This week we looked at the art of sound and how this can be used to drive narrative through a variety of different forms such as voice dialogue, character sounds, music score, atmosphere/environmental sounds, sound effects and off screen narrative and understanding the difference between Diegetic (literal source) and Non-Diegetic sounds (non-visible and outside source).
This work examines the idea of exploring sound through a musical score for an interactive space, with considerations around ambience/environment noise.
Through music we are able to express not only a particular setting for the scene in a literal and visual sense, but also identify a particular character that is within the scene, through the use of musical cues or particular instruments which can be applied to both animation, film or interactive spaces and allow us to characterise what the audience or player sees. It helps us to provide different responses and feedback to what the player might see, think or feel through different stages and events within the game using a variety of tunes, tempo’s and sound effects. We can warn player’s of an upcoming danger, provide lyrical landscape music, trigger an emotional stage in the story and provide different feelings around the characters location whether it be light and happy or dark.
This work uses music in a way that supports the action and what the player sees in the environment visually rather than becoming a memorable theme, in which interactive music needs to be able to loop and support a long length of time with gameplay. So the idea and concept behind musical scores not becoming too noticable these days and used more to support a scene by modern film makers (Zhou. 2016), works well alongside interactive spaces in supporting the overall theme, mood and location of where the player might be within
the game and allowing the sound effects to provide user feedback through game play whether it be collecting an item, jumping on somthing, leveling up or dying. Two works that can be reflective of this work is “The Nightmare Before Christmas” by film composer Danny Elfman and “Hollow Knight” by game composer by Christopher Larkin. One uses narration and musical theatre songs with a cinematic score in between, whilst the other uses a very orchestral and piano orientated score with a variety of different tempo’s to express the variances in game play, yet both manage to provide the same quirkiness, mood and darker tones through their musical and instrumental choices.
I decided to create a short piece of work to reflect my studio 1 game design concept of “Bones” and thinking about a stage in the narrative which revolves around an amusement park/carnival near the city. To create this work, I began by selecting 3 key minor scales (Em, Dm, Am ) for a more mellow mood and began by creating a simple waltz a the founding layer, which is quite often used to depict comedy, quirky or spooky themes. I then looked at creating a simple melody line which would reflect the curiosity of Bones’s character through the use of an Oboe, but also reflect the quirky style of the environment. From there I built up the music with a couple of different string ensembles and added a couple of sound effects to help depict the scene around Bones exploring. There were other elements I would have liked to have included such as a singing saw or some extra crowd noise, but I couldn’t find anything that suited and fit subtly or seamlessly into the clip. Overall, I wanted the sound effects to assist the music but allow the music to express the story through the composition. It would then have a third level of hierarchy with game play sounds added over the top.