Join composer and sound designer Olivier Esman for a behind-the-scenes look at the creative process of crafting Symphonia's soundtrack. Symphonia is a non-violent platformer that challenges players, in the role of the mysterious violinist Philemon, to restore the orchestra and music to the world. Symphonia will be available on PC, Nintendo Switch, PS4 (PlayStation 4), PS5 (PlayStation 5), Xbox One, and Xbox Series X|S on December 5, 2024.
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MusicTranscript
00:00Hello, my name is Olivier Essman and I worked as a composer and sound designer on Symphonia.
00:19Symphonia is a 2D platform game in which we play the role of a pioneer who aims to rebuild an orchestra in a fantastic world where music is the source of life.
00:29He will travel to different neighborhoods of the world of Symphonia, which are each inspired by a family of instruments of the Symphonic Orchestra.
00:45We were two main composers on this project, the other being Alexandre Bucafrançais, and together we shaped the artistic direction of the project.
00:53We spent a lot of time discussing the personality we wanted to give to each level and the way we were going to convey it to the player.
01:01The idea was to create something unique with very different references between each level and sometimes even between the biomes that make up the levels.
01:09Once we had set up the references, we distributed the compositions and we did a lot of back and forth until we found the balance we were looking for.
01:26In the end, we completed each other well, he was more sensitive to melodic and harmonic elements, where I liked to create more textures with the orchestra.
01:40We discussed a lot about the symbolism of the different families of orchestral instruments, what they evoked for us, what they represented for each of us.
01:52For each level, we deduced an atmosphere, a personality of characters, musical references used, different elements of scenery, different gameplay bricks, etc.
02:06Le Monde des Bois, for example, inspired us with a universe full of emotions, quite funny, disjointed, a bit funny, unpredictable, light, delicate.
02:17And from this feeling, we thought that a forest environment would correspond well to this level, with flowers for lightness, a lot of wind to recall the family of instruments,
02:29a spontaneous character, and a fancier part of the level, which also symbolizes the turmoil of this character.
02:38We therefore tried to put all the symbolism that we had released in our decisions.
02:44Moreover, our musical references are directly based on it.
02:47The idea was to question the family of instruments by using it a lot and in many different ways in the compositions of the level.
02:59A key point that greatly influenced the way we worked was the recording.
03:13The problem was that we had never done this before and it raised a lot of questions.
03:18It questioned our working method, it imposed new constraints, it represented a cost and a big risk
03:25because we were not going to master the final rendering in the same way and in such a precise way as we had done so far.
03:32And on the other hand, it was going to give a life and a unique personality to our level.
03:37Fortunately, we came across Scoring Production, which allowed us to make the link between the composers and the final version of the music,
03:57taking care of the whole organizational part of the recording.
04:01This includes partitioning, instrumentation modifications,
04:06getting the musicians in agreement with our project,
04:10being their main interlocutor during the recording,
04:13mixing, mastering.
04:15It really helped us to avoid all the mistakes of the beginners and make sure that the recording goes well.
04:22Basically, it allowed us to focus on the composition and guarantee a good result at the end.
04:27And frankly, we are very happy to have been able to work with them.
04:30It was really a blessing.
04:31As soon as we knew that the music was going to be recorded,
04:34we had to anticipate as much as possible the playability of the parts, the balance of the voices, of the instrumentation.
04:41We also wondered which parts were going to be recorded and which were going to have to be made from samples.
04:52We chose to compose linear music, that is to say that it does not evolve according to the player.
04:57But that was for the benefit of a composition that was always balanced,
05:01closer to the classical universe and film music than video game music.
05:07In the end, we recorded almost everything in 2D, except the soloists.
05:11We did not record the percussions, we used the samples instead.
05:27For the player's ability to improvise, we worked with an improvisation violinist
05:33in order to give life and naturalness to his passages.
05:36We really wanted it to be an improvisation and not a written passage.
05:42And so we did the triplet.
05:44It's a triplet, it's a triplet, it's a triplet, it's a triplet, it's a triplet, it's a triplet.
05:51We really wanted it to be an improvisation and not a written passage.
05:55And so we did the triplet on more than a hundred takes to have a certain diversity
05:59and that the player really had the impression that he could improvise to everyone.
06:03We tried to think of the instrumentation within the levels as something that sometimes grows progressively.
06:23As in the level of the strings, for example, we start with just a piano,
06:28then the more we go forward, the more the effect will grow with a string quartet,
06:33to finally end with the whole section of the orchestra, which represents 24 different musicians.
06:38This evolution symbolizes, it accompanies the progressive awakening of the environment
06:44as the player progresses, and it symbolizes the restart of the symphony city.
06:50Many small symbolic touches are present in the game like this
06:53to bring depth to our world and a little bit of musical subtext that would replace the dialogues in the game.
07:10For the concerti, which are the end-level concerts,
07:13we originally wanted to take the concept of musical dialogues,
07:17which is really the very definition of a classical concerto,
07:21and give it a narrative dimension in the game,
07:24as if the characters were talking to each other, but in music,
07:27and with their instruments rather than in words.
07:30The lines of dialogue would be replaced by musical sentences,
07:34and we had the idea of pictograms above the characters,
07:37which would have made it possible to understand the message and the relationship between the different characters.
07:44The player would have had a form of concert personalization.
07:49The idea was to give the player the choice of these musical sentences,
07:54as if they were controlling the dialogue, as if it were really something verbal.
07:59This idea was too complicated to push to the end,
08:02it would have required too many technical means for it to be understood,
08:07it would have required to work the music in a very modular, very flexible way,
08:13and it would have had a significant impact on the freedom of composition,
08:18and also, of course, on the mental manner.
08:21We would have had to record these different passages,
08:25so we abandoned the idea in the course of the journey,
08:29in favor of a more general story told by the music,
08:33and also by the graphical environment.
08:46The concerti were also a real place of exchange within the team,
08:51especially between the composers on one side, and the artist team on the other,
08:56because we really had to agree on the message we wanted to convey,
09:00that we were telling through both the music and the evolution of the environment,
09:04because as there is neither dialogue nor text in our game,
09:08it was important for us that the music and the scenery were in harmony,
09:12and had a particular meaning, a certain symbolism,
09:15as if we were guessing through these two elements the relationship between the characters
09:19and the impact that this relationship has on the world of Symphonia.