Sean Wilson talks to the BAFTA-award-winning film, TV and video game composer about his celebrated soundtrack work…
In today’s pop culture climate, no longer are composers limited to one genre or field of speciality. Increasingly our greatest musicians are diversifying across a host of different platforms, and one of the greatest is Greg Edmonson whose career has extended from some of TV’s greatest shows to some of the most successful video games of all time. In a discussion about his work, Greg chats about what constitutes a truly great soundtrack.
Thanks for talking to me about soundtracks, Greg. Given music composition is the backbone of your career, what are your first memories of the music you fell in love with?
Oh there are a number of things here – I remember the very first time I heard an orchestra play. What a wonderment! To me, at least, music is all about emotion and that is what over-whelmed me and still does when I hear the “band start to play”. Likewise I remember my first time hearing The Beatles and I absolutely loved it. I still do and that joy remains with me to this day. Two very different experiences, but the same response from my heart.
You studied guitar and jazz composition as a youngster. Is there still a residual love of both things that carry over into your current work as a composer?
I did study guitar but not really jazz so much, although I did get to play a lot of quasi-jazz as a player around town. My studies were pretty much traditional music theory and composition. But you know what, all of those roads lead to the same place for me. Yes, perhaps the rules are a little different but the goal is to make music that stands on its own and reaches people’s lives and hearts in some manner.
So all of my experiences intertwined to become my ever-expanding toolbox and that is what I go to whenever I sit down to write. I am quite thankful for every musical experience that I have ever had – even the questionable ones provide something to learn from.
You were a protege of legendary composer Mike Post who worked on The A-Team. What are your memories of working with him?
Mike is unique and is the master of the world in which he lives. No one has written more television themes. And those themes have become a part of so many great shows and those shows have meaning in people’s lives. That is a very powerful thing. As for working with Mike, it was a great learning experience for me and I got to see how this wacky business works. I also got to learn the skill of writing to picture. It is something for which I will be eternally grateful.
You’ve subsequently established a highly successful career in the realm of television yourself, working on the likes of King of the Hill and Firefly. How much of a challenge is it working around the budgetary and time constraints of a long-running TV show?
Both of the shows you mentioned were a joy to work on. I have been so very fortunate to have had the opportunity to work on quality projects. King of the Hill was just plain fun and Firefly was the love of my life. It is true that the time constraints in television can be daunting, but you just find a way somehow to get it all done. Firefly was a real challenge, as the time-frame was very short to both write it and then to record all of the live players. But every time that I looked at the screen in front of me, I felt like the luckiest man alive to be a part of it all.
The budgets in television vary tremendously and are nothing like what I had on the Uncharted video games. Scoring sessions for King of the Hill were usually 3-4 hours on the stage. With Uncharted we were recording with a much larger orchestra for about a week and at wonderful places like Abbey Road and Skywalker Sound. How cool is that!
But everything is different and sometimes the hard challenges make you dig deep and come up with something that you might never have thought of otherwise. So boundaries are not necessarily bad.
King of the Hill is of course comic in nature, which is tricky to score: too overt and it’ll overtake the humour; too understated and the music won’t register. How did you come up with the right tone for the series?
King of the Hill never wanted to make the music comedic. They wanted the writing to be funny and, of course, the actors were amazingly funny. But they wanted the music to have “heart” so that the music never commented on the picture. It might be bright and happy but never cartoony. It was easy and fun to write such and the guitar licks were straight out of Texas!
Your most celebrated small-screen work is of course Firefly. How much creativity did Joss Whedon encourage when it came to creating the music?
Joss was an absolute joy to work with. He gave great direction and then incredible leeway to just “do what you do”. Most television shows really just want the same thing as everyone else. Not Joss, he had a unique vision and it was an honor to work with him. His vision of a mix between exotic ethnic instrumentation and traditional orchestra is something that I took with me and has now become my signature sound. Thank you for that Joss.
Firefly of course revolved around a group of recognizable and likable characters. Was it the underlying humanity of the show rather than its sci-fi trappings that inspired you?
Oh yes. Firefly was complex in that way. It was so much more than a sci-fi or an action show. Firefly was all about human emotions, shifting allegiances and deep moral conundrums. These are the very traits that define us all as human beings. People who might do the wrong thing at first but ultimately do the right thing.
One example of how interesting this show was might be this – Mal Reynolds loved Inara deeply, BUT he just couldn’t say it. It made him too vulnerable, so they always just always talked “around” it. But the look in their eyes told you all that you needed to know. Oh I love that. It was great writing and great acting, otherwise that scenario would not work. And what a joy to write music for that level of artistry.
