12 minute read
East Meets West: A Conversation with Multi-Genre Composer
East Meets West: A Conversation with Multi-Genre Composer Min He
Min He is a 3X HMMA-nominated media Composer based in Los Angeles. Originally from China, Min studied music at the Central Conservatory of Music in Beijing and at the prestigious Scoring for Motion Pictures and Television program at the University of Southern California. She has been involved in the production of scoring projects creating commercial music for video games, film and television since 2015. Her music credits including ABC TV show How To Get Away With Murder, Netflix series Into The Night, Sony film Life In A Year, and Sundance animation Meal In The Plate. In 2018, Min founded Glissando Music & Sound Productions, a music team that provides original music for video games. Min has worked with legendary studios and production companies such as Electronic Arts, Veewo Games, Tencent, NetEase, and more. Audio Source: How did you start your composing career?
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Min: I first became involved with music at the age of 5, when I took up the accordion— a very heavy instrument for a young girl! Soon after, my parents brought me a piano. I started out like any student, learning songs by other composers, but I quickly became obsessed with improvising my own piano music. Then one day, I wrote the notes that I was improvising on a piece of paper. And that was the start of a composing career that has lasted to this day!
Audio Source: How did you first become interested in the video game world and start to write video game music?
Min: I was first introduced to video games when I was very little. My grandpa had a
Nintendo Entertainment System, and we would play Super Mario Bros. and Bomberman when I went over to his house. He was 70 years old at the time, and it made quite an impression on me that video games could bring so much joy to not just kids, but people of all ages. Later, my cousin introduced me to Heroes of Might and Magic III on my computer at home, and this is when I really began to take notice of the music in the game. I was obsessed! I was just blown away that music could take you right back to medieval times. I still get goosebumps when I listen to that soundtrack even today! After that, I was really keyed into the soundtracks of new games that would come out, and I remember being a big fan of the music for big games like World of Warcraft and small indie games like Botanicula. This is what inspired me to study music.
I was very fortunate to have the chance to study music composition at the Central Conservatory of Music, the most fine music school in China, and later I moved to LA to study film and game music at the University of Southern California, where I got to study under master composers like Garry Schyman (Bioshock) and Bruce Broughton (Silverado). After graduating, I had an opportunity to work together with the composer Photek (How to Get Away with Murder, Need for Speed), and as a classically trained composer, I gained five years of valuable experience working in the world of electronic and pop music, which has allowed me to expand my box of tools and to work in a wide variety of different genres.
I started scoring my own game projects in 2016, starting with small indie games like Zombie Rollerz and Pursuit of Light 2, and I was very lucky because both of these games were popular and got quite a bit of attention, so my music began to be noticed by other game developers. Through word of mouth and the work that I did, I keep getting invited to score more and bigger games, and in a wide variety of styles. These projects included Tencent Timi Studio’s CrossFire Mobile in a Chinese traditional style, NetEase’s LifeAfter in a hybrid orchestral style, the console game Neon Abyss in EDM style, and the console game In Nightmare, which had intimate and mysterious style music.
When I was asked by Steve Schnur, the President of Music for Electronic Arts (EA), to compose some Chinese traditional music for The Sims 4, I was thrilled! It had been a long-time dream of mine to write music for The Sims, and on top of that, I got to represent my culture by writing authentic traditional Chinese wedding music. It is such a wonderful opportunity for me to introduce a Western audience to Chinese culture through my music.
So it’s been a long road from those first days of inspiration to actually having a career writing for video games, and I look forward to seeing what the future has in store!
Audio Source: Can you talk a bit about your video game composition process, and where you find your inspiration?
Min: The first thing I always do is to sit down and have a conversation with the game’s development team. This is when they would
share with me any materials that they have, be it play test demos, concept art, references to other games and music, and the main plot points and character arcs. I always ask for them to share with me as much as possible, because it is all helpful in starting my process of immersion into the world of the game.
Once I feel like I have a good feel for it, I will sit down at the computer and make a few demos to share with the team. These are to illustrate the concepts and musical language I’ve come up with for the game so the team can hear them and give feedback. Often, we’ll go back and forth like this a bit before the concept and sound is fully dialed in. I always say that a composer has two jobs: one is to please the people that have hired me, and the other is to compose in a way that preserves the musical integrity of the music. So I’m always trying to incorporate all of the ideas and input of the developers while still creating music that makes “musical sense.”
As for inspiration, most of my inspiration comes from the game that I’m working on itself.
It comes from forming a deep understanding of the game itself and its story and visuals, which is very important because any music that I write needs to serve the project first and foremost. However, I also find it is very important to always be studying, playing, and listening to new games that are on the market so that I can be aware of new developments, to keep the music that I write relevant and current. So I sometimes draw a bit of inspiration from that as well.
Audio Source: Do you have any advice about how to work effectively with game developers?
Min: My advice for working with game developers would be:
1. Always be clear and efficient with your communication. Listen well to what the people that you are working with are saying, and incorporate their ideas into your writing. If you can do this you are already 60% of the way there.
