May 12, 2008

Music at 350mph: Composer Winifred Phillips Talks SPEED RACER: THE VIDEOGAME
By Louis Bedigian

“It was an intense, all-consuming experience.”

With Speed Racer now in theaters, spellbound moviegoers won’t be content with only a big-screen viewing. They’ll want to take that experience home, and not just in the form of a DVD release later this year, but also in a form that lets them step behind the wheel of their favorite vehicles. SPEED RACER: THE VIDEOGAME aims to do just that.

“The music does some interesting dynamic things when you engage in ‘car-fu,’ and time seems to slow down,” said composer Winifred Phillips, whose previous credits include God of War, Shrek the Third, and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. “When car-fu begins, the music also slows down in a surreal way that accentuates the ‘bullet-time’ feeling. Then, when time reverts to normal, the music ramps back up to normal speed again. It’s a really cool effect.”

GameZone recently spoke to Winifred Phillips to learn more about the world of Speed Racer and the necessity of writing a score that meets fan expectations.

Speed Racer is a rather supercharged movie and game, and by that I mean adrenaline-pumped speed, fantasy racetracks and surreal maneuvers. To convey those sensations aurally, it takes more than great sound effects – you also need the right soundtrack. How did you prepare for a project like this? How did you find the right sense of speed, so to speak, within your sound?

Winifred Phillips: As soon as Sidhe and Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment hired me to write the score for SPEED RACER: THE VIDEOGAME, I immersed myself in the genre of ‘racing music.’ Racing games have always had really dynamic soundtracks, and there are a lot of racing game fans who are thoroughly familiar with the musical traditions. They have expectations for how a racing game should sound. While I wanted to do something fresh and innovative with SPEED RACER: THE VIDEOGAME, I knew that I had to be grounded in the pacing and energy of traditional racing music. The beat is very important: rhythm definitely takes the front seat. Also, the music is chock full of electronically-generated instruments and textures. I had a great time working with the sound palette.

At the same time, though, I wanted the game soundtrack to have its own unique sound. The game itself is extraordinarily vibrant. The music had to match the intensity of all those neon visuals. The setting blends retro and futuristic styles with a liberal dose of humor. The races themselves routinely defy the laws of physics, and the sense of speed never lets up. In order for the music to truly belong in the Speed Racer universe, it had to incorporate all those elements.

This resulted in music that is very complex and layered, with lots of stylistic influences, a wickedly playful attitude, an ultra-bright feel, and a relentless sense of speed throughout. With every track I experimented with different and new ways to reinforce the sensation of speed. I juxtaposed rhythmic patterns in unexpected ways – one track layers a frantic jazz swing rhythm against an almost sedate walking bass, which makes the tempo seem even faster by contrast. In some tracks I wrote big surges of orchestra and choir to emphasize the danger and excitement. Other tracks incorporated driving funk with sci-fi electronica, which made for a fun combination.

Horror soundtracks occasionally merge into the game's sound effects, or close to it. Ex: one of the tracks may include a sound that resembles thunder, a scream, or shattered glass. Is this sort of thing (realistic and related sound effects) helpful in bringing the sensation of speed to life?

WP: I enjoy using sound effects, or other sound design elements, in the music I write. I think it allows the music to blend more seamlessly into the rest of the game experience. For SPEED RACER: THE VIDEOGAME, my music producer Winnie Waldron suggested that I use sound effects to evoke the feeling of race car engines, without actually using any race car sounds. The game itself would be taking care of the sound of the vehicles – using the roar of the cars as a musical instrument would allow it to weave through the music like counterpoint. I think the technique worked very well, and I enjoyed all the creative possibilities it created. Sometimes I used heavily processed human voices, which were altered to the point that they sounded like cars screaming past. I wrote jet engine bursts into the music in place of cymbal crashes. They sounded like ultra-fast fly-bys. I also used warped synthetic tones and feedback screeches, processed to sound like high-speed wailing, which resulted in surreal Doppler effects.

In some of the tracks I used environmental sounds to evoke the unique surroundings. For the freezing-cold ‘Aurora Cryopticon’ track I used the sound of high-speed skiers, skaters and snowboarders in the music, to call to mind that skittering whoosh sound unique to moving fast over the ice. I also used seagulls and ocean waves for a beach-side track, and native tribal chanting for a track set on a tropical island.

All throughout the creation of the music I was very aware of the fact that the races in this game take place in enormous stadiums. The crowds are an innate part of the experience, and I wanted the music to acknowledge their presence. I wrote countless bursts of cheering, stomping and shouting into the music. Sometimes this cheering and shouting would form the rhythmic foundation of a piece. For instance, in the ‘Thunderhead’ track I had the stadium crowd shouting, “Go! Go! Go!” in time to the music. I think using the stadium crowd as part of the music lent a lot of energy and excitement to the tracks.