There was a devastated reaction from the worldwide community when Firefly was cancelled. How did you respond to the decision?
I so loved this show that when it was gone my heart was forever wounded. I knew that I would move onto another gig. But Firefly was not replaceable and never would be. It was far too unique and special.
It was a huge loss in so many ways. I came to love each and every cast member for their unique genius. Finally at the very end of the episode “The Message” I wrote a piece of music to say goodbye to them all. And I did so with a very heavy heart.
Moving onto your work for video games: given they’re consumed in a very different way from other visual media like television and films, how does the construction of the music differ?
In some ways different and in some ways the same. When you get a film or TV show to score, it is pretty much finished. It is already edited and only waiting for music, FX and a final mix. My job is to write music that fits exactly into the picture and becomes a part of the storytelling process.
Video games are mostly a work in progress right up until the very end. Nothing is actually as it will be in the final product. The graphics and the voice acting are forever changing as the game adapts to new technology; changes like that mean both breakthroughs and hard new challenges. But games allow you to write music with grand melodic gestures. Since you aren’t bumping up against dialogue, you can just fill the space with elongated melodies and big powerful rhythms.
Music like that might be too much for film or TV, given the dialogue. But it might just work wonders in a game. Also video game music has to be put in the game in an interactive way. So it needs to be recorded in such a way that you can break it down to elements that the player can trigger by his or her actions.
So you are still writing music from the heart, but trying to stay mindful of the needs of the specific project at the same time.
When composing for a game, is there one particular figure like a director with whom you collaborate or is it a stable of people involved?
My experience was such that I was in constant communication with Amy Hennig the wonderful writer, director, and creator of Uncharted as well as the Sony team. It was Sony’s job to oversee the recording and the music implementation (putting music into the game). They are all so good at their job that it made my life pretty simple. Just write the music! And everyone was beyond supportive. They all became dear friends.
Given his vast experience in the area, Jonathan Mayer of Sony had a good idea of how much big combat, medium combat, exploration etc. music the game would likely need. So he would guide me as we accumulated cues, then sometimes they just let me write. Nate’s Theme and Reunion (the erhu piece in Uncharted 2) were examples where they just let me write something I felt and nobody knew where (or even if) it would fit into the game. I am thrilled by that level of trust. And I think that it worked out quite well for us all.
You composed the music for the first three Uncharted games, all of which were massive successes. When it came to capturing their adventurous spirit in musical form, where did you take inspiration from?
Oh a million places but the team that surrounded me was my guiding light. Amy would tell me the story and the concept and show me rough video. Jonathan would tell me what he thought they might need to make the game work.
I think that we just all wanted to make the game exciting for the player. Of course all the exotic locales gave me a wonderful opportunity to use a multitude of ethnic instruments – and I did that with wild abandon. We just wanted to capture the spirit of Nathan Drake’s ever-changing world.
Describe the process of developing your musical ideas for Uncharted across a series of three games.
Well the adventure element of Uncharted was the driving force behind all three. So all three scores started off with a traditional orchestra – especially strings, brass and percussion. But, as you know, the location of each adventure was vastly different.
First we had the jungle with all of the exotic ethnic woodwinds. Uncharted 2 took us to Tibet where I got to use Tibetan temple horns and all manner of Chinese instruments. And finally Uncharted 3 was set in the desert, so we dug deep into the bag of indigenous instruments from that part of the world. What fun it all was to learn at least a little about all of those world cultures.
It seems like every culture makes music that matches the world in which they live, and they make their musical instruments from the resources at hand. So I just tried to write orchestral music that fit the scene and then flavor it with spice from the ethnic world. It is a very gratifying way to write.
In 2009 you won two BAFTAs for the second Uncharted game, Among Thieves. Did this success feel like a culmination of everything you have worked on across your career?
Oh yes, what an honor that was. As they say it is just an honor to be nominated, but the fact that people responded to the music and to the game so well was fantastic. I was so very lucky to have worked on that project. I had to watch the award show via internet stream and I was thrilled when we won in so many categories (including Best Score).
I am now a proud member of BAFTA Los Angeles. So in many ways that win has led to a whole unexpected and wonderful journey complete with new friends and experiences.
Finally, what have you got coming up next?
New worlds to explore and past ones to revisit. I want to continue my work in games as well as do more writing to picture. But in my business you just are excited when you can work with talented and creative people. It doesn’t matter what the project or medium is if you love the team that you are working with. Onwards and upwards.
Greg, thanks very much!
Sean Wilson is a film and soundtrack reviewer and avid tea drinker. If all three can be combined at once, all is right with the world.
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