Audio
History:
Early Video games used synthesizers to create the majority of their sounds since audio technology was quite limited in that specific field. This made it difficult to produce different sounds, so in the majority of cases, the audio was limited to blips at different pitches. Pong (Atari, 1972) is a game that uses these blips to produce to sounds effect of the 'ball' bouncing off of the players as well as the wall, there is also an effect for when either player scores.
In the 1980s audio in video games had gained a lot of traction. Whilst the audio was not as realistic as modern games, they all had a tone that was synonymous with the pixel-art designs. I notable example of an 80s audio was Tetris (Infrogames, 1984) which was made in 1984 by Alexy Pajitnov a Russian software engineer. The game featured a soundtrack which was based on a Russian classical piece called 'Korobeiniki' (Nikolay Nekrasov, 1861) and also contained a sound effect for when the player lost, won, connected a line, and when a block landed.
By the 1990s video game audio had once again jumped up in quality with more advanced synthesizers allowing the production of sounds that were akin to music, A great example of this was Super Street Fighter 2 (Capcom) which was released in 1993 using faced-paced music to draw the player into the actions that were on the screen.
Roles:
Composers:
John Williams
John Williams is a world-renowned composer whose career has spanned over 68 years. Williams' work has been involved with many popular productions including; Star Wars (1977-1983), War of the Worlds (2005), Indiana Jones (1981), and Jurrasic Park (1993). His first-ever composition was for the films The Poseidon Adventure (1972) and Fiddler on the Roof (1971) (Williams, J.).
Martin O'Donnell
Martin O'Donnell began his work at Bungie in 1999 after doing some freelance work with them when producing the compositions for a project called "oni" which would later become Halo: Combat Evolved (2001). Martin first started his work as a composer on the Flinstone Vitamins commercials (1968). He was fired by Bungie in 2014 (O'Donnel, M.).
Sound Designer:
Ben Burtt
Richard King
Ben Burtt has worked on a lot of well-known films including Star Trek (1979), Star Wars (1977) as well as a lot of Pixar movies, and was the voice behind the character Wall-E (2008). Burtt also produced the 'Wilhelm scream' (Distant Drums, 1951) which has seen use in many movies. Burtt has talked about some of the more subtle sounds that he uses in movies, one known as the "Audio Black Hole" which was used when explosive were about to go off in Star Wars: Attack Of The Clones (2002) (Burtt, B.).
King has worked on over 70 films from his first film, The Memory of Justice to the well-known The Dark Knight Rises (2012). He also worked on Master and Commander (2003) from which he won an Acadamy Award for Best Sound Editing. Richard King is also a member of the Samobor Film Music Festival board (King, R.).
