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Before starting with the questions, we would like to thank you for your participation; it's a privilege for us to have the chance to interview you.
We would really love to know some things about your musical / educational background and what was your stimulus into entering the film music composition area, in the first place.
I’ve been composing music for as long as I can remember, so I couldn’t tell you what the original stimulus was for that. It’s always been something I needed to do. The creation of music has always held much more fascination for me than the performance of music ever did. I graduated Summa Cum Laude from Kean University, and immediately after that I started my first professional composition work for National Public Radio. I composed over fifty hours of orchestral and choral music for a series of award-winning dramas entitled “Radio Tales”. The series adapted classic science fiction, fantasy and horror stories for the radio, using wall-to-wall music as a way to immerse listeners in the story. In that capacity I got the chance to write music for dramas like “War of the Worlds”, “Jason and the Argonauts”, “Arabian Nights”, “Beowulf” and other beloved classics of world fiction. It was a privilege, and a fantastic experience. It was also the first opportunity I had to work with award-winning producer Winnie Waldron. Winnie is a fantastic music producer. She ensures that the quality of my work stays at its highest possible level, and she keeps the creative ball rolling throughout the production process. Winnie has a very keen sense of musicality. She knows immediately when the music is serving the story and when it is not. I trust her judgment implicitly, and that has been a real blessing to me. We worked together for National Public Radio on the “Radio Tales” series, and then a little over a year ago we moved on together to the field of video games. My first composing job in the video games industry was music for the smash hit game “God of War”, created by Sony Computer Entertainment America”. Right after that I started work on the “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory” game.
How did you become attached to the Charlie and the chocolate factory project? We understand that you worked with High Voltage and it was during last year’s E3. How did you meet them?
The Electronic Entertainment Expo, or E3 for short, is a yearly industry convention for the video games business. It’s the biggest industry convention of the year, and it’s packed with developers, publishers, manufacturers, and people dressed up in elaborate costumes demonstrating the latest high-tech gizmos. It’s a fun show. I wish I could see more of it, but when I go to E3 it’s strictly business -- I’m in back-to-back meetings all day, every day. That’s how I met with Chadd Portwine, the audio director of High Voltage Software. High Voltage is one of the oldest and largest independent game developers around. They always have lots of projects going at once -- it’s an incredibly creative studio, staffed by a fantastic collection of artists and designers. I’d sent my demo to Chadd Portwine in January of 2004, and then we met at E3 2004 of that year. Chadd is one of the nicest people I’ve met in the industry. I had a great first meeting with him, and he told me that there was a top-secret project coming up that he thought could benefit from my music. We agreed to keep in touch, and in August he revealed that the project was “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory” , the movie tie-in game to the upcoming film directed by Tim Burton and starring Johnny Depp.
Did you work specifically with a single person or was it more of a team work?
I worked mostly with Chadd Portwine. He’s an accomplished audio director, and a real expert in the design and implementation of game audio. Also, he’s a very laid-back person who makes you feel instantly at ease. This is a trademark of his management style. The atmosphere is very comfortable, which helps keep the creative process flowing easily. For most of the development process I worked with Chadd, getting occasional input from Tim Stasica, who works with the audio implementation team. Also, I received positive feedback from Tim Burton on the music -- he was involved in approvals for all aspects of the game, including the music.
How was your experience with them? Were you allowed much creative freedom or did you have specific guidance or limitations as to how the music should be?
For the most part, I was allowed a lot of creative freedom for the project.
I think if Danny Elfman’s music from the new film had been made available to me while I was writing the music for the score, I would have preferred to isolate myself from it, just to ensure that I was writing music that best served the game. The musical demands of a film are intrinsically different from those of a game. In a game, the music must act both as an emotional undercurrent and an informative resource to the player, letting him or her know how the game is progressing, what goals have been met and what still needs to be accomplished. A film is a linear experience, with a definite beginning, middle and end. The experience of playing a video game is much more fluid, with circumstances that can dramatically change at any given moment. The music has to be flexible, adaptable to the situations that may present themselves at any given point. The discipline of scoring a game involves a mind set and an array of technical and artistic skills which are not required of the film composer. It’s better to write the music to serve the game, rather than to mirror the musical experience presented by the film.
My initial instructions were to keep to an orchestral sound and to touch upon the quirkiness of the settings in which the story takes place. Chadd and I also talked about using choir as an accent in the score, mostly during the cut scenes. However, as I went along I found myself writing choir into the music more and more often. Chadd liked what he heard and encouraged me to keep going. In the end, the score featured choir for nearly sixty percent of its length. I think it was Chadd’s encouragement during the music creation process that enabled the score to have its unique choral sound.
Did you begin scoring with a specific aim and how was the procedure all the way up to final score? How would you describe your specific work for the project?
