SUBOTRON pro games powered by Wirtschaftskammer Wien: Music for Games – Workshop and Panel

Panel: Fri, Sep 30, 16-17h:00 as part of the WAVES festival
Venue: WUK, Währinger Straße 59, 1090 Wien

How is music for games compsed, chosen and licensed? Which requirements do musicians need to accomplish to faciliate such liscenses? What does the legal background look like? Which strategies do artists use to place their music in games successfully? Is there a masterplan or does achievement happen randomly? What does a track in a game mean for the numbers in the bank account?

Videogame Music is listened to more often than conventionally received music. That´s simply because gamers spend more time with the medium, so the soundtrack unfolds empathically. Plus, the player connects sounds and tracks mostly with a particular experience in the game. This associative power adds to the magic of a game soundtrack. What are the upcoming callenges for sound design in games? What are the common threads between chipmusic and orchestral soundtrack? Will soundtracks and soundeffects blend and become more adaptive again in the near future?
On Thursday 29.09.16 at mica, an international expert accompanied and complemented by local musicians and sound designers will advise workshop participants chosen from an open call in a workshop setting. The following day, the topics will be discussed in a moderated panel during the WAVES festival conference program at WUK. Moderation: Robert Glashüttner (ORF/FM4)

Experts and topics

Stafford Bawler (Cardiff, UK)
Stafford is an award winning sound designer with nearly 18 years’ experience of creating and integrating audio content into video games. His work spans four console generations that can be found in over 70 published titles to date. These include everything from his first title ‘Chill’ a very early snowboarding game to many Football and Lego titles, as well as numerous racing games: “Colin McRae Dirt”, “Forza Motorsport” series and “Sonic All-stars Racing Transformed”. In 2013 Stafford became an independent freelancer. One of the first titles he created audio for was UsTwo´s Game “Monument Valley” on iOS and Android. Stafford’s work on that title earned him the coveted Develop 2014 award for Creative Contribution, Audio. Stafford has also been nominated for the 2015 Develop Creative Outsourcer: Audio Award for his work in “Monument Valley Forgotten Shores”.
TOPICS:
– progression from pure musician to sound designer
– recognition of strengths
– cold calling vs networking
– complexity of design audio for games, importance of understanding not only technology, but game design itself
– successful communication and collaboration with developers
– requirements for a career as a freelance game audio designer
 
Lukas Hasitschka
Founder Sound42, Drummer WANDA
Lukas is a musician and entrepreneur. A producer and a composer. A rock drummer and an avid follower of Schumann. The one word that describes him best: enthusiastic! Lukas Hasitschka made his way as a musician. While studying Jazz-drums in Vienna he was approached by a developer, and ultimately commissioned to create game audio. The game sparked his interest to produce more audio for games and Lukas came up with an idea: To form a team of composers and sound designers to achieve more collectively. The inception of his company Sound42 was the logical next step. Over the following years the company created the audio for many games of several Austrian developers. Ever since the time intensive and successful years with the group WANDA his production work is on hold. This is his first talk since joining the band.
TOPICS:
– personal approach to production practice
– positive and many negative experiences with cold call and building a network to acquire jobs
– soundeffects practice the “amateur” way
– comparison job-life before/after successful band-life
 
Zsolt Marx
Producer & Lead Programmer Noizoo Games
Zsolt is a music producer and a game programmer. He started as a coder for Rockstar Vienna working on titles like “Max Payne”, then moved to the UK to turn his passion for music production into a profession. Still in music school he won a competition to produce music for the car racing title “Trackmania Sunrise”. Zsolt joined Electronic Arts as programmer and audio artist, becoming part of the award-winning “Burnout Paradise”, “Black” and “Harry Potter”-audio teams. Recently Zsolt put on his producer and programmer hat as one half of the Noizoo Games team – developing a line of mobile learning games. His most recent venture is “Dungenious” – an innovative mixture between a learning game and a dungeon crawler.
TOPICS:
– interactive music from beep to MIDI to orchestra: how to apply videogame music and generate playerinteraction
 
Constantin Kletzer
Founder GEISTWERT Attorneys-at-Law
Constantin is an attorney-at-law in Austria, dedicated to and working in the field of copyright for more than 17 years. He was partner and head of IP of an Austrian full service law firm before he founded GEISTWERT Attorneys-at-Law, the Viennese Center for Intellection Property, IT and Technology, together with 4 partners, Juliane Messner, Max Mosing, Alexander Schnider and Rainer Schultes. He has been advising several Austrian film projects regarding IP rights and negotiated sync-agreement and film music agreements. GEISTWERT has been advising major games releases of Austrian game developers in the recent years.
TOPICS:
– brief introduction into copyright law for composers and performing artists
– case study on typical real-life situation

<link http: subotron.com veranstaltung games-music _blank>subotron.com/veranstaltung/games-music

Supported by <link http: www.creativespace.at>www.creativespace.at – Die Kreativplattform der Wirtschaftskammer Wien