Trailer Music

As a final task, Rosa asked for some trailer music to be made for her handin. She asked me or Maria to make it at the end of our last mixing session. It would have been good to hand it over to others in the group but she needed it soon so I volunteered to try and get it done within the next few days.

She specified it be 1 minute long, and include a ‘remixed’ soundtrack made up of the music from the project. This proved to be quite difficult as the styles of the music in our game are quite different from each other.

I asked Rosa to send me a list of reference videos that I watched and tried to analyse. The tone of our game is different from these games but i tried to take inspiration anyway.

She also wanted me to make the music before she made the trailer so that she could edit it to the music. I found this difficult as I didn’t know how she was planning to structure the trailer so I asked her.

I asked her for a chart/graph as a reference for the energy levels of the trailer and she promptly sent one.

I asked Juice for the midi file of the piano in her music box composition. I then changed the tempo and, using the first half, made it last the length of the trailer. I then imported the midi file from the track I made for the music box. I transposed it (an easy job thanks to the composition being in a pentatonic scale) and arraigned it to fit in with Juice’s piano.

I then added some sound effects that we used in the game for the trailer to start and fade into, and a simple white noise ‘sting’ at the end to add another element.

I sent this to Rosa as I knew she wanted something to base the trailer on so that she could start. She said it ‘stars very good’ but she wanted more ’emotional changes’ after as it felt a bit flat. She said she wanted it to have a memorable point every 20 seconds, I guess so that she had points to cut to.

To add more weight to the track I took the main chords that I found in the piano track and created 2 string tracks and a pad sample instrument made from the piano.

Here are some screenshots of the final version.

Midi files and basic automation for
Dramatic Kick drum for Rosa to cut to
General screenshot of the whole project. You can see the ‘energy’ automation I used to make sure I was reminded of the general dynamic intent.
The opening sound effects
The white noise reverse riser (faller?) in the outro of the trailer

I was worried it might not be as dynamic as Rosa would want, as most of the trailers she sent me were a lot more action-packed (though, so too was the content of the games). In the end, though she said it was ‘perfect’ and ‘exactly what she wanted’ what was good, though im not sure it was really deserving of such praise.