PERSONAL STATEMENT
I am a passionate and dedicated audio professional with over 25 years games industry experience. I have managed both small and large teams and deliver strong leadership and direction to consistently produce audio excellence. I play an integral role in all cross-discipline discussions from inception to product release, delivering creative and technical visions, pipelines, budgets and schedules from small projects through to AAA releases.
As an experienced musician, sound designer, and voice director with dozens of released products, I use this knowledge to help support, guide and mentor my teams. I facilitate creativity by encouraging pro-activity and ownership as well as developing comprehensive personal development plans.
I evangelise audio throughout the company, amongst our players, in the audio field and across the wider gaming industry, with public appearances on conference stages and social media.
I strive for excellence in everything we produce, always hungry for more innovation and higher production values. Ultimately, I absolutely believe in having fun, in loving what we do, as that passion and enthusiasm always shines through to the player.
SKILLS
Recruited, built, managed and mentored several audio teams.
Reliable and punctual delivery of high quality audio assets which is crucial for live game services, agile development, and marketing support.
Accomplished and classically trained musician with published music in many games.
Well known outsourcer working contractually and creatively with agents, composers, musicians, bands, orchestras, sound designers and studios.
Strong interpersonal skills with communication and synergy being essential for high performing teams..
Synchronise development and marketing teams with coordinated audio production, voiceover, adverts and trailers.
Professional sound designer and Foley artist with comprehensive knowledge of both software and hardware techniques.
Licensed hundreds of commercial tracks and have excellent knowledge and contacts.
Evangelist for audio within the studio, amongst our players, championing the company at conferences, panels, BAFTA juries and social media.
Organisation of budgets, contracts and legal for external vendors, sound designers and studios.
Experienced Voice Director having cast and directed hundreds of sessions, including many celebrities.
Advocate and implement middleware solutions where appropriate, including Wwise, FMOD, Fabric.
Recent Work
Over the last few years I have worked on unannounced/NDA’d projects, AAA as well as smaller budget, including fantasy action adventure and survival MMO’s. While I can’t talk about those projects, I can articulate the vision and direction behind my Audio Direction.
I believe that every Audio Director brings their own personality to a project where applicable and during ideation and prototype phase I focussed the team on innovation, exploring opportunities in game audio that go further than anyone has previously.
Some of the Audio DNA’s that I identified included the following:
Holistic Audio Experience: What does an holistic audio experience look like if we blur the traditional boundaries between music and sound effects, when one influences the other in an immersive dynamic soundscape?
Tunability: What if we try to tune everything in the game? Yes, tuned assets are commonplace but what if we attempt to tune every sound and have it pitch shift to the key of the music, moving along to the melody, rhythm or chords?
Rhythm: What if the world has a pulse to which everything aligns? Rhythmically to the beat of the bar or a melody.
Sympathetic Resonance: How can objects in the game world react to resonant harmonic frequencies?
Diegetic World: In blurring the boundaries, how do we seamlessly blend music fully diegetically with, sound design so one is indistinguishable from the other?
In asking these questions, we ideated and prototyped a suite of groundbreaking features, tools and new levels of immersion. While this wasn’t a ‘musical’ or ‘rhythmic’ based game, the holistic and diegetic nature of the overall soundscape produced something beautiful and harmonious.
MORE TO FOLLOW…
RuneScape: Behind The Scenes Audio Development
Over a period of 11 years I was responsible for all things audio at Jagex in Cambridge, leading and managing a talented team of sound designers and musicians, while also being very much hands on with music composition, sound design and voice direction.
Despite the game originally running in a browser, we brought many creative and technical improvements as some of our promotional videos below showcase. The culmination of this resulted in the full audio experience being exactly the same on mobile.
Game Trailers: Showcase Music, Sound Effects and Voice Over
I have been responsible for the audio on dozens of trailers, many of which showcase game music, sound design and voice direction. Some of the music I commissioned, some I wrote in house, and some were licensed. On APB I licensed 100’s of tracks from well known artists as well as unsigned bands.
Music Videos
A few years ago I commissioned BAFTA winning composer, James Hannigan, to create a new suite of music featuring some re-imagining of classic RuneScape music as well as new compositions. Following this we released several albums on vinyl and CD, with the various soundtracks now available on streaming media like Spotify, Apple Music etc.
Due to the success of this, I organised a live concert in front of 2000 RuneScape fans, featuring the Royal Philharmonic, and playing a full concert of RuneScape classics. That evening was definitely one of the biggest highlights of my career.
Abbey Road Orchestral Sessions:
RuneScape Main Theme.
Abbey Road Orchestral Sessions:
Harmony.
Abbey Road Orchestral Sessions:
The Hero Returns.
Abbey Road Orchestral Sessions:
Coming Of The Light
Fun Videos
There was always a serious point to create these daft, if not slightly embarrassing videos. The idea is to engage with our players, to show the human side behind the developers. Player sentiment is a critical part of developing trust