away” in between sessions. The producer and sound engineers arrived that evening as well. Tom and his wife had dinner right outside the airport and headed for the hotel, where Tom went to see how the orchestrator was getting on.

At about the same time that Tom was going to find the orchestrator—9 p.m. on the night before the session—Robert checked in with the producer to welcome the production crew to Seattle, and confirm a time they could meet at the soundstage to either put the completed books on the stands, or to assemble books from the printed cues, if necessary. He also wanted to know where the music was: with the first session taking place the following day, Robert hadn’t received the cues. It was only then that he learned from the producer that the orchestration was not complete and that an early morning printing & photocopying session at Kinkos was planned. This sounded like cutting it too close, given the sheer number of pages that would need to be churned out.

And so it was almost at the same time that both Tom and Robert found out that the orchestrator was not only not done and not only was he still orchestrating: only a few of the 53 cues were complete, and these existed only in a full score version: parts hadn’t yet been completed for the players on even these cues.

Robert, realizing that it would be a major challenge to get even a portion of the printing done in time for the downbeat the following afternoon, requested that all completed cues be sent to him for printing and taping that evening (Wednesday) to insure there would at least be some music on the stands at the start of the session. Up all night, he arrived at 10 a.m. for the 2 p.m. start, bringing the handful of completed scores with parts and his trusty HP5100 workgroup printer with him, just in case.

Meanwhile at Kinkos, the real possibility of an epic fail had begun to sink in. In the three hours spent there, only a few scores got printed. The audio production team arrived to the soundstage just after noon, bringing what they’d been able to print. They also brought the report that the orchestrator—who, it was believed, had gotten no sleep in five days in a desperate attempt to complete the cues—was no longer able to function and had been put to bed by one of their team.

In the orchestrator’s absence, the producer handed off the orchestrator’s laptop to Robert. What he saw was not promising. The desktop was littered with files, only a few of which were grouped in folders. Files were named by instrument, not by cue, making it hard to tell what was what. Even for the scores that were complete—which were few in number—the parts were not completed, lacking page turns, and including some pages with too many notes and some with big blank spaces.. Then there were the MIDI files that hadn’t yet been orchestrated. It took time just to figure out what was where and in what state of completion. Scrambling with what they had available, and grateful for the onsite printer, the team got 11 cues printed, taped and on the stands by just before 2 p.m.

By then, the players had started to arrive: 12 first violins, 10 second violins, 8 violas, 6 cellos, 6 basses, 3 bassoons, 1 contrabassoon, 2 trumpets, 4 trombones, 4 horns, 2 tubas, 1 timpanist, and 1 percussionist, all ready to go and expecting everything to be ready for them.

The first session was, Tom says, embarrassing. The scores had no dynamics and no expression text, and beyond omissions, there were downright errors in the scores: somehow a portion of the cello part was 8 bars earlier than everyone else, requiring a pause to figure out what was going on and fix the part. Cues couldn’t be done in score order, and there was nothing like a book in sight: every cue was loose and separate. Nevertheless, with all these issues, they managed to get the 11 cues recorded before the session was over, a tribute to the performers, who were having to guess dynamics and expression, and doing an amazing job of it.

At 5 p.m., with the players gone, the team had to reassess. They’d spent part of the day with the 60 players were being kept waiting at a cost of about  $60/hour for each. Plus the sound crew. Plus there were only 6 hours left, after which everyone would be going their separate ways. How could they possibly record enough music in that time? How could they save the videogame from being a musical disaster? The team ordered dinner and went into disaster recovery mode to try to figure out how they could possibly salvage the situation.

Cue 5 : The Midnight Crew — Vivacissimo Agitato

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What a bind!  By the time dinner was over, the next session was due to start in about 15 hours and there were 42 cues left to record, and every cue that they chose to record had to be orchestrated, have parts created, and be printed and taped. Having determined that it was an impossible task, they shifted to a cue-by-cue review. What was absolutely needed? What would be “good enough’ with samples? What could be pared down?

Even with a slimmer list of cues, there were still scores to orchestrate, parts to create, and cues to print and bind. The sheer number of things to do was mind boggling. So while the sound team and composers were revamping their plans, Robert was on the phone, seeking a core group of orchestrators and music copyists willing to pull all-nighters. With seven dedicated souls secured, the studio became a war room. The triage team, with Robert acting as point man, settled in to churn out cues, with Christian and the production crew pitching in as they could. Tom went back to his hotel at 4:30 a.m. to grab a couple of hours of sleep. Robert and company soldiered on through the night.

Cue 6 : Forward on the Foe — Presto: Play it Kickass!

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Tom is filled with admiration for what the team accomplished. “Robert never left his post—2 ½ days of no sleep, just cranking. He cleaned up material in every part from night crew orchestrators, and printing it on site with the printer that had only been brought as back up.”

Though the cues still couldn’t be played in order, cues were still being printed during the Friday sessions, and there were still delays, the sessions progressed. Christian tried to find or rent another printer, but it wasn’t possible. The morning session cleared another 21 cues. Tom relaxed enough that he stepped up and conducted one of his cues, “M05 Drac Defeat.” And when he was asked what approach he wanted on one particular score—should it be played freely? bombastically?—he responded, “Play it ‘kickass’!’

All in all, they recorded 47 cues, dropping 15 minutes of live score, which was subbed with MIDI mockup, to cover, so the video game had 45 minutes of live music. By the third session, they got back on schedule and were even able to record some bass drum overdubs. The last cue was put out on the stands 5 minutes before the session ended.

What would have happened if the players hadn’t been so keen, if Robert hadn’t stepped up, if enough professional orchestrators and music copyists willing to stay up all night couldn’t be found, no one likes to imagine. But they don’t have to, because when this crisis struck, the day was saved by the dedication and professionalism not of fire fighters, police officers, search and rescue teams, or a medical crew, but of a team of music industry professionals! Tom was euphoric.

And Vivendi’s video game, Van Helsing was nominated in 2005 for an MTV Movie Award in the “Best Video Game Based on a Movie” category, as well as two Game Audio Network Guild nominations: “Music of the Year” and “Best Live Performance Recording.”

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About the author, Mary Elizabeth

I am an educational product developer who works mainly in words, but also in sound and images.

Always trying to bring something new and unique to my work and fill gaps in the market, I have made many different things, including 12 published books, the libretto for the opera Kiravanu (music by James Humberstone) that premiered in Sydney in September, 2008; a setting of an excerpted version of W. H. Auden’s “For the Time Being: A Christmas Oratorio” for choir, soloists, brass quintet, and harp; the nearly 1700 international worksheets for the Sibelius Notation Software Worksheet Creator, based on the music curricula of the US, UK, AU, NZ, and Canada; collage interpretations of portions of Gabriela Mistral’s “Decalogo del artista”; and a highly-regarded recipe for peach-berry pie. I also teach eBook formatting through two universities.

My most recent publications are The Hunger Games: A Teaching Guide and Catching Fire: A Teaching Guide, with Mockingjay: A Teaching Guide to follow soon, and I am currently working on the first novel in a quintology.

You can follow me on Twitter as AWriterReads and/or RogueResearcher, subscribe to my blog “Voice of the Phoenix,” or visit my education product website edreinvented.com. To get in touch, contact me at edreinvented at edreinvented.com.