Guest Post: Student Andrew Lipian attends the Video Game Scoring Workshop at NYU Steinhardt

I'm excited and delighted to have my second guest post of my blog's history, again by my student Andrew Lipian.  He's been working on this one for quite a while.  Again, I think it's great to hear about these current experiences for students who have attended them.  Here he describes his experience during the past summer in the Video Game Scoring Workshop at NYU Steinhardt.  

NYU Summer Workshop in Game Audio is a Wwise Choice  - Andrew Lipian

Before the snow melts, flowers bloom, and the school busses whir to a stop, up-and-coming game composers will be thinking of how to enhance their audio chops this summer. They need look no further than the Video Game Scoring Workshop at NYU Steinhardt, led by game composer Tom Salta and his team of fellow audio pros.  These included Gina Zdanowicz - founder of Serial Lab Sound - who lead students through the technical side of creating adaptive music systems in Wwise, and Jason Kanter - Audio Lead for Avalanche Studios in New York City - who gave a presentation on sound design and joined in discussions regarding the business of game music.  

Bolstered by such a well-rounded team, this program was unique from others. Composers usually sign up for similar workshops to master the machinations of Wwise or FMOD –audio implementation tools – but this program takes it a step further. As part of NYU’s “Screen Scoring Summer Workshop” offerings, students travel from global destinations such as Japan and Israel to attend a week-long intensive workshop offering one-on-one training in Wwise by NYU faculty and staff. During the week, however, the entire group actively observes each new iteration of their individual interactive audio projects which get critiqued and modified by Salta over the course of the week. I had occasion to audit the 2018 class, watching the students’ creative processes unfold until they caught lightning in a bottle, leaving with a fully functional and implemented game score. 

New York University’s workshop succeeded due in no small part to the inspired choice of NYU alum Tom Salta (HALO, Killer Instinct) to head the project, bringing his years of industry accomplishments to the fore. He shared his various experiences and career journey from touring with Pop music stars, record producing, transitioning to composing video game music to delivering his recent TEDx talk. Everything Tom imparted was solid gold, and he even walked students through his process of creating music for games like “Prince of Persia.” 

Notably, what Salta had championed with this program was unprecedented for NYU.  

“This new focus on music for games was unheard of back when I was here,” Salta explained. For the first program of its kind at NYU, though, it was a resounding success – here’s how it worked:

The students downloaded “Angry Bots,” the game they would implement their music into with Wwise. Angry Bots is a third person shooter with a solid-snake-like character, thanks to the creative voice overs scripted and recorded by fellow instructor, Gina Zdanowicz, infiltrating a Robot Laboratory as the lethal machines attempt to terminate him. Each code he cracks opens a new door, creating opportunities for the score to develop as he delves deeper into the labyrinthine facility. After also downloading Wwise, the students are then asked to begin sketching music for the game using their Digital Audio Workstations (DAWs). The entire class witnessed their peers develop and conceive music in a linear fashion – structured with an A and B section with a loop, for example – into horizontal resequencing, where specific in-game actions “trigger” the next music track. For Salta, watching the students master this concept was a highlight of the course. 

“This was the first time many of the participants ever ventured beyond linear composition -- as in music for TV and Film -- into the non-linear world of video game music,” Salta notes; “The music needs to account for all sorts of gameplay possibilities, yet still feel like a unified, continuous piece. Seeing a student’s eyes light up when they finally understand this is unforgettable.” 

The students – ranging from High-School to seasoned professionals – created scores as diverse as the nations they hailed from. One memorable moment occurred when a composer’s use of a trailer rise (consisting of several string instruments rising to crescendo with tremolos) surprisingly fit the action every time it appeared. Another came when a student from Japan envisioned a lighthearted, comedic element to the level – opting for a jazzy track smacking of something from “The Naked Gun.” Every one of these ideas changed the feel – even the identity – of the game; a reminder of the important influence music has in shaping the playing experience.

