Scoring for Film, TV, Video Games & Beyond

Catching up with Hildur Guðnadóttir & Sam Slater: Scoring for Film, TV, Video Games and Beyond!

Hildur Guðnadóttir and Sam Slater have worked together on many projects over the past six years. Each are independent artists in their own right, but regularly take the opportunity to collaborate with each other. Audio Source: Hello, Hildur and Sam! Thank you for taking part in this interview. It’s wonderful to speak with you both.

Hildur/Sam: You too!

Audio Source: It’s been a whirlwind few years with the tremendous success of projects such as Chernobyl, Joker, and recently, Battlefield: 2042. Have you had any time to catch your breath or has it been full steam ahead?

Hildur/Sam: Indeed, it’s been rather full on but we have been breathing deeply throughout. If you have ever seen someone preparing to collect clams from the sea bed without an oxygen tank, you will have a

reference for the style of breathing - intense, deep and deliberate, occasionally panicked yet ultimately energizing. :)

Audio Source: For Battlefield, how long was the process from kickoff to the launch of the game?

Hildur/Sam: The whole process took 18 months, from us starting to have broad aesthetic discussions with the sound team, to the final delivery before the first release of the game. It was a beautifully long-form process which took us through most of the pandemic, and gave us a real grounding throughout such a turbulent period in the world.

Audio Source: Can you share a bit about the creative process as well as what your vision was for the score?

Hildur/Sam: Our vision ultimately rested on a simple idea, that we would use the materials most present in the levels themselves, for example rusted metal, sand, wind, glass etc. We would build chaotic, sound making systems in our studio in Berlin, and we would provoke them until they gave us strange, wonderful and increasingly unexpected sonic results which we would then fold back into the level itself. Our compositional principle was that we wanted the unpredictability of the environments in each of the levels to be part of the sonics too, therefore increasingly dissolving the lines between visuals, foley/ SFX and music - hopefully the result is a feeling the the entire environment is pushing you forwards, not just that someone has retrospectively slapped some “exciting string music” onto the game.

Audio Source: What’s the most unexpected moment for you that has come out of this project?

Hildur/Sam: As two composers more familiar with working in linear formats (film, TV, etc.) we both found the entire process of working out the game-music-puzzle really exciting - one must constantly ask how ideas relate to each other in a world, or piece of music, without a start or a stop. We have always enjoyed testing the limits of the format we are working in, and were constantly surprised as our understanding of game composition grew throughout the making of BF2042.

A good example is when Andreas (Almstrom, part of the music and sound team) asked us to change a sound which we had grown rather fond of. When we asked him why, he said that, unlike in a film where such a sound such as this can be panned to the right of the screen to create width and leave space for the dialogue, in a game it meant that all the players kept spinning around and running towards the sound as they thought something important was happening on their right. These simple but beautiful lessons in how to use sound to bring a world to life were a constant joy throughout the making of the game and will reflect back onto our work in the future.

Audio Source: We want to extend a huge congratulations for being featured in the DICE at the Opera concert for Battlefield: 2042. This is such a prestigious honort to have your music performed by the Royal Swedish Orchestra at DICE’s 30th Anniversary. Can you share a bit about how this opportunity came about? Hildur/Sam: DICE mentioned this plan a few months ago and we were very happy to join. We had been developing an orchestral performance of the score for the LA Philharmonic Orchestral and BBC Symphonic Orchestra and the conversation naturally turned to how best to stage a performance in a multichannel and visually exciting format. The concert was truly spectacular!

Audio Source: How much of your music was performed?

Hildur/Sam: 14 minutes exactly!

Audio Source: Do you have any projects coming up that you can share with us?

Hildur/Sam: Aside from catching our breath, there are lots of things in the pipeline - please keep your eyes and ears peeled, and remain kind until we speak again.

Audio Source: Thank you again for speaking with us!