The Sound Architect speaks to talented Chris Green, freelance composer/sound designer for Film, TV and Games, trading under the brand Blurred Edge. Chris recently scored the original soundtrack for Criterion/EA game Need for Speed: Most Wanted, the interactive orchestral score to Little Big Planet Nightmare Before Christmas and has worked with various high profile clients within the media and entertainment industry. We speak to Chris about his career and advice for aspiring composers.
How did your journey into audio begin?
I was always passionate about it since I was very young. I fell in love with it through Disney films and musicals really. We had a piano in the corner of the house that my Mum played, so I started taking lessons on that. As I became a teenager I picked up a guitar, played in bands and various things like that. Then I found out about the Tommeister course at the Uni of Surrey and went there for an open day and thought “I have to go on this course”. While I was on that course I did a placement at Electronic Arts, so that really helped get my foot into computer games. Actually it was working with Adele, who you interviewed recently.
My big thing was that all the time I was at Uni studying I wanted to have some sort of input into the professional world as well. So while I was at Uni and doing my Masters at the Royal College of Music, I was sending demos out, keeping in touch with professional people and going to the networking industry events. I think University and music college can be quite a safe little bubble sometimes and you have to try and break out.
I agree, I think that sometimes people can get caught up in their course and think that they’ll finish their course first and then focus on getting work. They don’t realise that it’s years of networking and getting your face out there that gets you the work.
Yeah completely, it got me in trouble sometimes at Uni with missing lectures to go to a networking thing. For example the EA placement overran into my course for about a month, so I had to miss the first month. I was very much like “No I’m doing this”. It’s not more important than study, but definitely as important I personally think.
How long have you been composing for professionally?
I’d say for around the last 4 years. I graduated from the Royal College of Music 3 years ago and in my last year I was working at a company called Delicious Digital. They were the first company that really gave me a chance to try things out. They do a bit of sonic branding and sound design but they’re very much music studio. Their specialty is kind of Funk and Soul and they’ve got a really nice analogue studio setup there. It was the typical kind of story, I was a runner there, then one day a composer was ill and they were like “Chris, you can write music , get in the studio and write something”. It was a crazy chance kind of thing.
Very lucky moment then?
Completely, but I think you can make those moments for yourself, I mean to get in there as an intern I had to really badger them.
You do have to make your own luck in a way. There’s definitely a big element of luck, you know being in the right place at the right time, but if you put yourself in more places, there’s more chance you’ll be there at the right time!
Is there a piece you’ve written so far that is very personal to you or that has just stuck with you since you wrote it?
There are a few pieces that stand out for me. There was this short film I worked on (Actually the director who did the short, John Stanford, has just got funding to do a feature and I’m really lucky to be working on that, one to look out for) it was one of these things where the budget was non-existent really, but it just had such a strong creative vision and all came together really well. It was a very John Hopkins-esque soundtrack inspired by the soundtrack to Monsters (that score is amazing). Well I was really proud of that score and the whole film as well. Ever since I started writing to screen and visual, I feel like it took the creativity in my music to somewhere else that I didn’t expect. Just working off the visuals and bouncing off them. Also working with and bouncing of someone as well, having a director talk to and have their creative vision for the film inspire you, then taking that and translating it into something musical.
Yeah translating a director’s terminology can be interesting
I once had someone say that a track sounded too “Lemonadey” and they wanted more “Orange Juice”! Working out that one was quite difficult 😉
In terms of commercial work, I’d say the Renault branding project really sticks with me. That was just one of those projects that slotted into place really. The creative director on the project wanted something quirky and interesting, so gave me quite a lot of freedom, quite a good brief! They heard the first demo and just loved it and wanted to go with it. It just went really smoothly. The whole branding had a really strong concept behind it as well and I think that comes across really well in that piece.
Are those the projects you’re most proud of?
Yeah, those are the ones I always feel like I want to talk about and am most proud of. I’m really proud of the Need for Speed project too. It was just such a big project and it was so much work. I was on it solidly for nearly year and it was my first big AAA title (I mean I’d worked on Harry Potter but that was while I was just an intern there). This was the first one I’d been given a lot of responsibility on.
With such fast turn-arounds it must have been difficult to force yourself to be creative when a deadline is looming?