The aim of the score was to enhance the gameplay experience -- to make the player feel as though he or she had entered into Willy Wonka’s fabulous chocolate factory. The art department had access to visual assets from the movie, which helped them make the design of the levels as faithful as possible to the look of the movie sets. I was provided with video from the game-in-progress to work with while I was creating the music, so I was able to soak in the bizarre creations of Tim Burton’s film as translated by High Voltage’s artists and designers. My responsibility was to translate this wonderfully eccentric visual feast into a musical score that was true to the feel of Tim Burton’s world, while at the same time served the gameplay, enhanced the action, warned of enemies and accented player successes and failures. I wrote over seventy tracks for the “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory” console game. The whole project took four months to complete. It was an intense and enjoyable experience from beginning to end.
The score to Charlie and the chocolate factory was widely accepted and praised, with personal approval by Tim Burton, director of the corresponding, celebrated movie, starring Johnny Depp. How did you meet him and who brought you in contact? How would you describe him as a person and did he give you any special advice?
I wish I’d had the opportunity to meet Tim Burton! That would have been such a memorable experience. My contact with Tim Burton was strictly through Chadd Porwine of High Voltage. Tim Burton listened to the tracks I wrote for the game, and then sent his approvals back. Chadd let me know that Tim had approved everything I wrote for the game. I was so gratified to know that I had lived up to Tim’s expectations.
It would have been thrilling to meet Tim Burton, but he was way too busy juggling his work on the movie and overseeing the creation of the game to have time to visit with me in person. Still, while I didn’t have the opportunity to meet him face to face, I feel very honored to have written music that met with his approval.
Which part or element of the music for the score, you admire the most?
It’s hard to think objectively about the music I wrote for the game. This project was one of my favorites, and I have a very warm place in my heart for every track because they were all such a joy to create. In particular, I am very pleased with how the choral pieces sound. The techniques I used with those tracks were at times quite experimental and risky, which makes it even more satisfying to hear them in the body of the game and know that they are working the way they should. I’m also pleased with the collection of musical themes that are in the game, both for characters and situations. I think the game has its own musical style which is unique to itself, and that was something I hoped to achieve when I began work on the project.
What could you say us about Tim Burton’s and Danny Elfman’s collaboration? What’s your opinion on its outcome?
Tim Burton and Danny Elfman have such a synergistic artistic relationship -- they complement each other extremely well. The score for the film has a very gothic quality. There is a sinister undertone which is reminiscent of Burton and Elfman’s earlier collaborations like the Batman films. In the context of the film, this musical approach works very well.
What’s difference in your approach, compared to the Elfman output?
The story of the video game is quite different from the story of the movie. Although the main events remain the same, Charlie’s role is much more active in the game than in the film. He spends much more time interacting directly with the factory and the Oompa Loompas. Where the movie focuses its attention on Willy Wonka’s eccentricities and the nasty mishaps that befall the rotten children, the game focuses on Charlie’s attempts to save the children and restore the factory. His journey in the game is more positive, and he gets to spend much more time discovering the wonders and spectacles all around him. While I was writing the score I had no idea what approach Danny Elfman would take, so there are some similarities, but there are also many differences. The musical approach I took was more whimsical than Danny Elfman’s approach. I focused more on the wonders and magical sights Charlie was seeing, as well as the experience of manipulating the factory’s weird gadgets and running about in its fantastic environments.
Your score for the “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory” video game features an extraordinary amount of original choral music, giving the score for the game a unique and distinctive sound. Over 57% of the score for “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory” is choral and you used very complex composing procedures and methods for that. What could you tell us about this complex technique and how did you make this decision? How was your work with the choir - did they respond smoothly or did they have any difficulties in learning and render the final passages.
Oh, the choir was just a dream to work with! They were available at all hours of the day and night, and knew exactly what I wanted from them at all times, as though they could read my mind! In fact, the choir was... me (laughs). I recorded all the voices of the choir. I’m a trained classical vocalist. To record a choir, I simply overdub my own voice however many times I need. For “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory” I recorded between twelve and sixteen voices for each choral track. A lot of the choral tracks were designed to be humorous. They are loaded with nonsense syllables like “swoosh-zing” and “bada ba dum bum”, and at times will break into some very difficult high-speed passages and complicated counterpoint. Other tracks are more moody and atmospheric, using the choir in open-vowel chords to enhance the magical feeling. I’d used my voice in my work before, but it seemed particularly appropriate for this project. There is nothing quite so musically expressive as the human voice, for both comedy and drama. The choir technique worked very well in the context of the “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory” game. As an aside, Danny Elfman also used the very same vocal overdubbing technique in his score for the “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory” movie. He overdubbed his own voice to perform the songs of the Oompa Loompas. It was a great coincidence!