Did you look to existing games or movies for inspiration? Or did you seek inspiration in other ways?

WP: There aren’t really any games or movies like Speed Racer, so I couldn’t look to anything currently in existence for inspiration. Fortunately, the producer of the game, Andy Satterthwaite, has a huge amount of experience with racing games, which was a tremendous help. Andy was the producer for Wipeout XL, Quantum Redshift, and Gripshift, so he knows the racing genre inside and out. His advice about music direction was fantastic! Also, I listened to a lot of music in many different genres for research purposes, keeping in mind that the SPEED RACER: THE VIDEOGAME soundtrack couldn’t rely on the style of any particular musical genre, since the music had to combine many different styles at once. The retro elements I used ranged from funk to ragtime, and the futuristic elements touched upon many different styles of contemporary music.

I think that the biggest inspiration for me while I was working was the Wachowski brothers’ previsualization video for the Speed Racer movie. When the Wachowski brothers first got involved in the Speed Racer film, they made a five-minute previsualization video which showed a single race – the video was presented to the movie studio, and convinced them to green-light the picture.

I got a copy of the pre-vis video as soon as I signed onto the video game project. Watching that video was an amazing experience. The Wachowski brothers created an entirely new cinematic language for their racing scenes in Speed Racer. Seeing a Wachowski brothers' race for the first time feels like playing a racing game for the first time. It’s awesome, and exhilarating, and unlike any other experience. I knew I had to express all the emotions and sensations of a Wachowski brothers' race with music, and I also knew that I had a huge mountain to climb in order to do that. So I stripped the audio off the pre-vis video file, because I had to keep the video playing constantly while I was composing. I played that video over and over again, until it was etched in my brain. I must have watched it hundreds upon hundreds of times while I was working on the SPEED RACER: THE VIDEOGAME score.

What about real vehicles, maybe your own driving experiences – did any of that influence your music?

WP: I have to admit, I’m a safe, conservative driver – so none of my personal experiences helped me imagine what it could be like to drive over 350mph on a rollercoaster track. But my experiences listening to music while driving have been invaluable. A really good piece of music can make any ordinary errand into something exciting. Music and motion are meant to be together. I think that’s why really great music makes you want to get up and move. My goal was to create music that made people want to drive.

Regarding the different music tracks, how are they dispersed? One song per course plus in-between/menu music?

WP: The dispersal of the music was very unusual. Working on the music for SPEED RACER: THE VIDEOGAME was the most unique experience I’ve had composing music for video games. In a lot of ways, the process felt more like creating an album than scoring a game. I wrote over 75 minutes of music for the game, and most of this music was written in the form of full and complete songs, with beginnings, middles and endings. There were no loops for anything other than the menu music.

Also, the majority of these in-game songs were over four minutes long. I had the opportunity to fully develop the musical ideas in these pieces, which was something I really enjoyed doing. In the game, these songs are alternated in unpredictable ways. Sometimes you’ll hear two pieces of music in the course of a single race. If you choose to race the same track again, you’ll hear a new song the next time – which will make the experience feel entirely different and fresh. When the race is finished, you can view a replay, and you’ll hear different music during the replay than you heard in the race – casting a new light on the action.

Assuming there are different songs for each course, how did you go about writing them? Is there a different theme or flavor to each one?

WP: There were essentially two categories for the songs I wrote for SPEED RACER: THE VIDEOGAME. The first category was ‘location-specific.’ For each racetrack, I wrote one song that was designed specifically to enhance the atmosphere of that location. For instance, the “Fuji Helexicon” racetrack is set on an exotic island, so the song I wrote for that location is dominated by Hawaiian drums and island chanting. The second category of music was ‘all-purpose’. These songs had to work well in any location. Essentially, I had to write these pieces of music in an inspirational ‘vacuum’ – no specific race, stadium or location could be referenced in the music. At first it was a challenge. The only thematic inspiration was the experience of racing itself, with all its variations and nuances.

So I decided to focus on different emotional states associated, not with being a real race car driver, but with playing a racing game. For instance, I wrote a track specifically inspired by what it feels like to trash-talk while you’re racing a friend. I wrote another track focusing on the pride and enjoyment you feel when you’ve chosen a car that’s perfect for your playing style. One of the tracks I wrote for the game was created specifically to express the anger and frustration of losing a bunch of races in a row. I even wrote a track for that ‘butterflies-in-the-stomach’ feeling you get when you start winning and progressing faster through the game. And of course, I just had to write a track about the giddy fun of playing a game that lets you defy gravity and move at unbelievable speeds. There really is nothing like playing a racing game!

As a test of your own speed, were you paying attention to how quickly you finished each song?