You have to kind of come up with ways to get round it to be truthful. Working at Delicious was one of the biggest eye openers for that, it amazing how quick they turn around things but keep the quality so high. It’s nice to think you’re going to have this ‘genius’ moment, where you come up with an amazing theme and have time to play around with it. The truth on most projects is that it’s more sticking and committing to something and making it work. You normally have like a day or two to do an advert pitch, or someone will say they didn’t like that last cute you wrote for a game, can you do a whole new version by the end of the week. You really just have to say “OK this sounds like it can work” and then just commit to it. Otherwise it’s far too easy to keep going round and round until you create like 20 ideas. A lot of times I try to commit to one idea, that at least gives you a point to focus on and inspire you to write a piece. To be truthful sometimes that original idea gets deleted or doesn’t make the cut but its all about the piece you’ve formed around it. Even a loop from a sample pack will work, something to home you in, focus you and get you started. You don’t have time to faff around in this industry.
Do you have the same issue as most composers and often spend hours on something and then you just end up scrapping it and starting gain?
Haha, yes, definitely. I’ve try to do it less and less as I’ve moved forward with my career. I personally think it’s very rare that you create something where there’s nothing salvageable at all. I always try to split sections into separate elements in the arrange window and colour-code them as I compose. So I can instantly see all the different parts and if things aren’t working can go through muting and soloing elements to find what sounds good and delete the rest.
Do you ever hesitate when deleting things and have the mentally of “I’ll finish that later”?
I used to have that so much more before I started worked in advertising. So many unfinished ideas and sounds, but I remember reading interviews with Brian Eno and John Hopkins who said that it’s really important to finish pieces and I think that’s really true, just sit down and spend some time to finish it. Sometimes you’ll go back to something and you’ll think it’s a really good piece and maybe you just weren’t in the right mood, or you were listening to it in the wrong context.
So you’re classically trained. Is that a massive help or is it a hindrance at all knowing the restrictions of music theory? Or a bit of both?
I’d say a bit of both. I started playing piano when I was younger, so I was classically trained on piano. But I never really got into that playing dots-on-a-page kind of training. So my musical reading skills have never been that brilliant. I got heavily into jazz from a young age, so with that you sort of learn all the scales and how to move around chords. I think it was that that really got me into composing with the improvising.
I sometimes find that the classical world of music is very much based around things being right or wrong. You get to interpret a piece in your own way, but you have to play the notes and the way the composer wanted it first and foremost. I met a lot of incredibly talented players at the Royal College of Music and they’re very inspiring, but when they’re were teaching me it it’s like “This is the way the piece goes, play it like that”. Also it’s the same with traditional orchestration “These are the rules, don’t break the rules.” I think that’s why I was drawn to jazz, because if you make a mistake you can improvise around it, make it part of your piece, haha its that old jazz trick of “play a mistake twice and it sounds like jazz”. I don’t like the idea that there is only one way of doing something just look at people like Debussey who threw the rules of orchestration on its head.
When composing I do a lot of processing of my sounds, so you have to learn to trust your ears. You’d still maintain the usual rules I guess, I mean you wouldn’t make everything sound bassy in the mix and you still use it for the same techniques for building up tension etc. To be truthful though when you’re using real orchestras and players there are things that work and things that don’t.
That’s why I have an orchestrator that I work with!
What’s it like working with an Orchestrator?
It’s amazing!!! You’ll give them something you thought sounded good or a really realistic orchestral mock up. Then they take it and say something like “This violin you’ve written is alright, but it will sound so much better with this articulation, or doubled/harmonised like this, with this other instrument” Things that you don’t think about unless you’re an expert on using an orchestra. Then you get it back and you’ll just think “Wow”. It’s like its your piece but on a whole different level.
It’s always a struggle trying to get certain techniques when using vsts and plug-ins or making the instruments sound exactly how you want them to.
I find that anything you want to sound really interesting or innovative, it’s hard to make it with vst’s or plug-ins. For me nothing beats a real musician, I always try to work with them as much as possible. Even if it’s just something as simple a solo violin or a solo cello line. I always have a lot of live percussion that I just play in my studio. You can hear the hand on the drum or the fingers on the frets and it just sounds so good. I always try to keep the players imperfections in when I record because that’s what gives them their character. Otherwise it can just sound like a robot string orchestra or the drums have no swing and groove to them.
How do you find your work as a freelancer, do you pitch for jobs or do you get approached?
