Interview:  Jamie Christopherson

Tracksounds talks with composer JAMIE CHRISTOPHERSON about his work for one of Capcom's most anticipated game sequels, LOST PLANET 2. Jamie shares about working with Audio Director, TOMOYA KISHI, collaborating with Capcom-staff composer, MARIKA SUZUKI, and what it was like returning to the LOST PLANET world and the differences we'll hear in the original score this time out.

CC: JAMIE, it's great to have you on the SoundCast today.
JAMIE CHRISTOPHERSON: It's good to be back with you after a few years.

CC: It's really good to be talking to you again, and it's really good to finally see LOST PLANET 2 on the shelves for the fans to enjoy! It was a bit of an adventure of its own, in terms of getting to the point of releasing the game. Wasn't it?

JAMIE CHRISTOPHERSON: We finished the score over a year ago now, or at least my portion; the orchestral portion of it. I think the original release date was somewhere around Christmas time, and then the marketplace became bombarded with releases. So I'm pretty sure they pushed it back to tweak a few elements of the game, but mainly to find a window to launch the game.

CC: How early on did you know there was going to be a sequel and that they wanted you to write the score?

JAMIE CHRISTOPHERSON: I think that was about two years ago from today. It was a year before we did the actual recording when they gave me a call, saying “Hey, down the pipe here, we're going to be working on LOST PLANET 2. Of course, I was very excited, because the first one I have very fond memories of. So from that point, I'd say my production cycle was about a year, and it was similar to the way I had worked on the first game, in that it would come for a few months, and then go away for another few months while they worked on the development phase. So I'd be working on another project during that time, and it would be completely off my plate. Then we'd wait for more visuals to come in, and there would be a “Phase 2”. I think we did about 4 phases, and then a cinematic phase at the very end, which was still a year ago. So I had composed the music over the course of 9-10 months, but not continually.

CC: When you're in a cycle like that and you have to live with what you've done maybe 6 months earlier, do you ever think, “I wish I could go tweak this and that”, or rather “That's done and I'm moving on to the next part”?

JAMIE CHRISTOPHERSON: Well the good thing is, we actually did go back and tweak some things from the earlier phases, based on changes in our palettes and in our approach on certain things. A lot of those things that I did earlier on, waited until the very end to get the orchestral treatment anyway. So during that time, I was kind of tweaking up things, up until the very end of the mix. So, yes, I would revisit them, but the tricky thing is, I would make sure not to do any major computer overhauls during that time, because I wanted to keep a similar sound palette throughout the whole process.
 

CONTINUE THE INTERVIEW HERE

 

Interview:  Tomoya Kishi and Marika Suzuki

Capcom Audio Director, Tomoya Kishi and composer Marika Suzuki discuss their unique approach to the music and sound design of LOST PLANET 2: the collaboration with composer Jamie Christopherson, their use of Source Connect and Skype to virtually attend the recording sessions in Los Angeles and the possibility of more for the land of E.D.N. in the future!

CC: KISHI-san and SUZUKI-san, I want to first say “omedetou” (congratulations) on the release of LOST PLANET 2. I also want to welcome you to the SoundCast and thank you for taking time out of your really busy schedules to talk with us today about LOST PLANET 2. KISHI-san, maybe you can tell us a little bit about how long you've been at CAPCOM and how you became the sound director there?

TOMOYA KISHI: This is my 10th year at CAPCOM. Some of the first projects that I worked on were the ONIMUSHA games. I worked just a little bit on the first ONIMUSHA, and also ONIMUSHA 2 and 3. Then I became the sound director for LOST PLANET and now I'm the sound director on LOST PLANET 2 as well.

CC: Suzuki-san, same question.

MARIKA SUZUKI: I've been at CAPCOM for about 7 years. I've worked on a number of CAPCOM titles including DEAD RISING. I worked on the cutscene music in DEAD RISING, and this time on LOST PLANET 2, I'm the main composer, basically heading up the composition of the music in LOST PLANET 2.

CC: KISHI-san, let me ask, what was the biggest difference for you in developing the audio and the plan for the audio for LOST PLANET 2 versus the first LOST PLANET?

TOMOYA KISHI: Well, both LOST PLANET and LOST PLANET 2 are certainly two games in a series, so the sound isn't hugely different on the surface. One thing I tried to do different in LOST PLANET 2 that I wasn't really able to do in LOST PLANET 1 was try to emphasize the difference in the sounds; basically the differences between the big explosions and the breathing of the characters, things like that. Of course LOST PLANET 2 is a very realistic game, and we wanted to bring that realism to the fore-front as well, but I also wanted to make it a bit fantastic and “gamey”. Well, “gaminess” might be the wrong word, but we wanted to make it feel like a really fun gaming experience by making the sound more fantastic as well.

CONTINUE THE INTERVIEW HERE

 

Interviews transcribed by Vince Chang.  Edited by Christopher Coleman.  Translation by Jonathan Airheart (Capcom)