WP: I really can’t remember how long each track took to create. I can say that it was an intense, all-consuming experience. For every project I’ve worked on, including SPEED RACER: THE VIDEOGAME, I owe a huge debt of gratitude to my music producer Winnie Waldron for keeping our work on schedule and up to the high standard that the developers and publishers both demand. The game was pretty much at the center of my existence from the beginning of my involvement in the project until the final track was mastered. Generally speaking, I’m considered to be a pretty speedy composer – but that has more to do with the long hours I work in the course of each day, and not with any special ability to create music in less time.

I’d also like to mention that Winnie and I had both worked with producer Jeff Nachbaur at WB Games on a previous project, so we were very happy when we found out that he’d be overseeing our work on SPEED RACER: THE VIDEOGAME.

How did you compose and record the soundtrack? What tools did you use?

WP: This project was an interesting adventure for me on the tools and technology front. I can’t remember another project for which I’ve purchased more software and gear. What’s more, a lot of these tools were incorporated into the studio ‘on-the-fly’. In the course of work, I’d stumble across a technology gap that I needed to fill, and I’d have to immediately bridge the gap. It worked like this – “Oops, this track needs a vocoder!” or “I’ve got to have more computers to run all these instruments at once!” or “This song is desperate for dirtier-sounding synths!” My musical gear dealer loved me. As far as my core tools are concerned, I’m a long-time Pro Tools and Kontakt user.

The recording and mixing of this project let me experiment with different mixing techniques than I’ve been able to work with before. Most of my previous work has been orchestral in nature. In orchestral recording, the goal in mix and master is to preserve the natural sound of the orchestra as much as possible. But with this soundtrack, all those rules went right out the window. I employed a good deal of pan automation to emphasize the loop-de-loops of the race tracks. I panned some instruments so that they frequently whipped around the stereo spectrum, creating the sensation that the music was whirling and spinning. Since the songs I wrote for SPEED RACER: THE VIDEOGAME are intricate and layered, I employed a lot of EQ tweaking and mixer automation in order to emphasize melodies, rhythms, counter-melodies and effects.

SPEED RACER: THE VIDEOGAME was released on the Wii and DS platforms. Does your music appear in both versions?

WP: Yes it does. I wrote the music with the Wii in mind, and I wondered how the music would translate to the handheld platform. The developer of the DS version, Virtuos, had a creative solution. Instead of using the whole tracks, Virtuos separated all the tracks into bite-sized chunks. The game runs these excerpts like a playlist, which works surprisingly well. You get a taste of a musical style and a rhythmic groove, then the game transitions you to another style and groove for a little while, and then the soundtrack moves on to another style, so on. It’s especially enjoyable if you have played both versions of the game, because you can recognize the tracks from their full-length versions, and yet hearing them in this new way makes the experience very fresh.

When your work is done and the game is finally released, are you ever surprised by where your music appears in a game, how it's used, or anything else?

WP: I’m always surprised! The game development process is extremely fluid and evolving. Last minute alterations are inevitable, and the developers need to be free to change their minds about the way the music is being implemented. I try to help in any way I can while the game is still being developed, but there are always situations where the team just has to go ahead and make changes. I’m always curious to see what solutions they’ve devised.

Now that you've worked on a Wii game, do you think the current sound technology available (on Wii, PS3 and Xbox 360) is adequate? How far away are we from the next significant jump ahead?

WP: I think before we start thinking about the next significant jump in the technology of console audio, we need to concentrate on fully availing ourselves of the capabilities of the current generation (Xbox 360, PS3 and Wii).

There is a lot of audio horsepower in these systems, and many games aren’t taking advantage of it. Part of the problem is the sheer ‘newness’ of the technology these consoles afford in terms of game audio. Around ten times more sounds can now be loaded into RAM than could be loaded before, and the capabilities of the hardware to run simultaneous audio streams far surpasses what could be done on previous systems.

Real-time interactive mixers and digital signal processing are both incredibly powerful tools for the audio designer and programmer. But these are new tools and capabilities for audio teams, and the possibilities they create can be overwhelming. Given time, I think you’ll hear a lot of exciting audio accomplishments in future game titles, as audio developers push the envelope with more ambitious sonic designs.

Anything else you'd like to share about SPEED RACER: THE VIDEOGAME or any previous or upcoming project?

WP: I had a fantastic time creating music for SPEED RACER: THE VIDEOGAME and it was a privilege to work with the teams at Sidhe and Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment/WB Games. I have currently finished the music for an upcoming game project that I’m very excited about, but I can’t discuss it just yet. I’m also just beginning work on the music for another game – which is an ambitious project with a setting and story that are really inspiring for me! Again, I can’t say anything more than that.

Thank you for your time.

WP: Thanks, Louis. It was a pleasure!

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