In terms of advertising apart from a few clients that I have very good relationships with it’s usually pitching. So they’re pitching it out to around 10-15 composers. I think for those kind of projects it’s very important that you get a pitch fee. You don’t want to ever agree to work for free. Some agencies will dangled the golden carrot and say “If you win, you get £20000-30000” but the thing is even the best top-end advert composers don’t win everything they pitch on. I always see the reliable income is from the pitching and if you win it, it’s a bonus, all be it a very nice bonus!
Is the pitch fee quite rare though?
I always push for it on every commercial project I work on. They’ve got the money for it so I definitely think you should push for it. If you’re literally just starting out then maybe not, some agencies won’t offer you a pitch fee the first time but then if they give you returning work they will offer. I think it’s a must and that everything agency should give you a pitch fee. Personally every advertising job I do these days I get a pitch fee. It’s something the agencies are aware of, you should definitely push for it, it’s not cheeky at all to ask for.
So how does your process work, I assume you receive a brief first. So what’s the first thing you do after reading the brief?
Unless something completely jumps at me after reading the brief and I know exactly what to write and starting writing it in my head. I usually spend quite a while watching through the film if you’ve been given a film, or I looking over the storyboard or treatment that you get from the director. The treatment, if it’s well written, should have reference points, films that the director is using as reference, where they are filming, lighting references and if you’re lucky music references.
Does that make it easier with music references then?
Yes. Well actually only sometimes. Sometimes it’s really difficult because the client is like ‘we really want to use this reference piece but can’t afford it.’ So ask you write something as good as The Beatles or John Williams and the LSO. They can become so attached to their temp music. The amount of times they come back and say “It doesn’t really sound that much like the track we want” so you have to stand you ground and say “Well yeah because I don’t really want to get sued”.
Back to the original question though, if you’ve got the film perfect, you can just watch it and get an idea. You need something that’s going to give you a really strong idea of the shots, the feel, the pace and the main emotions and narrative. Then things like whether it’s going to be fast cuts, slow cuts, long scenes or slow camera moves, anything you can play off with the music. After that I then usually just go into Spotify and listen to a loads of music to get some inspiration.
A lot of soundtracks?
Anything really, any track that pops into my head when I look at the brief or film. Then I start thinking about why I thought of that track. Not to copy it but to start building up a musical language for what the directors trying to do visually and story-wise. Once I start getting ideas together I have a piano in the studio, so I sometimes sit at that. It’s really different every time. Sometimes it comes from the piano, sometimes from a cool sound or sample your find. If I haven’t got a pitch in I just like playing around with things like old samples and keeping on top of all the big sample libraries. Like Sonic Conture who do a lot of “out there” libraries. Their newest one is Geosonics. It’s a playable instrument based around a lot of location recordings of nature. They’re by Chris Watson, who is like the daddy of BBC natural history recording.
My big thing is I hate putting sounds in for the sake of it. I try to always find a palette of sounds and a concept to get started with.
Do you ever get disappointed because a client wants something generic after you’ve tried to do something really innovative?
Of course sometimes, no offense to the client, because THE CLIENT IS ALWAYS RIGHT, you should put that in big letters (we did). There’s sometimes when you’re quite into a piece and you think you’ve got a really strong concept that’s coming across in the music and they’ll be like “Can you just make it a simple piano piece” It can get frustrating but you will get some projects with the freedom to try out something really interesting or innovative and they love it. Sometimes some clients just like to play it “safe”.
When you’re given a budget how does that work, do they pay for libraries or anything or do they just pay for you and then you pay for libraries etc?
99% of projects the client will be hiring you and your studio and would never think about paying for samples etc, especially short term projects. This is unless it’s something very specific, for example I did a videogame trailer that the client asked to be mixed in binaural sound. So I told them it would be really helpful to have a binaural panner so they budgeted for me buying that. On longer jobs, like Need for Speed for example EA were up for buying libraries but they would retain and own all them afterwards. Some companies of different though, The Room that I’m working on at the moment with Fireproof are very supportive, if I need something and put forward a strong case they will provide it for me.
At the very early stage work out what you’re going to get as your composer/sound designer fee and what you’re going to need to do the project. Clients are very receptive and in my experience only get annoyed if you turn round a month and a half into the project and ask for more money or some expensive samples because at this point they’ve already budgeted for the project.