2. Always be polishing your skills and expanding your musical vocabulary. You want to be ready to take on any challenge that they might throw at you, regardless of style or genre.
3. Always be playing games! Play all different kinds of games. I know that there are tons of games being released every day, but you should at least be familiar with the most popular ones. You should be playing them and trying to understand what makes them popular. And you should also be playing and familiarizing yourself with classic games that might come up during your meetings with developers. The more games you are familiar with, the easier it will be to communicate with the developers that you work with.
Remember, as a composer you are trying to perform a delicate juggling act: make music that satisfies the wants and needs of the developer, that fits the game, and (ideally) that everyone enjoys listening to. If you can find a way to keep all these balls in the air more often than not, you will have a great career!
Audio Source: You score music for both video games and TV/Film. Can you walk us through the similarities and differences between these two fields?
Min: Yes, absolutely! I love working in all of those media, and each comes with its own unique challenges. As you know, game music is non-linear, except in the case of an occasional cinematic cutscene. And it is mostly loop-based, so the biggest challenge is trying to walk that fine line of making music that is interesting but not distracting. Film and TV music, on the other hand, is linear, but you have dialogue and sound effects to worry about. So you always need to be aware of how your music is relating to the drama in the scene, as well as making sure it plays nice with those other audio elements.
To me, the biggest similarity between scoring games vs. film and TV is that the music is super important! It helps establish the mood and tone of the world and also helps deliver an emotional punch when it is needed!
Audio Source: Would you like to share any current or upcoming news?
Min: Definitely! I’m currently working on music for some really fun titles: a horror game from NEKCOM Games called Showa American Story; Lost Soul Aside from Ultizero Games and Sony Entertainment; Evotinction from Spikewave Games & Sony’s China Hero Project; and two more indie games which don’t have official titles yet. I’m very excited about all of these projects and I can’t wait for them to be released so you can check them out!
Audio Source: Thanks so much for your time, Min, and we look forward to hearing more of your game scores soon.
ELIAS 4 BRINGS A BUNCH OF NEW POSSIBILITIES TO EVERYONE WORKING WITH GAME AUDIO.
Elias Softwares core ideas are to improve workflows and shorten the time between getting an idea and actually hearing it in your game. To do this, they have built Elias 4 around two fundamental ideas ‑ do as much as possible in real‑time, and move as much control as possible to the audio designers and tech audio designers. In the software, this is realized by something they call Remoting and by using node graphs.
Remoting allows you to connect Elias 4 directly to your game engine and update, add or remove anything in a running game session. Everything you do is instantly hearable without having to build, export, restart or reload anything ‑ just keep on playing! The real‑time aspect goes all the way down to the filesystem, meaning you’re able to hot‑swap or add new audio files at any time. You can even ingest files directly from your DAW without even having our studio tool open.
The node graph allows you to build smart audio and music systems within Elias 4. Instead of building complex middle layers between your game engine and your audio middleware, audio teams can now build, control, and test complex (or simple) systems in their own protected environment. This can mean simple things, like remapping values or evaluating multiple states, or more complex things, like reacting to multiple sources of live data from the game to build dynamic and realistic audio environments. With this being separated from the game engine you can more freely build and test without the risk of breaking things.
This patch is the start of a system to control the sounds of a spacecraft moving around in a non‑gravity environment with thrusters and engines. Different nodes are for example used to adjust the pitch and amplitude depending on the state of the spacecraft.
Use global and local patch parameters to keep track of different states, values, and events in the game, and then use them to direct the logic and sound in the patches.
You can also start building these systems earlier and even test them without having a finished game feature available.
Other workflow aspects Elias Software worked on are, for example, making assets easily re‑usable between projects, a system to inherit logic so you never have to duplicate data, a version control friendly project structure, nice on the eyes UI, and much more.
With their history from previous generations of Elias, they also have a lot of groundwork already done. Besides offering great support and onboarding, they are approved for release on all consoles and platforms.
MEMBERS OF G.A.N.G. GET 50% DISCOUNT ON ELIAS 4 (Pro and Essential) WITH THIS CODE: D58Q_ GANG _QUQM More info on eliassoftware.com Valid until: Oct 31, 2022
WHEN ME AND PHILIP BENNEFALL FOUNDED THIS COMPANY, IT WAS ALL ABOUT ADAPTIVE MUSIC.
I was frustrated by how there was, at the time, no way of making adaptive music sound linear and composed to your individual way of playing a game. With Elias we gave the composers the tool to accomplish this and a way to author and experiment with their music in a composer friendly tool. Now I’m so excited to extend that workflow for audio designers but also to change the way composers and audio designers work with modern implementation.
Elias will always be about results and to accomplish your musical idea or your sound design you will need a tool that keeps you in the zone. A tool that doesn’t force you out of the creative process. Equally important is that you need to rely on the engine. You need to know that what you create works all the way in the hands of the gamers. That is why we spent a lot of time the last year on stability and future proof technology.