None of this would have been possible without the see-what-sticks approach of Salta and his team, who created a learning environment which encouraged inventiveness as much as it spurred technical mastery. All this was part of the plan.

“When I first spoke to NYU about putting this workshop together, my dream was to create a ‘bootcamp’ of sorts that would walk participants through the entire gamut of what goes into creating original music for games. I wanted a hands-on, interactive experience where students would be able to create original music from scratch and put it into a playable video game by the end of the week. Not just talking about the concepts but actually doing it.” 

Most assuredly, it was this atmosphere that lent so many international students their most formative experience in game scoring to that point – and that same atmosphere will continue drawing throngs of ambitious composers to NYU, ready to harness the powers of this interactive medium in immersing the next generation of gamers. These skills, Salta adds, are a must-have for those aspiring to a career in game audio. 

“For anyone coming into the industry now, it’s important to have proficiency in the entire 

game audio pipeline as it will open up more opportunities. Composers who know both the compositional and technical aspects of game music implementation will have a leg up on those who just know how to compose music.”

As the industry changes, the skills one is “expected,” to have, versus those which are “desirable,” shift. These days, if you want to work in video game music, you are expected to know Wwise or FMOD and understand audio implementation, a skillset this course specializes in teaching. 

When today’s composers are ready to take their skills to that next level, Tom Salta and the NYU “Scoring for Videogames” Workshop are there to give them the tools they need to succeed. 

*Program dates for the 2019 NYU Scoring for Videogames Workshop are June 30 – July 5. 

Guest post: Student Andrew Lipian attends GDC on a GANG scholarship

I'm delighted to have my first guest post on my blog!  The below is written by my first ever one-on-one game audio student, Andrew Lipian.  Andrew won a student scholarship from the Game Audio Network Guild to attend GDC in March and I ask him to document his experience.  I thought it'd be cool to hear about the conference from the viewpoint an attendee who is both very interested in the field, a young up-comer in the area, and who went to GDC on scholarship.  Also, a great chance for him to synthesize all the notes he took there and his overall experience.  Andrew will have a second post upcoming soon as well where he describes his recent experience at NYU Steinhardt's Video Game Scoring Workshop.  

Four months have passed since the Game Developers Conference (GDC) in San Fransisco, where droves of video game industry elites gather annually to discuss the mechanics and business of gaming. I recall a large, imposing map of the world in one of the conference halls with the words “where are you from,” scribed above it. The map was bathed in little red dots indicating where attendees hailed from; not even Siberia was without a few. As I squinted between the chicken pox markers to find my home in Ohio, I began to reflect on the awesome conditions that brought me to this remarkable conference; how, exactly, did I get here?

Why, studying video game music with Matthew Thompson, of course! His guidance helped make my secret passion for game audio a not-so-secret passion by having me apply for a longshot scholarship to the Game Audio Network Guild. This award included an All Access pass to GDC with a personal industry mentor in game audio. I submitted a 1-minute RPG-style battle track I wrote under Thompson's supervision, a narrative with some letters of recommendation, and I was elated to see I was selected for the award! The University of Michigan School of Music Theater and Dance (SMTD) even paid for my flight! 

What would follow? A whirlwind of corporate convention constructs the size of circus tents, endless panels and seminars on all aspects of game development; industry titans roaming about like average Joes, and a bevy of indie video game stations ready for play. 

The Moscone Center, host of GDC, was a veritable sea of people. The complex is broken into three massive buildings (North, East, and West), the former two with sprawling convention expos in each basement (if you can call something the size of a NASA Space Silo a basement). Throngs of video game journalists, voice actors, narrative writers, graphics artists, directors, CEOs, programmers, and game designers painted the halls and courtyards. While I enjoyed these diverse people and their ideas, what I was really there for was the Game Audio. 

