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Interview with Joey Kuras
Let’s move on to the advice portion of our column. Any pearls of wisdom for current or future game sound designers? Play games, first of all. If you don’t play the games, it’s hard to design sounds for them. You have to be a game player to be good in this business. Also, go see movies. They are your peers and your competition. They are loaded with sounds and lots of great ideas. I call that research and I love it. It’s great to be able to have an excuse to go to the movies. Nothing like renting 6 movies in a day to get ideas for a game too. If I’m working on a horror game, I need to get in the mood, so I rent several of them. It gives me plenty of ideas. There are not a lot of books on the subject of sound design so the best way to learn is to get out there and listen. Most sound designers won’t give away their secrets but they will give you some basic ideas. What about some advice for someone trying to get into the gaming industry as an audio guy? Know somebody. I started on the ground floor, as did most of the people out there. We were all game testers at one time, that’s your foot in the door. Once you’re in, you can start bugging people with your game design ideas, let them know you do music or sound effects. Be willing to do your first gig free. Tommy’s first project, he did for free because he just wanted to do it. Many got their start that way. Be willing to make some sacrifices and show the game makers you are willing to do whatever it takes. Make friends with everyone and don’t burn any bridges. Back when I knew Tommy on the East Coast, he liked to throw parties. At one in particular, I pulled him aside and mentioned that I thought he was going to make it, and make it big. I could see his personality and drive to excel and I could just tell. It was luck on my part that I got to be such good friends with him, kind of being in the right place at the right time. He was my way into this industry. I earned my job, but I was also somewhat fortunate. I think fate was definitely on my side. If you live in Antarctica and want to be a sound designer for a game, it just isn’t going to happen. You need to move to where the action is. Any thoughts to share with developers or publishers when looking for game music and sound? They should have someone who programs sound that knows and understands sound. They need to definitely have the audio in mind from the start of the project. If it’s a PC game, they need to make sure they leave enough space for the sound. If they can, try to get either Red or Yellow Book audio. Nobody wants to hear MIDI anymore, plus a lot of musicians are also trying to stay away from it. For the sake of the game, stay away from MIDI. Let the sound guys do what they do best. Everybody has ears and everybody is a sound critic. A lot of people don't go to the artist and say they think a certain color is wrong, or a pattern is wrong. They don’t do that. They either like what the artist did or they don’t. People have too many opinions about audio and opinions between everyone are not going to be consistent. You can't please everyone with music. That’s why there are so many different styles out there. Try not to have too many people tell the audio guy they don’t like a score. It’s better for everyone if the audio guys are left to do their thing and not be hit with changes over and over again. Not everyone will like the music but we have to stay true to the product and make that sound great. Feedback is good, but too much is definitely not. Good advice. Let me ask you, do you have a favorite project? I think Messiah is my favorite. I love the style of the game, it's a lot like Quake II or Unreal (although the guys working on it would probably argue that), in that it has that same look. It has very dark, high resolution graphics, and I love the theme. The sounds that I’ve had to do are very cool. A lot of big machinery and stabbing people with harpoons and pinning them to the wall is fun stuff to do. Tomorrow Never Dies is also very cool, too. Everyone is a fan of James Bond, and the sounds I got to do for that were a blast. They are all neat in their own way for the unique things I’ve done on each of them. Beavis and Butthead was all Foley work, I had to go out and get all the sounds myself. Test Drive was fun because we got to see and record all these cool cars, start them up, rev the engines. That was great. Pac-Man is fun, just because its Pac-Man. Recreating familiar sounds but making them newer was great. I tried to make a new wokka-wokka sound without offending people, but while still updating it for the 90’s. Wheel of Time was challenging, because it was completely different than what I had done before. I usually do weapons, cartoon or sci-fi sounds and this one was organic planet-based magic, different from anything I’d done before. It helped me expand and grow as a designer. What about any personal ventures? Do you have any time for them? I would love to put out an album of my own music. I have a lot of songs written, and once I get about 12 good ones in the same genre I might pursue that. I write a lot of instrumental piano like Yanni or David Lanz. I do have some rock tunes also. I can’t figure out where you would find my album in the record store, though, because I’ve written dance, grunge, solo piano and rock with grandiose orchestral accompaniment. I need to pick one style and just stick with it. That’s my major goal. With all of your workday excitement, what do you have left to do for fun? The funny thing is what I do for fun is to play video games (laughs). I work on the Mac all day long, and when I want to unwind, I move over to the PC and pop in some games. It usually involves shooting people or running them over (smiles).Grand Theft Auto or Half-Life are great for these urges. Postal is another game that satisfies my urges. Now don’t get me wrong, I completely understand the difference between reality and fantasy. I don’t believe in violence in real life, but I think it’s perfectly OK in video games. In fact, I think it can be quite a release for one's natural aggression. I love games like that. It’s pure, well, maybe not pure, entertainment, but I like it! Other things I like to do include Tae Kwon Do, kickboxing, Hung Gar Kung Fu, going to arcades, watching movies and TV, playing piano, writing music, and browsing the Internet. I go to concerts as a good escape, though I’m still surrounded by audio. I read a lot too. I’m even trying to learn Italian. I also spend a lot of time reading about different religions, psychics, the afterlife, trying to see if I can find some meaning to life. I’m very interested in knowledge which is a great outlet for all the creative stuff I do. I have to stay balanced; after all, I don’t want to develop a lopsided brain! (laughs).
During the warmer times of year, we try not to work on the weekends. Though I love my job, working all the time just isn’t healthy. During the winter months, it’s usually non-stop work, so we have fun while we can. Email: joeykuras@home.com Aaron Marks (aBmajor@aol.com), when not interviewing game composers and sound designers, is actually one himself as the proprietor of On Your Mark Music Productions. (http://members.aol.com/aBmajor) |
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