Games Composers Workshop

Exclusive games composers workshop with Hollywood composer Jeff Rona (Traffic, Phantom, God of War 3, Devil May Cry 5, Far Cry 4, Du Lac and Fey) and composer Helge Borgarts (The Surge 2, The Surge: The Good, the Bad, and the Augmented, Bring Them Home)

Saturday, August 31, 2017, 09:00am – 06:00pm

A dynamic and hands-on video game scoring workshop lead by composers Jeff Rona and Helge Borgarts. This full-day masterclass is an opportunity for novice as well as experienced composers to learn the proper approach and techniques used in scoring video games. Participants will improve their ability to create emotionally effective interactive music, understand the unique elements of scoring various styles of games, and learn how to achieve the most effective interactive music design.

Jeff Rona has scored games including God of War 3, Devil May Cry 5, Far Cry 4, Du Lac and Fey, and others, as well as films and television. Helge Borgarts has scored numerous games and done sound design including The Surge 2, The Surge: The Good, the Bad, and the Augmented, The Climb, Bring Them Home.

The workshop is limited for participants and passive observers. Later do not have to submit own music and are not part of the practical work, but can witness the whole workshop.

About the workshop:

About two weeks prior to the workshop each participant will receive a brief section of a game to score with detailed musical instructions for their first tracks. Students will bring a portable music setup with them to the workshop in order to improve their scores, and learn how to implement their music in an interactive audio engine for testing.

In an introduction Jeff and Helge will outline the elements and requirements of the specific game situation and analyze every participant’s music after that, suggesting improvements and discuss options. The workshop’s objective is – on the one hand – to convey a sense of an actual briefing and discussion situation with a game producer or audio director, on the other hand to give an impression of essential composing rudiments of an experienced games composer and focus on the differences between working for film/television and for games. Through the individual review every participant shall discover personal improvement or alteration potentials.

After the analysis every workshop participant will be given time to rework his/her music to tracks and stems that can be used specifically in video games. Of course a clear briefing on that will be given. This means that the participants shall bring an appropriate working environment. Subsequently the changes in every participant’s music will be analyzed and discussed.

Schedule:

09:00am – 09:15am Welcoming and introduction
09:15am – 11:00am Analysis and review of the music
11:00am – 04:00pm Rework of the music for video games according to a new briefing with support by Jeff and Helge
04:00pm – 06:00pm Analysis and discussion of the reworked music

Requirements:

For a successful workshop attendance, the following things are necessary:

An original self-composed musical draft for the provided game situation as MP3 or WAV file (only for the active participants)
All application forms have to be submitted completely and correctly filled in) for active participants and passive observers!)
Technical basic requirement for composing on a local workstation: laptop computer with DAW, headphones, music-synchronous film playback (e.g. directly in the DAW), midi-keyboard (only for the active participants)
A running version of the latest release of the freely available software Wwise: https://www.audiokinetic.com/download/
A written certificate of participation by SoundTrack_Cologne (for active participants and passive observers!)

Please note:

In order to give the maximum number of participants and observers the chance to take part on the workshop, by signing the application form you agree that if you receive a certificate of participation from SoundTrack_Cologne you will take part on the workshop and you will pay the participation fee beforehand. Please verify for yourself that you can attend the workshop at the given time and that you can fulfil the requirements.

The participants will be chosen in the order of the registrations. There is no right of appeal.