Tag Archives: Game Composer

The Music of Jurassic World Primal Ops – Techniques for Game Composers

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Video game composer Winifred Phillips is photographed on the red carpet of the 2023 Society of Composers & Lyricists Awards. Phillips was nominated for Outstanding Original Score for Interactive Media for the music she composed for Jurassic World Primal Ops.

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So happy you’ve joined us!  I’m video game composer Winifred Phillips, and one of my latest projects is the musical score for the video game Jurassic World Primal Ops (listen to the score here).  Over the past few months, I’ve been tremendously honored that my score for this game has garnered several award nominations, including Outstanding Original Score for Interactive Media from the Society of Composers & Lyricists, and Music of the Year from the Game Audio Network Guild.  As a result, I’ve been asked numerous questions about how this score was created.  With this in mind, I thought it might be helpful to write a brief article that includes a few of the guiding principles that shaped my work on this project.

I’ll be giving a lecture during the Game Developers Conference in San Francisco about my creative process, and I’ll be including some fine detail about how I planned and constructed this music.  In this article, I’ll be focusing on a couple of broader concepts related to the role that music played in this project.  But first, let’s briefly discuss the game itself.

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Narrative in trailers, cutscenes and cinematics (for the game music composer)

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This photo includes the logo of the Spore Hero video game, and the game's composer Winifred Phillips. Phillips is the author of the book A Composer's Guide to Game Music, published by The MIT Press.

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Hey, everybody!  I’m video game composer Winifred Phillips, and I’m happy to welcome you back to the last installment of our four-part discussion of “scoring-to-picture” techniques within video games.  In these articles we’ve considered how cutscenes, trailers, and cinematics can benefit from specific musical strategies.  As game composers, our jobs involve lots of complex music systems requiring expert knowledge of dynamic composition techniques.  However, we can still benefit from an examination of the goals that music can achieve during linear presentations within a game.  Such goals may include:

  1. Characterization
  2. Information
  3. Identity
  4. Narrative

Earlier in this series of articles, we’ve discussed the ways in which music can support believable and moving characterization.  We considered the ability of a musical score to emphasize details and enhance comprehension of information.  We’ve also considered how a game’s intrinsic identity can be reinforced using thoughtful choices of musical style, particularly in the case of custom music for game trailers.  So now let’s move on to the last item on our list, and the one most closely associated with linear music composition:

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Identity in trailers, cutscenes and cinematics (for the game music composer)

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Image of video game composer Winifred Phillips in her music production studio, regarding images from the DC Dual Force project.

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Hello there!  I’m video game composer Winifred Phillips, and I’m glad you could join us for the continuation of our four-part discussion of traditional “scoring-to-picture” techniques within a video game project.  We’ve been examining the music needs of cinematics, cutscenes, and trailers, with an eye towards pinpointing specific goals that music can achieve. Those goals include:

  1. Characterization
  2. Information
  3. Identity
  4. Narrative

In our previous articles we thought about how music can accentuate the believability and importance of characters, and how music can help players absorb and digest information.  So let’s move on to the third item on our list of goals:

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Information in trailers, cutscenes and cinematics (for the game music composer)

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Winifred Phillips is a BAFTA-nominated video game composer, and the author of the book A Composer's Guide to Game Music. This photo depicts Phillips at work in her music production studio.

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Hey, everyone!  I’m video game composer Winifred Phillips, and I’d like to welcome you back to our four-part discussion of traditional “scoring-to-picture” techniques within a video game project, and how these play into our work as game composers.  We’ve been looking at examples of cinematics, cutscenes and trailers to see how this kind of linear composition style accomplishes specific goals.  That list of goals includes:

  1. Characterization
  2. Information
  3. Identity
  4. Narrative

In our previous article, we took a look at how music can best emphasize and support characters during cutscenes and cinematics. By using linear music for the purposes of characterization, we can accentuate the distinct traits of important characters, or provide insight into their state of mind.

Now, let’s consider when our music composition goals are less emotional, and more utilitarian.  In this article, we’ll be moving on from characterization to take a look at how information is conveyed in linear cinematics and cutscenes.  When the primary goal of a cinematic is to provide players with important details, we can assist by composing music to support the way information is disseminated.  This can help players to better absorb all the facts presented.

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Characterization in trailers, cutscenes and cinematics (for the game music composer)

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Photo of BAFTA-nominated composer Winifred Phillips at work in her music production studio. Phillips' projects include titles in six of gamings biggest franchises: God of War, Assassin's Creed, Total War, LittleBigPlanet, Lineage, and The Sims.

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Glad you’re here!  I’m video game composer Winifred Phillips–  thanks for joining us!  As we all know, dynamic music has become a central focus of our craft as game composers. In our past articles here, we tend to focus on the awesome power of dynamic implementation to increase the utility of game music across lengthy gameplay sequences.  In-game music serves many purposes, so it must morph and change in order to best accommodate shifting circumstances.  However, no matter how interactive our in-game tracks may be, we inevitably run into situations in which dynamic music systems fall short.

