Games Meet Film @ Pinewood Studios

OK, its not my usual awesomely witty title, but I was inspired to put keys to virtual paper after attending the initial TIGA organised symposium at Pinewood studios. An interesting and talented panel discussed audio (which as we know is all too often ignored or marginalised) in respect of the differences between the media of film and games.

The panel gave a lot of interesting feedback and I was really struck by the diference in basic attitude towards audio, and its purpose. The less powerful, more 'real time creation' restricted game developers still generally saw audio as a task to achieve, and to try and represent reality as closely as possible, whereas the long established, linear and time un-restricted film guys saw audio as something which should add value to the project, in terms of emotion and 'total package' presentation. It shows just how far the power of consoles etc has to go before restrictions in implementation stop affecting the bottom line in terms of creativity. However on the flip side, the restrictions have created some awesome audio tooling, such as granular synthesis and modelling, as demonstrated in terms of "car audio" by Jerry Ibbotson of Media Mill, whose car synth was a tool which should be used by sound designers everywhere, rather than crying as they realise the picture recut has made mincemeat of their carefully recorded car audio.

Trying to do everything in as expensive a way as possible, i.e. by recording actual vehicles doing what they are actually doing on screen might be great, but such synth tools can either give cheaper options OR provide back up to cover potential recuts etc. Also such synth tools should start slowly replacing the sound FX libraries that so many sound designers rely on the world over in TV, film and so on.

The panel discussion reinforced my belief that the game audio world is so obsessed with re-creating reality (as game visuals have been doing for so long) that the idea of NOT recreating reality but creating audio thats adds value to the game, either via emotion, 'colour' (a funny word for audio but hey, maybe I should say tone?) or audio pointers that highlight particular things on screen (or off via surround etc) is often missed.

The combination of the 'core values' of the movie audio guys (or other pure audio guys such as myself) can be added to the tech skills and innovation of the game audio guys to create truly great audio, both in terms of quality but also in terms of cost savings, controllability and real time generation and immersion. By those core values I mean emotion and adding value to a project. Just representing what is seen, at a lowest common denominator level (the much mentioned 'footsteps' in the talk) really reduces audio to something which is seen by all too many people as just a layer of gloss which isn't that important. People in the know, know that audio can be so much more. In an ideal world, audio should be held to be as important or nearly as important as sight/video, but in the video game world, far too often that patently isn't the case.

Partly, as the talk helped show, that is due to technology and budgets, but also I feel many of the higher echelons of video game creation don't have an experience of great audio and what it can do. Having honed their careers in early video game creation, where systems power really limited audio (from the early days of bleeps, then general midi) they don't believe in audio as a valued asset, that can really make (or too often break) a game. And as such they deny it a place int he creation of a game, from its inception onwards. Again, game studios often only have an audio programmer or sound designer on staff, which means by default audio is left out of planning, until the project is well under way.

Perhaps that will slowly change, and of course, this isn't they case in all developers. A great many are beginning to deliver fabulous audio experiences, but for those that do all too often they are followed by too many that don't. I personally have seen far too many games which claim to want to deliver an emotional journey to the player (and "make them cry", as the line goes) being delivered by appalling voice actors knocking out a weak script, which make Eastenders look like Shakespeare.

In fact this latter point brings up another important difference, again highlighted by the Pinewood sessions. In film (and music) the audio treatment BEGINS with the voice, and the whole audio soundscape is built up around it. After all the actors are delivering the narrative that drives the film, and provide the information the viewer needs. In game too often it is only just another piece of the jigsaw, and yet with the player often the avatar controlling the game, understanding and emotional involvement is crucial. Not only that, but one has to assume the player is human, and as such will respond to the human voice in a very direct way

The Pinewood session ended quickly with loads left to discuss and I look forward to the sequel.
However it has definitely fortified my belief that games need to take audio more seriously and a way of doing this is to recruit and use audio staff who have developed outside of video games.