You didn´t heard anything from Danny Elfman´s score for the new “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory” film, but did you watch the Gene Wilder version and listen to his original score, before you score the relevant game? If yes, how hard is it to stay focused and clear your mind from what you’ve heard when beginning to write your own original score?
I watched the Gene Wilder version of the “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory” movie before I began work on the game score, as a part of my research. I wasn’t at all worried about being influenced by the musical score from the older film, because the Gene Wilder version of the “Chocolate Factory” is so incredibly different from Tim Burton’s reinterpretation. The two films bear almost no relationship to each other at all. Since I was scoring a game that was brimming with the wonderful weirdness of Tim Burton’s movie, I knew that the musical approach had to be unique. I never heard Danny Elfman’s score for the new film, so that wasn’t an influence. I think the strongest influence on me during the creation of the music, apart from the Tim Burton-inspired visuals in the game, was the original book written by Ronald Dahl. I read the book over and over while creating music for the game. Tim Burton had said that his version of the story would be a more literal, faithful interpretation of the book, so I felt it was important that the music reflect the spirit of the original text.
Are you close to the movies’ crew and executives, when working on a movie tie-in game, or is it more of an independent procedure.
The game and movie versions of Tim Burton’s “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory” were created in parallel. While Tim Burton and Warner Bros. provided guidance during the development of the game, the film and game projects were separate entities. Warner Bros. worked on the film, and High Voltage Software worked on the game. My contact was with High Voltage, and input from Warner Bros. came to me through High Voltage, not directly.
How is it to score music for a game? Technology in the gaming area has advanced into huge heights in our times but still, some might argue that they still look too artificial or cartoon-like. Do you find that there are any difficulties or main differences when scoring for wholly computer-generated images instead of the more natural picture in a movie?
Video games are making huge strides in their graphics, animations, gameplay technologies and sound. A new generation of video game consoles is about to make its appearance in the form of Xbox 360, Nintendo Revolution and the PlayStation 3. These consoles are reported to have the processing power to present near photo-realistic images and astonishing realism in lighting, physics and artificial intelligence. That being said, we’re still dealing with computer generated images, not reality captured on film. The interactive nature of the medium requires that all aspects of the experience be adaptable to rapid change at any moment -- which makes it necessary to use CGI. Sometimes that CGI can be as colorful and magical as the latest Pixar film. Sometimes it is gritty and stark, appropriate to the horrific settings that form the basis of many video game experiences today. As a composer it is important to score these games without any concessions to their ‘artificial or cartoon-like’ appearance. The player who engages in these games may be aware of the artificiality of the images at the beginning, but if the designers of the game have done their job well, that awareness disappears within a few minutes. Thereafter the player is absorbed in the story being told by the game. As game composers it is our responsibility to enhance this suspension of disbelief, to draw the players into the world that the game designers have created. This is not very different from the job that film composers do. The film composer attempts to draw his or her audience into the experience, away from the smell of popcorn and the creak of the movie-theater seats. On this level, the film and game composer’s jobs are identical.
What do you think of the game music area? It’s surely been a medium whose popularity’s been continuingly growing during the last years, especially as its scores are concerned. A lot of importance is attributed to the works of the composers for those games lately, what do you think of the genre’s future and prospects?
I think the future of game music is very bright. The community of gamers has embraced game music as an integral part of the experience of gaming. Moreover, they have loudly demanded that game soundtracks be released, and the publishers have responded. As long as gamers continue to demand quality original music in their games, the developers will continue to answer the call.
You have created music in a wide variety of musical genres, from symphonic to techno. How do you shift between all these different projects and musical styles? Is there some special process you follow prior to begin working on a new score?
I listen to music from the genre in which I’ll be writing. Research is very important. If a particular game project requires a Middle-Eastern / Mediterranean touch (as did my work on the “God of War” project) then I’ll listen to music from those parts of the world, study it as closely as a can, and let the techniques and instruments infuse my own work. Shifting from one style to another is not as difficult as it sounds. Successful media composers are by nature good listeners, able to absorb the qualities of the music they hear and then let those qualities influence their own music. A media composer who specializes in only one musical style would have a hard time finding steady employment.
What references does your music have in general? Do you feel influenced by specific composers?
I don’t think I can point to any particular influences. As a composer, my experience with my own music is somewhat subjective. I’m sure it’s possible for someone to look at my music and isolate influences from other contemporary and classical composers. But if I did that myself I think I’d get way too self-conscious about my own work. I think it’s important for me to create music spontaneously, with all my heart, and without any thought to the underlying principles and influences which might be subconsciously guiding my decisions.