If you’re very clear at the start then it’s usually OK. It’s good to give them a few options as well. For example I give them different versions and write budget plans. So for example, there’s the cheapest option that’s all in the box, everything you’ve already got. Or there’s like the deluxe version where you record at Abbey Road. It’s really important not to just give them a single number. Give them a good breakdown where they can mix and match bits from each budget depending on what their priorities are and explain where you got the numbers from.
After speaking with other sound designers, although it’s highly competitive everyone seems to be very friendly and helpful in your career as opposed to over competitive. Is this the same for composers?
I think that there’s definitely a difference between sound designers and composers in that manner. Maybe its because as a sound designer, theres more work avaliable. I mean an AAA game with have about 5 or 6 sound designers and just one composer. Or maybe it’s just musicians are more highly strung people 😉
Personally I feel that if you’ve done your time working your way up in the industry and have your niche and your sound, there’s enough work to go around for all of us. Everyone’s really supportive in the sound community and to be truthful it’s the same in most of the composition community. There’s only been a few people that I’ve find to be really competitive like that. For me it depends what you want I guess, I don’t find myself being like that because as long as I can pay my bills and the works coming in I’m just happy doing what I love. Don’t get me wrong I’d love to be the next Hans Zimmer or someone at that level and its a great thing to aim for but just don’t be too consumed by it that and become a horrible person in the process. I think it’s just nice to be nice to people! If you’re over competitive you miss out on working with other composers or learning from them. If your friendly with other composers and want to know how they did something or created an amazing piece then you could just call them up and ask them. It’s just much nicer.
In general though I find it a really good industry to work in and there’s definitely a good sense of community.
I love meeting other people in the industry and get excited to hear and see what they’re working on and personally that over-whelms the feelings of “Oh, I’m really jealous” or “I really wanted to win that project”.
So do you have a go-to set of plug-ins?
I try not to. I don’t use any templates, which I’ve been told is a bit unusual and always start with an empty screen. My go-to sampler is Kontakt and I find a lot of Native Instrument’s software really nice. Recently I really like Reaktor, just for messing around, tweaking and creating your own sounds and effects. I used to really like Max MSP but that’s become very integrated into Live now and I’m a Logic user so that’s why I’ve really taken to Reaktor recently. A few little nice bespoke Reaktor patched that I’ve played around with have been popping up in a lot of my recent sessions. Ah actually there is one go-to pluging that I always use, Sound Toy!. I always always use Sound Toys. I just love their stuff, it sounds so good. It sounds so analogue, warm and real!
I normally use Altiverb for reverb, but to be truthful my go-to plug-ins are more about the analogue warmth and that real quality. There’s an amazing one by the company Tri-tone Digital which is called Valve Tone. It’s not even that expensive. It just has 2 knobs, one say’s “Bass” one that says “Treble”. Then there’s a little switch at the bottom which says “Smokey” or “Toasty”, I just put it over the whole mix and it just makes it sound like it’s coming through an old £10,000+ analogue desk.
I recently bought a Rupert Neve bit of outboard gear, which is sort of a mastering unit. It has an insanely good stereo compressor. It’s called the Portico II Master Bus Processor or something like that.
Catchy
Haha, yeah very catchy I think they abbreviate it somehow, something like Neve P2MBP. I always put my mixes through that to master them it’s got an amazing stereo widener, an incredible analogue limiter and a really nice stereo compressor so again it just sounds like its going through a warm old desk and gets rid of that digital edge.
Samples wise SonicConture’s libraries, I really like their stuff. If really captures the life of instrument, when you play their electric piano it really does feel like a retro 60’s electric piano is under your fingers.
I’d say that’s it really.
What would be your dream project to work on?
That’s a good question, something that lets me travel the world and record loads of sounds and musicians.
You’re travelling soon though right?
Yeah I’m flying out to Seoul in South Korea for a couple of weeks to work on some projects out there. When I started off I did some documentary sound and music, with that I got to go to Morocco and Mexico so that was great fun. So yeah a project that allows me to go around the world and get into the culture and where their music comes from. I was talking to Barnaby Taylor, he’s one of leading BBC natural history composers and I’m super jealous of his job. He was saying “Yeah I do like 3-4 documentaries a year, they pay really well and fly me everywhere and I get to record and work with local musicians to get a feel for the place where they’re filming.” Amazing!!
Listening to the Need For Speed Soundtrack it sounds very “Action Film” to me have you considered that?
