Interviews
September 21, 2009
Behind the Music of Afrika
by Alex Van Zelfden
“To me, this game has a
very warm and loving message for all of us – to look into nature closely, sort
of getting back in touch with the beauty of nature once again.” - Wataru
Hokoyama
With Natsume’s Afrika hitting stores this month, gamers will soon have the opportunity to explore the beauty and wonder of the Dark Continent as a professional nature photographer without ever having to leave the living room. With developer Rhino Studios’ attention to detail – from the licensed Sony camera equipment to National Geographic’s consultation on the game’s wildlife – Afrika promises to offer some gorgeous visuals, but perhaps its strongest asset is the stunning original music.
Recorded with a massive 104-piece Hollywood orchestra, the game’s score rivals the best film music – by turns exhilarating, light-hearted, and deeply moving. Previously earning game music of the year awards from the Game Audio Network Guild and the Hollywood Music Awards, Afrika’s infinitely memorable melodies and rich orchestration might make listeners think of veteran composers like John Williams, but in fact the game was scored by relative newcomer Wataru Hokoyama.
From Japan to Afrika
Born and raised in Aizu, Japan, Hokoyama grew up with a love of music, learning to play the piano, French horn, trumpet, and trombone while still in school. He left home at age 16 to seriously pursue music in the United States, attending Interlochen Arts Academy, the Cleveland Institute of Music, and the film and television program at USC where he studied under such names as Elmer Bernstein (The Magnificent Seven).
For the past few years Hokoyama has been based in Hollywood scoring independent films or working as an orchestrator for projects like the Dungeons & Dragons film and the musical episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, but he’s also had the chance to do concert works as well, including recent commissions from the Imperial Family of Japan and the U.S. Air Force. Hokoyama even had the chance to do arrangements for Clay Aiken’s U.S. tour, but until recently hadn’t entered the realm of video games.
That soon changed when one of Afrika’s developers began looking for a composer for the project. “He happened to see my name on another project that I worked on, and he googled my name and found my website and forwarded it to the creator,” relates Hokoyama. “Then the creator of Afrika listened to the first cue of my online demo, felt that my style was perfect for this project and decided to hire me on the spot.”
Sunrise on the Savanna
Hokoyama started composing for the game in early 2007, and worked primarily from the cue sheet describing what the developers wanted to hear from each of the pieces, as well as numerous screenshots from the game and real life landscape photos of Africa for inspiration.
“For this game, my intention was to bring in the style of a Hollywood film score,” says Hokoyama. “I believed that would work the best for Afrika.” At the same time, he avoided listening to famous film scores relating to the setting that might shake his confidence, and instead put his research efforts into native African music, paying special attention to the ethnic instruments that would help add color to the orchestral music being written.
“The developers of the game were looking for a lush orchestral score, maybe hiring a medium size orchestra for the two main themes,” Hokoyama says, “but I asked them to give me a 104-piece orchestra, to record with the Hollywood Studio Symphony, and to record the entire score live without a single sound of samples or synth. I really wanted to go 100% live to truly convey the beauty of life in Afrika.”
“When I first asked them for a 104-piece Hollywood Studio Symphony, they weren't sure whether they could hand me such a huge responsibility,” he continues. “I've always been writing for live ensembles, but the size of the ensembles that I've worked with was never as big as a 104-piece orchestra. When they asked if I've handled such a large orchestra, I lied and said ‘Oh I do this all the time’. I usually never lie, but my intuition at that time told me to lie and act confident, so I gave my best shot,” laughs Hokoyama.
“Then I contacted Peter Rotter, a Hollywood studio orchestra contractor, to help me on this project. I had my music producer and the music supervisor meet with Peter in L.A. at a dinner meeting to go over the details of the contract and the process of studio recording sessions here in L.A., and after the dinner meeting, everyone started having a good feeling that it was going to work. Two weeks later, I got the green light.”
Afrika Meets Hollywood
The orchestral recording session took place in late 2007 at the Sony Scoring Stage in Culver City. The majority of the game’s music was recorded throughout the day, with Hokoyama conducting – a skill somewhat uncommon among game composers.
“I absolutely love to conduct,” he says. “Every session I've had in the past, I've conducted my own music. I even do conducting for other composers’ sessions when they need a conductor. I just love doing it. I had a privilege to study conducting with some of the prestigious conductors in the past, and one of them is Alan Gilbert, who's now a music director of New York Philharmonic. Conducting was something that I've always wanted to be good at as much as composing and orchestrating.”
Rounding out the game’s roughly 35 minutes of music are a couple of cues performed by a group of seven percussionists heavily involved in African instruments. Since much of the music is used during the cinematics introducing players to the new animals and landscapes, Afrika offered a great deal of flexibility when composing the score, letting the music set the mood for the new areas. “I absolutely loved working on this project,” says Hokoyama. “I was given so much freedom in creativity to really express what I wanted in the melodies and the orchestrations.”
Though it’s difficult to pick favorites among the music written for the game, Hokoyama has a very fond attachment for “Savanna”, one of the most moving and beautiful pieces from the soundtrack. “If this piece were to have a sub title, I'd like to call it ‘Celebration of Life’,” he says. “This was the very first cue that I wrote for the game, and my intention for the piece was to fully express the beauty, the power and the vibrant energy of wild animals and the landscape of Africa. I wrote the piece hoping that it would take the audience on almost a musical tour of Africa, where they could visualize different sceneries and many species of African animals as they listen to it.”
Of course, the game’s exhilarating title theme is impossible to forget as well. “The developers really wanted the main theme to shine,” says Hokoyama. “They requested me to write melodies that were so catchy that players would be able to hum the theme after hearing it once or twice. That was a challenge to come up with a very memorable theme.”
Safari, So Good
Since completing Afrika, Hokoyama has gone on to contribute music to Resident Evil 5 as well as conduct its orchestral recording session, and he’s working on a few unannounced projects too. “I hope to continue serving video games and the film industry with my music,” he says. “My specialty and love is in orchestral writing. I am ‘old school’, and I'd like to keep polishing it up in order to serve the industry with music that has a quality of Hollywood's golden age.”
But no matter what’s in Wataru Hokoyama’s future, Afrika will keep a special place in his heart. “I just loved every minute of working on this project,” he can’t help but smile. “To me, this game has a very warm and loving message for all of us – to look into nature closely, sort of getting back in touch with the beauty of nature once again.”
While there’s no news yet of an American release of the soundtrack album, the Japanese release that includes a DVD as well can be found at Amazon and other importers.
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