THE INTERVIEW

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KW: What inspired you to make the kind of music you did for Bladestorm and What kind of styles can we expect to hear in the game?

Jamie: The game Bladestorm takes place during a very unique time during world history (from roughly 1337 to 1453).  From our knowledge of music during that time period, it mainly fell either into the sacred (religious) music or secular (non-religious) music categories.  Because the war was in part fueled by religion (as many wars are), I mainly drew inspiration from listening to a lot of sacred music, paying special attention to the use of Latin text by the composers of the time.  However, when composing the music for this game, I needed to write music that evoked a lot more passion and intensity than their musical language contained back then.  Eventually I ended up with a musical style that referenced a lot more of the harmonies from the Romantic Period (from about 1820-1900), re-interpreted in a more 20th century film music approach.  My greatest source of inspiration from that time period was the music of Richard Wagner, and you will hear a few references to some of his more operatic music.  Lastly, I am a huge fan of the score from Henry V (composed by Patrick Doyle) and especially the song “Non nobis, Domine”.  Many of the pieces of music in my score are similar to this very patriotic and melodic approach, with each character having his/her own anthem (sung in Latin).

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KW: How much music is featured in the game and how long did the process take? Jamie:  I wrote over an hour of music for the game, and it took me about two months to compose, record and mix everything.  We recorded and mixed everything in true surround sound for this project, and hopefully that will really help to draw the player into the game world.

Visit Jamie's Official Site now!

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KW: How was this project different from other game soundtracks you’ve worked on? What were some of the challenges involved?

Jamie:  One of the biggest challenges for me was to study and learn the Latin language and the prayers from the Catholic mass, especially in the way it is pronounced.  Thankfully my wife Evelina helped me in this important task.  Then I went through the long and tedious task of programming the text to be sung convincingly by the East West Symphonic Choir plug-in, since we didn’t have the budget to hire a full choir.  To get the computers to sing SATB (Soprano, Alto, Tenor, Bass) full choir convincingly was definitely a huge challenge, but the end result was pretty amazing I think.  Next time I’m going to hire someone else to do that programming though!

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KW: Did you have to do any research on the Hundred Years' War before making the music you created for Bladestorm? If so, what battles/events of the war helped inspire your soundtrack music? Are you interested in the Hundred Years' War in general?

Jamie:  For every project (games or films) that I work on, I like to go into a “research” mode before I start writing any music.  I’ll read tons of books, listen to music scores and generally just try to put myself into a certain mindset, just as an actor or director might do.  I’ve always been very interested in the Hundred Years War ever since I saw Kennith Branagh’s “Henry V” film.  I still get all emotional and fired up every time I read the “Battle of Agincourt” speech from that play.  Eventually that movie led to an obsession with Shakespeare for me.  In additional to re-reading Henry V as research for this game, I read a few long winded scholarly books on the subject, and it was a bit overwhelming at the beginning how big the scope of this war was and how many important people there were.  Fortunately the KOEI team narrowed the scope of the war down to a few key people so we didn’t have to deal with all of the outrageously convoluted personal conflicts and battles.  They wisely chose Jean d’ Arc to represent the French side and King Edward, the “Black Prince” to represent the English side.

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KW: What is it like to work on a project with KOEI on a big game? How much freedom did you get with the music and do you feel that you achieved what you wanted to do with the Bladestorm soundtrack?

Jamie: The people at KOEI have truly been a pleasure to work with.  They were very encouraging from the very start, and open to all of my musical ideas that I had about what kind of music should be written.  The one thing that I pushed for in this game was a lot melodic anthem music instead of the normal wall-to-wall battle music that one might expect from a war game.  That way there is lot more emotional connection to the side that the player chooses to fight for (England or France) and some really pretty melodies that soar over top of the clashing swords and flying arrows.  All in all, I think that we achieved a really unique and original soundtrack, and I’m very pleased with the results.

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KW: Have you played Bladestorm? If so, what are your impressions of it (aside from the music of course)? Jamie: I haven’t personally played through Bladestorm yet, but I have seen some video captures of parts of the game containing my music.  From what I can see and hear, this is going to be a great, intense game.

Bladestorm: The Hundred Years' War

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KW: Some technical questions. Do you have any advice for those who want to get into video game music composing industry on how would they go about entering the business?

Jamie: There is no one correct way to get into the video game music business, other than to surround your self with opportunities.  Opportunities are everywhere, from assisting another game composer (as I did), going to trade shows (like GDC) or just putting your stuff out there on the web.  Just keep writing music for fun in different styles that you like to do and try to find a unique sound.

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KW: Finally, what is your favorite musical piece on the Bladestorm soundtrack?

Jaime: I think my favorite pieces are the “The Black Prince”, “Joan d’ Arc” and “Spoils of War”, as they are all very emotional and rousing pieces.

Thank you!