Today I got to meet with potential games designers for my interactive music video, and I had the opportunity to organise a team of people to work with. Going into the meetings, I was initially very nervous, as I always am when I am showing work to others (especially if its incomplete!). But after I spoke about my influences and my ideas for the game, I was able to come across people who were excited by my proposal, and who shared the same passion for storytelling that I do.
Once I had met up with my team of designers, we started to discuss the project and flesh out the details a bit more. We hashed out things like perspective, aesthetic style, progression of story and movement. Working together, we decided that the final project should have these elements in order to give the game a relaxing feel.
- a smooth flight system
- expansive landscape with stylised artistic style (so there does not need to be a huge focus on making it look realistic)
- pleasing to the eye/visually beautiful
- first person perspective
- 'main character' flies in and out of focus
- story progresses with the intensity of the music
- is a dayscape; starts at morning and ends at dusk
- at exciting points in the track, the main character will be joined by other flocks of birds, and will be directed to certain points above and below the clouds.
The game will focus around a bird that flies through the day, and as the track progresses the bird will travel through a countryside. As the track comes to an end, the landscape will become nighttime and the bird will find a home in a nest in a tree, completing the story and the birds 'journey' for this day. Because the games team was so excited to make this game a complete and rounded 'story', they have inspired me to revisit the track, so that I may add parts that are more dynamic in relation to each other and make the track go 'up and down' in terms of exciting phrases versus more mellowed-out ones. Stay tuned for the changes that I will make!
The complicated part of this project is in making the details near perfect, since the idea is fairly basic. The main potential issues that the games team identified would be creating a flight system that is seamless and smooth, so as not to give the game a jarring effect.
Track References for 'Feel' and Vibe
When I first thought about this project, the easiest way I could communicate my ideas was referencing things such as songs from the meditation genre (for my wish for simple instrumentation and) and Thatgamecompany's Flower (to communicate my wish for a seamless relationship between audio and visuals). If you would like links to these references, you can click here.
Whilst writing the composition I also took reference from the Romantic Flight scene from How to Train Your Dragon (2010), for its use of 'whimsical' instruments such as flutes, harps, and strings.
The lecturer of the games class also mentioned to me that my pitch reminded him of Italian pianist and composer Ludovico Einaudi. He thought that Einaudi has a very strong sense of storytelling in his compositions, and pointed me to a particular work of his that was created to draw attention to the dangers of climate change.
(Ludovico Einaudi, Jun 20, 2016)
Why I Want To Do This
I am very interested in this project because I am very passionate about the relationship between audio and visual and how they can tell a story. Rather than the usual case of audio being used to support a visual, as with most films and video games, this project gives me the opportunity to have visuals support audio, and have a team working under me for something new! Stay tuned for updates about how this interactive music video goes!
Comments