It would be great to have a go but it would have to be an interesting action film score though. Like the recent Judge Dredd for example, the score to that was so cool. I really likeed it because it’s just so dark, distorted and chunky, perfect for the feeling and style of the film. I’d love to do something like that, an action film where you get to experiment with a palette of sounds. I wouldn’t like to one where they wanted just drones, some dubstep and staccato strings.
I’m actually working on a 15 minute Sci-Fi action short at the moment. It’s really well funded, it’s got the budget of a small feature film. So the score for that will probably be very “action” in parts and hopefully also interesting and a bit weird. I’ve worked with the Director a lot as well so hopefully he trusts me and normally gives me a lot of creative freedom.
What would be your major Dos and Don’ts for an aspiring composer?
Do send out lots and lots of emails, letters and portfolios, oh and do write a lot of music. I think it’s John Williams that said, write a piece of music a day even if you haven’t got any work on, great advice. From start to finish like we were saying earlier so not just an idea a day, but a track. It’s a great way to hone your skills and try new things. It’s also really important to keep pushing yourself. Never get complacent, even if you wrote a great score and everyone loved it today, in a year’s time people probably wouldn’t want that style anymore and would have moved on. You have to keep in touch with what all the new and current things are!
Also keep an eye on what other people are doing; I try to listen to every style, even mainstream pop because some of the producers out there are doing some really interesting stuff. Listen to some “out there” stuff as well as some classical. Never become an insular composer. You can’t just exist in your own mind. There’s so much amazing and exciting music out there in every field and genre. I think it’s really important to just listen to everything and give it the time of day.
In terms of Don’ts. I’d say don’t be a precious composer. If a client says they don’t like it, it’s normally that they just want a different style, it’s not an offense on you or your talents. Clients won’t panda to you. They’ll just say it’s wrong, do another one. Just realise that if these people are short it’s because they are very busy people and have to run off to a meeting in like 1 minuite.
When someone asks you to make changes, unless you feel very strongly about not making them and have a good reason, just listen to the client and make the changes. Clients hate nothing more than a diva composer because they are just making things difficult for them and finishing the project smoothly.
There’s ways to go about things. Still push the boundaries a little but it’s a very fine line between pushing boundaries and being arrogant. Try and be approachable about it, give them options and a really good argument as to why you want this certain thing.
I’d say the last don’t is don’t give up. You’ll send out a lot of e-mails, even when your an established composer, and you just won’t get any reply. The amount of times people hang up on you because they’ve already got 5 composers pitching for the project. They’re not saying you’re bad again they are just busy and over run with composers.
Just because the big guys and agencies aren’t listening to you, don’t give up, there are loads of short films, mobile games and viral media out there. Some of my most fun projects have been indie games to be honest. For example “The Room” which I’m currently working on, is an indie games that did amazingly well and is brilliant to work on.
It’s the indies that are taking the risks and are really pushing the boundaries. That’s the industry to want to be in.
With sound designers they say take videos and redo the audio yourself. Should you do that with music?
It really depends what area you want to get into. If you want to get into advertising, then re-write some music for some adverts that you like. Also adverts are all about 10, 15, 30 second spots so practise writing and telling a story in 15 seconds of music.
The only risk is make sure it’s clear if you’ve re-done the music, rather than wining the advert, because there’s nothing that people hate more than to think that someone has written for something and it turns out they haven’t. Also make sure the copyright is to original owner, there is always a chance they may call you up and ask you to take it down. If they do, just take it down. Just above all else be truthful about it.
It’s always good to show your music in context as well so instead of just rewriting for your favourite scenes. DO something interactive. Someone’s site that I went on recently was really good because there was a slider where you could adjust the intensity of their interactive piece of music.
Be very direct when you send stuff off, the people you are reaching out to normally don’t have a lot of time. You have to do things that are interesting, to brief and specific.
I was always told to send 4/5 of your best pieces when you send them out and to send something tailored to who you’re sending it to. (ie interactive music to a computer game developer etc) It grabs the readers attention if it’s relevant to them.
It’s great when someone sends you 3 things that really get your ears pricked up so you go and check them out and then there’s tonnes of other stuff they’ve done that you can get listening to.
We really enjoyed speaking with Chris. Currently he is working with Fireproof Studios on The Room 2 as well as many more projects coming up. Keep an ear out and check out his official site: www.blurrededge.co.uk