Crimson Skies Composer Stan LePard and Audio Lead David Henry
There's a lot going on in Crimson Skies®: High Road to Revenge™. It's a 1930s period piece; it's a swashbuckling adventure; and it's a fast-paced dogfighting game. It couldn't have been easy to record a musical score that encompassed all of these moods and influences, but luckily the team had a lot of talent to draw on. Recently, we were able to talk with Composer Stan LePard and Audio Lead David Henry about the challenges the team faced in putting Crimson Skies to music.
Xbox.com: Hey guys. Thanks for talking with us. For starters, tell us what previous game-music projects you've been involved in.
LePard: I've composed music for the first Crimson Skies title, Links, NBA Inside Drive, Sneakers, Combat Flight Simulator, Project Gotham Racing, NFL Fever, Microsoft Golf, and King of Dragon Pass. The first game I ever worked on was called Hover, and it shipped with Microsoft Windows 95 Plus Pack. I've also done orchestrations and produced the orchestral sessions for Age of Mythologies, Mech Warrior 4, and Rise of Nations.
Henry: I've been in the games industry for about nine years now. I started as a composer at Sierra, most notably writing and arranging music for Gabriel Knight 3. I came to Microsoft in 1999 to work on the PC version of Crimson Skies (where I first met Stan) and have also done a number of other projects here.
Xbox.com: Were there particular films or games that inspired you in creating the music for Crimson Skies?
LePard: I combined influences from both film music and concert music of the 1930s. I was particularly influenced by the Errol Flynn swashbucklers scored by Erich Von Korngold and the concert music of Igor Stravinsky and Richard Strauss. I also studied the music of contemporary film composers whose work shared similar influences. These included, for example, the action music of John Williams and Don Davis and the suspense music of Bernard Herrmann.
Xbox.com: What sort of mood were you trying to evoke with the Crimson Skies music?
LePard: My goal was to write period music that was true to the 1930s without being too derivative of any one composer or style. I combined elements of Post-Romanticism with harmonic and rhythmic elements of the more "modern" music of the 30s. I chose to use a complex, often atonal, harmonic language so that we could randomly connect the various pieces without having to worry too much about key relationships. This allowed us, for example, to avoid looping battle music over and over or linking battle pieces together in predictable order. Instead, we could randomly select a new order in which to play battle pieces one after another each time the game is played.
Xbox.com: The score for Crimson Skies sounds like a Hollywood-scale production. How was this accomplished? What tools did you use?
Henry: The initial idea was for the Crimson Skies music to be "all big band, all the time." We did some early experiments in this vein, and it soon became apparent that we wouldn't be able to get the mood we were after with exclusively big band music—in general the tone was too light. I started talking with Stan about the options for a more cinematic style, and together we began to explore some of the ramifications of moving toward a full orchestra.
LePard: We hired a full 40-piece orchestra to record the music. I created sketches using my sampling keyboards, and after these were approved, I orchestrated the music for the live orchestra. We recorded them at Studio X in Seattle and then mixed the recordings at Microsoft Games' Sound Lab and at my home studio. For composing, I used Opcode's Studio Vision sequencing software, as well as a pencil and manuscript paper. For orchestration, I use Sibelius notation software, and for recording and mixing we used Protools. The final mastering processing was done using Sonic Foundry's Sound Forge, while the soundtrack CD was assembled using Sonic Foundry's CD Architect.
Xbox.com: Explain the process for creating game music. Are you able to play the game for inspiration?
Henry: Most of the music needed to be composed before the game design was complete. I provided a list of cues for Stan and information about the general situation in which each cue could be used. The list includes descriptions like "doom and gloom" or "wacky-mechanical." Combat music is very important, as is "tension music" to introduce a dangerous situation. There are a series of "victory" and "defeat" tags that play depending on the outcome of a specific battle, and also some music to establish the mood of a location, for which I coined the wonderful term "flying around music."
LePard: David would periodically show me current builds of the game as it was in production. I preferred to watch him play it so that I could just think about the music. I didn't play the game myself until after my work was done. Most of the music was scored with general scenarios in mind, combined with my recollection of the overall look and feel of the game. The videos were scored to actual animatics with final timings. All the characters' movements and dialogue would be present, but all the textures would not necessarily be rendered nor were the final sound effects present.
Xbox.com: Is there any particular track from Crimson Skies that ranks as your favorite?
LePard: Perhaps my favorite of the battle pieces is the track titled "Vengeance from on High."
The beginning seems reminiscent of John Williams' or Don Davis' action music, but most of the piece reminds me more of Stravinsky’s music of the period, particularly in the rhythms and the use of melodic "cells." The melodic material is mostly based on an octatonic scale, which is typical both of Stravinsky's music as well as much of the action music in films. I'm especially fond of the harmonic language in this piece—the extended harmonies and polychords. I also like the complex polyrhythms and the way the overall orchestration turned out. Like much of the battle pieces in the game, the harmonic changes start to come fast and furious near the end to break down any expectation of the next piece starting in a particular key. And the whole thing seems totally true to the period without sounding particularly old-fashioned.
Henry: This track is featured on the bonus DVD of the original soundtrack as a Dolby Digital 5.1 surround mix. One reason this works so well in the context of the game is the unusual meter. Because there is never a predicable rhythmic pattern, players will never subconsciously grab on to the repetition inherent with that, so the music feels as if it responding to player actions. It’s a neat and very effective trick.
I think Stan really stepped up and wrote some of the best music that has ever been in a game. For this game, I wanted to go beyond what would generally be done in the world of commercial music; I wanted to explore tonalities that would go beyond what people expect to hear in a console game. Stan came through in spades on this and turned out a brilliant score.
