“Starcraft Ghost” and “Dead Rush” Composer Chats With GameZone Online

by Louis Bedigian

 

Find out what you’ll be hearing in some of the year’s hottest games.

 

Game, Film and TV composer Kevin Manthei opens his Web site, http://www.kmmproductions.com,  by saying, "In an industry where creativity rules, the same must hold true for music."  Gamers understand its importance just as much as devoted moviegoers do.

 

Not every game publisher has caught on yet, but there are a few – including Namco, Blizzard, and Activision – who take music seriously.  That's why they've hired Kevin Manthei to compose music for their biggest games.

 

Surely you've heard his upbeat, energy-driven music in kill.switch.  Shrek 2 (the game) wouldn't have been as imaginative without his fairytale touch.  Dead to Rights, Silent Hunter 2, Twisted Metal Black, and Pitfall: The Lost Expedition were treated to Mr. Manthei's talents as well. 

 

His work on the TV show Invader Zim earned him an Annie Award nomination for Outstanding Individual Achievement for Music Score in an Animated Television Production.  He also scored an award from IGN (Outstanding Achievement in Music) for the game Wizadry 8.

 

This fall, Kevin Manthei's music will be heard by the millions of gamers playing Starcraft Ghost.  Shark Tale, the upcoming animated film from Dreamworks, is being brought into the gaming world via Activision.  The game will feature his music as well.

 

In the distant future Kevin will finish the score for one of the titles we'll be dying to play next year, Dead Rush.

 

Despite being one of the busiest composers in the biz, Kevin took some time away from composing games in order to spend some time talking about them.  He talked about his work on Shark Tale, Starcraft Ghost and Dead Rush.  He also told us what it was like to work on Shrek 2, along with other projects that have been completed.

 

You're credited as doing additional music for several major motion pictures, including Scream 3, Resident Evil, and Deep Impact.  How did you get involved with those films, and how much additional music did you end up providing?

 

Kevin Manthei: Most of the [additional] music that I've done has been for Marco Beltrami.  As I was building my career I was working with him.  The first one I worked on was Scream 2.  And then for Resident Evil I wrote about a third of the score.  Marco did a third, and then Marilyn Manson wrote about a third.

 

Talk more about your experience working on the Shrek 2 soundtrack.

 

KM: I was hired by Activision and worked directly with the guys at Luxoflux (developer), which is right here in Santa Monica, California.  What we did was compose 86 minutes for the game.  I'm not sure if everything was used, but it was a pretty good-sized soundtrack with a lot of shorter pieces.

 

Our goal with the music was to have it feel interactive and also very fresh, constantly.  Every level that you go in is different -- you're not going to hear music from other levels.  Every level is fresh and new, and you need the music to be that way as well.

 

The Fairy Godmother level had music which was very magical, almost like a throwback to classical scores.  The music changes throughout the level and becomes much darker.

 

There's also a Lord of the Rings-inspired level called The Mines.  The music is loosely based on The Lord of the Rings.

 

There's a level where you go to Jack and Jill's farm.  When you first enter there's a piece of music that lets you know that this is something different.  You're on a farm, but at the same time it's like a fairytale.

 

Another thing I want to mention is that I co-wrote the score with a composer that works for me.  His name is Kevin Riepl.  We tackled this score together, which really helps because it's always fun to work on something with another person because you bounce ideas back and forth.  Get inspired by their work, and try to one-up each other.

 

I have released the soundtrack to Shrek 2 the video game and it is exclusively available through my website.  It contains over 70 minutes of music from the game. 

 

Shrek 2 is fairytale fun for everyone.

 

 

Namco seems to be very fond of your work.  How and when did your relationship with them begin?

 

KM: My relationship with Namco started with the executive producer, who was with 3DO at the time.  I scored some of the music for that game. (Army Men: Sarges Hereo’s.)

 

When he left 3DO and moved over to Namco he was responsible for the team that created Dead to Rights.  Once I was done scoring that I hooked up another producer over there who was doing kill.switch.

 

Same thing happened with Activision.  One game led to another.  Shark Tale is [my next project with them].

