Buzz: Composing for Video Games w/ Michael Sweet
Written by Matt Hines Posted in: Buzz on August 11, 2011
Over the past two decades, Michael Sweet has become an accomplished audio composer and has been the audio director for more than 100 award winning video games. His work can be heard on the X-Box 360 logo and on award winning games from Cartoon Network, Sesame Workshop, PlayFirst, iWin, Gamelab, Shockwave, RealArcade, Pogo, Microsoft, Lego, AOL, and MTV, among others. He has won the Best Audio Award at the Independent Games Festival, the BDA Promax Gold Award for Best Sound Design, and has been nominated for four Game Audio Network Guild (GANG) awards. Currently, Michael leads the development of game scoring curriculum at Berklee College of Music. I caught up with him to talk about the opportunities available to independent musicians in the games industry, as well as how to take advantage of them.
IndieAmbassador.com: Since graduating college in ’90, you’ve become a commercially successful composer and sound designer in the entertainment industry across a variety of interactive media formats, including video games. As a young musician, had you a specific idea of how to approach this medium, or was there a degree of trial and error?
Michael Sweet: I fell backwards into video games. I had left Berklee wanting to be a recording engineer for orchestral recording. You have to take opportunities that come your way in the music industry, so I ended up getting several job offers in NYC. I ended up working at a music production company which primarily composed for commercials, but there was some recording and film work there. At first I just engineered and was an assistant composer, but then jobs started coming in that no one really had any interest in because of the small amounts of money they offered. One of these happened to be a game project entitled Flinstones/Jetsons TimeWarp. It was a great first job for me because it really married the skills that I enjoyed the most, creative and technical.
Back then there wasn’t an Internet to rely on for information, so there was a ton of trial and error, phone calls, and crossing fingers hoping that things would work. But I got a lot of help from the developer and the programmers.
I continued working for them and worked on many other games and interactive projects. Then I struck out on my own to create a company and focus on games. I learned many things from marketing and sales, to the financial juggling of owning your own business. The most important thing that I learned is that my clients were my best salespeople. They introduced me to their friends who were also developers, and recommended me for gigs that came up. As my network grew, so did my income. When you’re out on your own, it can be very difficult. Remember that you have to love it when times are bad. I was still doing sound and music for games when I couldn’t find paying work, just because that’s what I really enjoyed doing. Some of that free work even got me awards for best music or sound. And ultimately those clients were just another future salesperson for evangelizing the work that I did.
IA: With computing power these days, it’s more than possible for rookie musicians to have prosumer-grade production setups at home, including a host of video game specific tools that I touched upon in my last post. Do you feel this is leveling the playing field or increasing the competition for those looking to get into video game music production?
MS: Technology has been leveling the playing field for the last twenty years. It’s easy to create a great track in almost any genre because of advances in technology. What’s much more difficult is how to be truly creative. That’s why I think it’s important to develop skills that people might not have. For instance, a lot of composers in the industry actually have a hard time writing a basic lead sheet. So, adding real instruments to your track feels really fresh and different because everyone is used to hearing really great orchestral libraries. Adding a dijeridoo or even a solo violin to a track can really make them stand out from the rest of the pack.That being said, I think the most important thing to learn is how to connect with people. If you can’t connect with people you won’t ever work in this industry. This isn’t easy either… I used to dread having to go to a party or a conference to network. This was due to the fact that early in my career I didn’t really know who my people were. I was meeting lots of directors, or advertisers, or tv people, and I didn’t really get along with any of them. Then I started meeting game developers and realized that it was really easy for me to talk and relate to them. People want to work with their friends. So, try and find your people.
IA: When compiling a portfolio of musical work to submit to a developer, are there any pitfalls or major turn offs a prospective employee should be aware of?
MS: Everyone begins their reel with an orchestral piece, because it probably cost them the most to make, or required the most time. Most reels I would receive in the industry were really generic. Almost every composer can write in almost any style so the reels end up being generic and never stand out. A reel has never gotten me a job. It proves that I can walk the walk, but 90% of getting the job is the relationship, and how well you get along with a client. This is not always the case, but it’s very difficult to get a job only via a reel submission.Try and make sure your reel is custom for each client you deliver it to. For instance, if you're delivering a reel to Sesame Workshop, make sure it has your best kids music on it. They probably don’t care about the last orchestral score you wrote. Find out as much as you can about the company you’re delivering that reel to so you can really make it a custom experience just for them.
IA: Given the video game industry’s propensity for business by ‘word-of-mouth’, is cold calling a successful self-marketing strategy when trying to promote one’s own portfolio of work? Prior to becoming in-demand how did you typically go about it?
MS: There is no right answer to this question. Networking is very important. Working all the time, even if it’s on a free game is important. Cold calling is very hard, and there are many books written on the subject. Personally I can’t stand cold calling. Today’s version of the cold call is typically the ‘informational interview’. This is where you ask a composer or developer out to lunch and tell him that you are interested in pursuing a career in music for games, and you want to find out how they got started and ask them for advice. This does two things, first you start a relationship with this person so if a job comes up you’re on his radar. Secondly, you’re not actually asking him for a job. If you ask someone for a job directly, many people feel bad that they don’t have anything for you, and won’t even take a meeting with you. In my experience it’s better to start developing a relationship with a person for when an opportunity arises.IA: What games are you currently playing, and where do you think the industry is headed in terms of the type of games it will be releasing over the next few years? As a composer, does this affect the type of music you will be writing?
MS: Personally I enjoy all types of games, but I prefer console games mostly. I’m playing LA Noire right now, and I just finished Portal 2. I play a lot of games for research only as well, so I may only play the first five levels to see how their interactive music engine is working etc.The game industry is huge, and as another example are games that you typically wouldn’t normally think of commanding a large audience. Farmville, for instance had 80 million active users at the end of last year.
When starting out, typically you’re working on smaller casual games, so having a great orchestral reel is not going to help you very much. This is not always the case, but remember your audience. If your audience is Zynga, then your reel would be very different than if you were submitting a reel to Sony.
