Blog Move

I’m moving my personal blog to our pixelati.com domain so all personal updates from now on will be at: damiencaine.pixelati.com.

Producer Showreel

Towards the end of last year I put together a showreel for South Auckland Producer Anonymouz.

As you can see in the showreel, Anonymouz is a very talented musician and Producer with an impressive range of skills and depth of experience at his disposal. Putting together the reel was a really interesting experience, not least because I got to learn a lot more about Anonymouz – I thought he was talented based on the little I knew before I started the work…

I hope to get the chance to direct a music video for him in the future – fingers crossed!

Editing another game trailer

I’m currently working on the next trailer for Path of Exile, the Online Action RPG by Auckland’s Grinding Gear Games.

I love the process of editing a trailer. You get to put together a tight little package of exciting content to convey a quick, simple message and generate questions and interest in the viewer’s mind.

I’m aiming to have the draft put together by tonight, ready for tomorrow where I’ll put in a full day onsite at Grinding Gear’s Titirangi office polishing and tweaking.

The first part of the process involves a lot of listening to the music tracks available to use. The very talented Mr. Adgio Hutchings of Texas has composed some wonderfully anthemic and epic tracks for Path of Exile so I’m not starved for choice. The trick is to find the best piece for the relevant section of the trailer and to be able to segue into the next piece in a way that makes sense logically, musically and emotionally.

The guys at GGG are after a tense, horror theme for the first section of the trailer so I’m looking for pieces that generate tension and grate ever so slightly on the hackles… (can one’s hackles even BE grated…?)

It’s great fun! More to come…

Music performed by a car

It’s an old clip but it’s a slow post day 😛 I still find it fun to watch this inventive use of the sounds of industry (as produced by this Jeep Grand Cherokee) to create a rhythmic track like this.

Reminds me of the intro to a great NZ track by Dei Hamo:

Matt Meikle – the future of cinematography

I’ve made a couple of music videos with Matt Meikle as the DP (Director of Photography) and he’s been a legend – showing me the ropes, taking the time to explain things patiently and giving me the floor as Director to make the necessary calls.

The Big Idea has an article / interview with Matt called “The Future Of Cinematography” and Matt gives some interesting insight into his own experience throughout his career.

“Matt Meikle… reveals a mature and considered approach to growing a career…”

Check the article out on The Big Idea.

The view from my office

Well I’m trying out the new iPhone 4 and playing with the camera so I can at least get rid of that horrible header… (new pic installed soon now!)

So here’s the view from my home office. Ten points (for those who don’t know me : P) if you can work out my exact location from it…

And here’s a clearer view – you can make out Vector Arena there in the background:

It’s a nice spot to work from but it’s going to be just as cool working from the new offices for the music media company I’m joining up with soon! Looking at doing one or two days a week there with the boys (and girls) and a few days here at home slogging away at whatever edit or digital media work is currently going down.

More news on the new endeavours soon…

What I Dun Bin Up To

As sporadic, inconsistent and uneven as these blog updates are it feels good to be updating now cos I’ve got something to talk about : ).

I dun bin up to a lot lately and here’s a bullet point list (written more to myself than anyone else):

• had great amounts of fun editing together four game trailers for talented and dedicated indie developer Grinding Gear Games for their Diablo-alike, Path of Exile (the first of which is embedded below)
• worked on a number of challenged small business endeavours (<— this version sanitised from the original edit for the sake of avoiding controversy at this time xD)
• directed NZ’s first all live 3D music video for J Williams featuring Scribe
• got ripped off by a few friends (<— this version sanitised from the original edit for the sake of saving relationships xD)
• watched a pretty cool movie
• learnt – yet again – that it pays to be paid
• made new friends
• made new enemies

It’s been an interesting year and it’s still going. Significant birthday this year too – if only because it falls on the 10th of the 10th of twenty 10 : ). Looking forward to it!

Path of Exile Game Trailer

New Header

Oh man… you don’t have to tell me that header is terrible, ok? I just had to change it from the default template header… 😛

I promise to remove my sin against web design and simple good taste as soon as humanly possible.