I would soon be greeted by my assigned mentor, Adam Gubman. CEO and founder of Moonwalk Audio, who has written music for hundreds of clients such as Disney, Zynga, Storm8, Sony, PlayFirst, GSN, GameHouse, NBC Today, and Warner-Chappell – to name a few. We met at one of the many meet-and-greet tables on the third floor of Moscone West, where I would get acquainted with one of the most motivated people I have ever met. With a forward, engaged posture and a surveying glance, Gubman was a dodecahedra-tattooed, spikey haired mensch; intense and cool, with a quick wit and boundless passion for music. He also had a no-nonsense approach to success: if you want this, work hard every day, don't burn bridges, absorb all you can, and persist. I've seen men of his intensity in successful musicians like Tommy Tallarico and Tom Salta and have come to identify it as the flagship trait that makes these men so successful. Their time is precious, they waste precious little of it, and tackle every task with speed and abandon. 

Adam would prove an impactful mentor, spending a great deal of time with me despite a very busy schedule of his own. Explaining a personal story of how a demo song of his won a Golden Globe, Gubman said you never know what each opportunity could bring. Demonstrating loyalty and compassion, he tells me, creates a “halo effect,” building rapport and camaraderie with potential clients. Trust and Loyalty, Adam believes, set you apart from other composers and earn you respect. He advised I take on GDC as a sponge, absorbing all I could, and give my time to every opportunity, even if the upshot for involvement wasn’t clear yet; I decided to run with his advice.

There was no shortage of sessions to enjoy in game audio. From a seminar in VR audio, featuring Winnifred Phillips as lecturer, we analyzed how special positioning for music can be more immersive than stereo in this medium, using 3D elements to implement a 2D score into the VR world. Music could even transition from 2D to 3D for dramatic effect, citing how she used 3D sound effects in the game “fail factory,” to accent the 2D musical score, creating several sounds in the “VR space.” One example was the loud “clang,” of a factory mallet dropping as the downbeat to a soundtrack for a stage. Analyzing “Shadows of Mordor,” with Nathan Grigg and Garry Schyman, they discussed how the tribal identity of various tribes in the game informed the musical themes. Using a tribe’s unique armor types, appearance and function of forts, enabled them to use the music to accent these properties. For example, the “Machine Tribe Fort Theme,” is comprised of billowing smokestacks, so he created a “non-melodic, plodding rhythmic theme with odd sets of industrial sounds to blend together and bring the orchestra in, underneath. Also, in a post-mortem on the “Call of Duty WWII,” sound track, Will Roget –who took home almost every award at the 2018 G.A.N.G. awards – described his embrace of a “modern,” sound through expanding on tradition and not limiting oneself to “genre expectation.” For example, to create the “WW II vibe,” he decided upon string quartet and solo cello over big drums and high winds or overt brass. This enabled him to focus on a modern presentation, with an early focus on the “in-game mix,” such as using trumpets only for doubling horns (instrumental EQ), and expanded low winds and brass into a “synth tuba.” He peppered his music with signature sounds, like the “echo horns,” in the piece “Memory of War,” or air raid sounds in the piece, “Haze of War.” Roget even used extended playing techniques, such as aleatoric orchestral techniques and “overpressure” in the strings. 

There was so much to absorb, I haven’t space in this post to include it all! 

When not at the many seminars, I met developers seeking music for their games, attended a G.A.N.G town hall where I pitched an idea to head up a student committee, volunteered at an IASIG meetup to run their slack channel, and got to present an award at the 2018 G.A.N.G Audio Awards ceremony as one of the 4 scholars at GDC. To top it off, I even got to meet “The Fat Man.”

GDC was an unforgettable experience, where endless paths crisscross into an intricate network to produce the pixelated art and sonic beauty keeping our hands glued to a controller. Whether I was examining the music of “Middle Earth: Shadow of War,” having my music played and critiqued before a panel of game composers at the “Demo Derby,” (where it was well received), or making new friends and colleagues, GDC provided an invaluable foot in the door for what I love to do. 

As I left my friends, boarded my flight, and scribbled notes on contacts from the handfulls of cards I obtained, the words of Adam Gubman pushed me forward faster than the jet I sat on. “You gotta be fast, you gotta work hard to deliver for your client; you have to push and persist every day.”