Interview Graeme Revell - Call of Duty 2

For the release of Call of Duty 2, Soundtrack Review.net was pleased to be able to ask the following questions of veteran film and television composer, Graeme Revell -

Soundtrack Review.net: "You've scored a wide variety of television and film products, including the video-game inspired Tomb Raider film. How did you approach your first venture into scoring such interactive media as a video game?"

Graeme Revell: "It wasn’t too much of a mystery because the content of Call of Duty and Big Red One is World War 2 shooters, so content-wise, there’s not a whole lot of mystery about what the music should be. In the case of Call of Duty, it’s different US, British and Russian military, so there is some differentiation in style and ethnicity in the music, but it seems to be big orchestra. And then for Big Red One, we follow a unit of characters, so you get to know the dialogue between them, so that one is a bit more like Band of Brothers, where the music is more personal and heroic, rather than just straight out action. As far as the technicalities of writing for video games go, you have to build a loop-able character in your music, so you may have 2 or 4 bars of repetitions that allow the player to play at different speeds but you still hit the main events in the scene. It’s a little bit of a mystery to me how that works, but I’ll be looking forward to seeing it."

Soundtrack Review.net: "Did you draw inspiration from any previous scores that fit a similar World War II genre?"

Graeme Revell: "No, I deliberately didn’t listen to them, I know of them, for example I mentioned Band of Brothers, but I never saw it, but I think we all know."

Soundtrack Review.net: "Were you given samples of Michael Giacchino's score for the first Call of Duty and/or did you attempt to bridge between the first game and the sequel?"

Graeme Revell: "No."

Soundtrack Review.net: "Having Call of Duty 2 sandwiched between such scores as The Adventures of Shark Girl and Lava Boy, Sin City, and the up-coming The Fog, how do your prepare yourself to score these radically different genres?"

Graeme Revell: "I don’t know. For me, when I see the picture, I hear the different music. There are composers out there who tend to have one or two styles at their command, and they do that for pretty much every movie. Fortunately because so much of the movies require the same, they can do the same music. For me that would be anathema, I would kill myself if I had to do the same music over and over again. I just draw from the big bad world of all different styles of music, crunch it in together and it seems to work out okay for me."

Soundtrack Review.net: "Has the process of scoring Call of Duty 2 inspired you to seek out similar projects for the future?"

Graeme Revell: "Yes, I enjoyed the video game experience, it wasn’t as micromanaged as film, not so many cooks in the kitchen with all their different opinions. That allows you to be more organic in the writing and it was good for me to write fairly straightforward epic orchestral music, I enjoy that. People will be able to have an opinion about whether I’m any good at it, and hopefully I will have a chance to do it again."

Soundtrack Review.net: "Would you recommend video game scoring to other composers as an experience to have?"

Graeme Revell: "Yes, very much so. I think it’s been great. I dabbled in it because it was an interesting medium for me that I’d never worked in before. There are many, many very talented young composers in Hollywood who have trouble getting feature film work and I think the rise of that industry has been wonderful for those guys, it gives them a great opportunity to work and potentially make the jump to film. And it’s good work, high quality."

Soundtrack Review.net: "Do you see the gaming industry pulling in established Hollywood composers or will there still be a place for newcomers to use video games to hone their craft before venturing into the Hollywood system?"

Graeme Revell: "I think because the money is not quite so good as the music side of features, it probably won’t attract established film composers to the point where they push out the younger composers. I think it’s going to be good for younger composers."