DJCXL.com version 3.0

Well, we launched the newer, sparse version of CXL’s blog a while back but we’re gearing up now to get things rolling on a regular again (check out www.djcxl.com).

CXL has been busy – hence the slow-down on the blog front – as he’s released his first single, My Love, and, just recently, the remix featuring Scribe and Illegal Musik’s new rapper, K One. I directed the video for My Love and was hoping to get a chance to catch Scribe laying his verse but due to camera issues… >_< … I've been out of commission for a while on the video front!

Anyway, I'm looking forward to getting more action happening with CXL's blog – more behind the scenes video content, etc. – and should have more to blog about in the near future!

The role of music in games

Some games understand the importance of dynamics, subtlety and just plain rightness when it comes to music.

My early experience of a deft touch of minimalism in game music occurred with the very first Tomb Raider game. My friend and I were caught up in a virtual world, staring at his projector screen in awe as Lara wandered through ancient ruins with nothing but the crunch crunch of gravel or clop clop of stone beneath her feet. The occasional brief musical stings as Lara entered a new area and a gorgeous vista opened up beneath her feet, were perfectly placed and brought a swell of anticipation whenever they appeared.

Other games have a George Lucas approach to music: there is always a soundtrack playing. The japanese seem to love this style. Many’s the game where one finds oneself wandering through a picturesque village with jaunty music plunking away on endless repeat. The music becomes part of the background atmosphere after a while, then when you enter the next area – e.g. the vast, uncharted wilderness – a stirring anthem of adventure bursts forth and your expectation of new encounters, excitement and danger suddenly kicks in to gear.

There’s obviously something appealing about the approach above (constant music) but I’m more of a fan of dynamics, personally.

A great example of soundtrack dynamics from film is in Peter Jackson’s “The Fellowship of the Ring”, during the sequence in Balin’s tomb, in the mines of Moria. When the orcs finally burst through the door and the battle is joined, the soundtrack that had been gradually building the tension of their approach drops out completely and all we hear is the thwack and whump of swords and arrows, interspersed with the occasional grunt and cry.

Peter Jackson (or the editor ; ) uses the music to bring us into the mindspace of the heroes of the Fellowship: before the battle, when they can hear the howls of the orcs outside and the hacking of axes at the door, the music escalates along with the tension they are feeling; then, as the fray begins in earnest, the heroes’ focus turns from their imagination – from anticipation – to their immediate predicament; to the urgency of life and death and the simple act of keeping their enemy’s sword from entering their body. They hear no ‘mind music’ of escalating dread and anticipation – they are in the moment: a frantic and uncluttered zone of conflict (and, by extension and musical cue, so are we).

After a time, and at a significant moment in the narrative of the battle choreography, Jackson reintroduces Howard Shore’s score and we are figuratively ushered back in, as an audience, to witness the spectacle of our heroes in action.

~ * ~

Those sorts of dynamics, when applied to games, interest me the most. The music in a game is one part of a multi-faceted whole that includes the visuals and the gameplay experience – and just like an individual instrument in an orchestral score it should be employed at a specific time of the creator’s choosing. In musical scores an instrument is introduced at points where its particular contribution is most perfectly suited to the emotion or feeling the creator is trying to express at that time. At other times, it suits the score for that particular instrument to be silent.

As I said, I can’t understand the benefits or artistry involved in the decision to have a soundtrack constantly playing throughout a story experience (please enlighten me below!) – but it seems to me to be the difference between being enveloped in a holistic, engaging experience or simply playing a game where the music is a convention, like the health bar and the opening menu – something that, if missing, would be sorely noticed but when present, seems simply to fade into the background like so much wallpaper.

Some would say, “George Lucas had a constant soundtrack and we still experienced a great emotional journey from his films”, but I would point out that the music was often composed specifically for the images and action on-screen and was thus dynamic in its makeup – a dynamism that game music often can’t emulate (as the Player could take ten seconds to walk across the screen to the next area or they could take thirty minutes – by which point the music has had to loop a number of times).

What do you think? Is a dynamic, nuanced soundtrack more likely to engage the Player on a deeper emotional level than a soundtrack that plays constantly throughout the game?

(Reposted from my original PlayMaker personal blog)