 

Can you talk about it?

 

KM: Yes.  I can also mention that because of my work on the previous games I also scored a brand-new game that was just announced at E3: Dead Rush.  It's from Activision and the makers of Spider-Man, Treyarch.  I did 15 minutes of music for the E3 demo, and I'll do the rest whenever they need me.

 

Shark Tale's music has been fun.  I've been able to experiment with 70s funk, rap, hip-hop, and combining that with orchestral elements as well.  There's also some music loosely-inspired by the film soundtrack of Jaws.  It's a fairly cinematic score but with modern edges to it.

 

One thing that we did that was really fun [has to do with a particular level].  You're a fish and you're late for work, so you're rushing through this busy, New York-style section of the sea.  For the music there was this great idea the developer had: incorporate sounds of the city (like automobiles) as a percussion element.

 

Another game you're working on is Starcraft Ghost...

 

KM: There's been some redesigning on it, so I'm not sure how much sneaking around there is versus full-on combat, but there's definitely elements of both.  I'm in the process of finishing the soundtrack.  There won't be music playing constantly, it'll be triggered at different points.  The second you get shot at it goes to the combat music.  But when you're sneaking around, the [enemies] are not quite aware of you and you're not necessarily aware of them.  So the game has [very subtle] music at those times.

 

The music itself loosely follows the different races in the game.  It all sort of has a unifying, dark, sci-fi sound to it.  There's one race that has a lot of distorted heavy metal guitar riffs and really messed up beats.  Then there's other races that are a lot more pure, more orchestral.

 

Impressive visuals, interesting gameplay,

and a soundtrack from Kevin Manthei.

What more could you want?

 

 

On average, how much time do game developers give you to work on a soundtrack?

 

KM: Anywhere between few months to over a year.  kill.switch was a quicker schedule -- I started talking to them in May and was done by the end of August.  Generally I'm given a great deal of time to work on games, which is great because if I am juggling between projects.  Ideally a developer comes to me when they're a year [away from release].  So I can finish the music [for each level] as they finish the levels. 

 

Obviously you enjoy working on games, but do you have a preference when it comes to TV and film?

 

KM: I like to spend my time evenly between the two worlds.  I consider film and television to be one world and video games to be another world.  I am scoring an animated show for Warner Bros. called Xiaolin Showdown.  When I'm doing that it's very time-intensive.  Normally I have to write about 16 minutes of music a week.  I find that I'm focusing on it at least 3-5 days (per week).

 

Are there any games or genres that you want to seek out or plan to seek out in the future?

 

KM: Six years ago it was all I could do to get away from World War II games.  At that time I was like, "Aw man, I wanna do something edgy," with electronica, techno, things like that.  Then I put together a techno demo because people always perceived me as this orchestral guy.

 

Now I kind of feel like people peg me as this guy who combines techno and orchestral elements.  Doing the kill.switch soundtrack was very much electronica.  I'm happy because I was able to go from one area five years ago and a completely new area now.  And the last few game soundtracks I've done have been very diverse, so I'm very fortunate. 

 

It would be cool to do another war game.  I'd love to do a score for some big fantasy game.  A score maybe inspired by the style of Lord of the Rings.  That would be really fun.

 

What has been your most well-received soundtrack?

 

KM: The most well-received project has been Invader Zim, a television show on Nickelodeon.  It's a cult hit now.  It's an animated cartoon that was on Nick for about a year and a half (27 episodes were created).  I was the composer for it.  I get e-mails about it almost every week.

 

As far as game soundtracks, one game that really hit a nerve was Vampire: The Masquerade: Redemption for PC.  That was around the year 2000.  There was something about that game, and people responded to it in a good way.  I got a lot of positive response from that.

 

The Wizardry 8 soundtrack, which was Sir Tech's last game created, received an IGN award.  I got really good responses from that [soundtrack] as well.

 

Thank you for your time.

 

 

For more information on Kevin Manthei and his music production company, visit: www.kmmproductions.com

 

For a full list of Kevin’s soundtracks available for purchase, visit his store at: www.kmmproductions.com/store.html