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Utility for Modular Game Music (Composing for Lineage M: GDC 2022)

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In her music studio at Generations Productions, Winifred Phillips is pictured here composing music for her video game projects. Phillips is a BAFTA-nominated video game composer of music for games in the franchises God of War, Assassin's Creed, Total War, Lineage, LittleBigPlanet, and The Sims.

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Delighted you’re here!  I’m video game composer Winifred Phillips.  Welcome to the fifth and concluding installment in this article series based on my Game Developers Conference 2022 presentation, “Composing for Lineage M: Modular Construction in Game Music.”  You’ll find the entire contents of my GDC lecture in these articles, accompanied by all of the included videos and some of the images from the Powerpoint presentation I used during my conference session.

During the previous four articles in this series, we learned about how NCSoft ported the original world-famous Lineage PC game from 1998 to mobile devices under the name Lineage M.  We discussed how the launch of brand-new DLC content for this mobile port raised an unusual conundrum.  How does a modern game composer create new music that will work effectively within a game engine originally devised in the 1990s?  In the previous articles of this series, we discussed the popular DLC release of Lineage M: The Elmor, and I described what it was like creating new music for such an awesome game with an amazingly long history and enduring fanbase.

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Segmentation for Modular Game Music (Composing for Lineage M: GDC 2022)

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Pictured working in her music studio at Generations Productions, As a video game composer, Winifred Phillips' credits include games in the franchises The Sims, Total War, Assassin's Creed, LittleBigPlanet, and God of War. In this photo, Phillips is pictured at work in her music production studio.

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So happy you’ve joined us!  I’m video game composer Winifred Phillips, and this is the fourth article in my series based on my Game Developers Conference 2022 presentation, “Composing for Lineage M: Modular Construction in Game Music.”  I’ve included the content of my GDC lecture in these articles, along with the videos and some of the images I used in my Powerpoint presentation during the conference.

In the first three articles of this series, we discussed the port of the popular Lineage PC game from 1998 to mobile devices under the name Lineage M, and the subsequent launch of brand-new content for this world-famous game in the DLC release Lineage M: The Elmor.

This is an official promotional game image supporting a discussion of game music composition within a modular system, as described by video game music composer Winifred Phillips.

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Stemming for Modular Game Music (Composing for Lineage M: GDC 2022)

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Video game composer Winifred Phillips was nominated for a BAFTA for her work composing music for the LittleBigPlanet franchise (other projects include games from the franchises Total War, The Sims, Assassin's Creed, and God of War). Phillips is pictured her working in her music production studio at Generations Productions LLC.

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Welcome!  I’m video game composer Winifred Phillips.  I’m glad you’re here for this third article in my series based on my Game Developers Conference 2022 lecture, “Composing for Lineage M: Modular Construction in Game Music.” My GDC presentation explored the top creative and technical challenges of creating a flexible music system for a game with a retro design.  This article series shares most of the content of that GDC presentation, along with the videos I included in my presentation at the conference.

In the first two articles of this series, we explored the power and awesome popularity of retro gaming.  We reviewed the history of the world-famous Lineage video game franchise, including how the original Lineage PC game from 1998 found its way to modern mobile devices in 2017 under the name Lineage M.  I shared my experience as the chosen composer of the music for a new DLC release for Lineage M, and what it was like composing the first new gameplay music for the original Lineage MMORPG in over 24 years.

An official game logo and cover image, as included in the article written by video game composer Winifred Phillips.

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Structure for Modular Game Music (Composing for Lineage M: GDC 2022)

Posted by Winifred Phillips on

BAFTA-nominated video game composer Winifred Phillips is pictured here working in her music production studio at Generations Productions. Phillips' video game credits include music for games in the famous franchises Lineage, Total War, God of War, Assassin's Creed, LittleBigPlanet, and The Sims.

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Hey everybody!  I’m video game composer Winifred Phillips.  Thanks for joining me for this second article in my series based on my Game Developers Conference 2022 lecture, “Composing for Lineage M: Modular Construction in Game Music.”  In my GDC presentation, I discussed my work composing music for a recent installment in the famous Lineage franchise (one of the most popular MMORPG game series ever made).  This article series will share the content of that GDC talk, along with the audiovisual samples I included in my presentation at the conference.

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Techniques for Modular Game Music (Composing for Lineage M: GDC 2022)

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In the Generations Productions music studio, video game music composer Winifred Phillips is pictured here working on projects. Phillips is best known for composing music for games in the franchises Assassin's Creed, Total War, God of War, Lineage, The Sims, and LittleBigPlanet.

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Hello there!  I’m video game composer Winifred Phillips.  At the most recent Game Developers Conference, I was pleased to present a lecture as part of the conference’s audio track.  GDC is a top video game industry conference, packed with expert sessions supplemented by an array of awesome opportunities to network and learn.  Whenever I give a GDC presentation, I like to include the content of my lecture in my articles here, so I’m now kicking off a five-part series of articles based on my presentation in March!  In these articles, I’ve included the substance of my GDC presentation, along with most of the multimedia materials I used to illustrate concepts during my lecture.  So let’s get started!

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