You have been awarded many times, notable ones being the Gracie Award for artistic excellence and outstanding achievement from the Foundation of American Women in Radio and Television, World-Medalist In various New York Festivals, and honoured by the NFCB Golden Reel Awards and the Audio Publishers Association Awards. In addition, your music has been described by many prestigious publications, like Publishers Weekly, as “Sensational!”, Billboard Magazine called it “A Real Treat!” while AudioFile Magazine called it "Magnificent!" .National Public Radio hailed your work as “A Musical Tour-De-Force!”. How do you respond to all this? What do you feel every time something like this occurs?
I’m always humbled to be recognized for my work. It is incredibly encouraging to have my efforts singled out like that. I was particularly honored to have been recognized four times by the “Foundation of American Women in Radio and Television”. For over fifty years the AWRT has worked to support women in the field of electronic media, as both an advocacy group and an educational resource. The Gracie Awards Gala is a celebration of women’s achievements, and a gathering of extraordinary women from all facets of the entertainment industry. I was awed to be in their company. Also, winning a WorldMedal from the New York Festivals ‘World’s Best Work’ Awards was a thrilling moment for me. Competition for the WorldMedals is fierce, with an international array of artists entering their finest work each year. I was incredibly gratified to be awarded a medal. Also, it always feels good when your music is reviewed favorably by the press. As a member of the entertainment industry, my ultimate goal is to entertain, and I’m very pleased to know when people have enjoyed my work.
How do you feel about being a dynamic woman in a generally man-held area, do you have any kind of relationship with other, special female composers of the genre like Debbie Wiseman, Rachel Portman, Lisa Gerrard, Laura Karpman, Anne Dudley, Zoë Poledouris, Wendy Carlos, Jocelyn Pook and their fabulous work? Are you aware of any other female composers´ work?
I think it is wonderful how many strides female composers are making in film and television. I am familiar with the work of the composers you mention, and have great admiration for their music and the obstacles they have overcome in the film and television industries. In game music, there are almost no working female composers. As far as I am aware, the only exceptions at the moment are Laura Karpman, the composer of music for “Everquest II”, and myself. Laura Karpman is an excellent film and television composer who has moved into games.
I enjoyed her music created for “Everquest II”. Her lush orchestral arrangements gave the whole game experience more life and depth. I enjoyed Lisa Gerrard´s contributions to the “Gladiator” score. Rachel Portman´s score for “Chocolat” was very enjoyable.
A lot of other film and television composers have recently discovered the game industry. It could be that the cross pollination of our two industries might help female composers break through the gender barrier in the field of music for games. I think that would be wonderful.
We would love to have a small list from you about the rest of your projects, like the highly popular “God of War” by Sony, the ones you admire the most, all accompanied by a small description of the sound and style of each one. Something like a guidance-list for your new fans who are interested in your work but don´t know where to start.
“God of War” video game. I contributed choral and orchestral music to this project. The music I wrote is influenced by a Middle-Eastern / Mediterranean style. The music is very dark and ominous, using ancient Greek lyrics and ethnic instruments. The game soundtrack is available via www.sonyconnect.com.
“Fortress of Doom” music drama. This program was created for XM Satellite Radio, and consists of sixty minutes of choral and orchestral music set to an epic fantasy story by Lord Dunsany, whose work inspired J.R.R. Tolkien to create “The Lord of the Rings”. The recording is available on CD from Ampcast.com and as a download from Audioville.com.
“Voltaire´s Planet Trek” music drama. This program was created for XM Satellite Radio, and consists of sixty minutes of humorous jazz, swing and lounge music set to a wildly funny satire written by Voltaire, the author of “Candide.” The recording is available on CD from Ampcast.com.
”Charles Dickens´ Ghost Story” music drama. This program was created for XM Satellite Radio and consists of sixty minutes of extremely dark, haunting music set to a story of murder and ghostly revenge by Charles Dickens. The recording is available on CD from Ampcast.com.
“Arabian Nights” music drama trilogy. This program trilogy was created for National Public Radio, and consists of three hours of exuberant world music set to three of the best stories from the “1001 Nights” collection -- Aladdin and the Magic Lamp, Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves, and The Voyages of Sinbad the Sailor. The recording is available on CD from Ampcast.com.
“War of the Worlds” music drama. This program was created for National Public Radio, and consists of sixty minutes of orchestral and synth music set to H.G. Wells apocalyptic story of Martian invasion. The recording is available on CD from Ampcast.com and as a download from Audioville.com.
To Conclude, What are your future projects? Are you planning to move more in the Game Music area or do you want to experiment into other areas as well? Any plans for Film Music?
I have a few projects in the works but since they´re in the early stages, I´m not at liberty to discuss them. I´m very excited to be working in the game music field. I would welcome the opportunity to work on film projects in the future. With all the creativity permeating the film, television and game industries, it´s a great time to be a media composer.
For more info about the composer please visit: www.winifredphillips.com
Special Thanks to Greg TopDollar for arranging this interview
8-august-2005
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