As we are finally nearing the end of our four-year James Bond movie drought, we do have one person to thank for keeping the music alive during the downtime. English composer Richard Jacques, most notable for his work on the MASS EFFECT, STARSHIP TROOPERS, ALICE IN WONDERLAND, and LITTLEBIGPLANET 2 video games, also gave us a taste of fresh Bond music with his incredible score for the 2010 video game 007 BLOOD STONE.
His music was so exciting and authentic that it garnered Jacques a nomination for Best Original Score For a Video Game at the 2011 Hollywood Music In Media Awards, which are taking place November 17-19 in Los Angeles, CA. Read on, as we sneak into Universal Exports to get some time with Richard Jacques.
As we are not getting a James Bond film this year, having a score as dynamic as what you produced for the 007 BLOOD STONE video game really makes up for that loss.
Well, thanks for that. I was really excited about it, too, as a Bond fan myself. Not having a movie, it is nice to have something like this out there.
So how exactly did you come into this project? With rare exceptions, I was under the impression that James Bond video game scoring was Christopher Lennertz’ domain.
Yeah, Chris has done a few of them, hasn’t he? There are quite a number of reasons, really. First, I did quite a strong pitch.
It’s really because you’re British, isn’t it? [Laughs]
[Laughs] I don’t know if the publishers would ever say that… [Laughs] but I think part of the reason is that the game was developed in the UK; the development company, Bizarre Creations is here in Liverpool, and I’ve worked with a lot of musicians from the area in the past. So yeah, there are a lot of factors that went into my coming aboard the project.
What really drew me into the score was how closely related to David Arnold’s Bond style it really was. Did you have any contact with him during the process, or did you study his work?
Neither, really. It’s actually a bit of a coincidence that I’ve always written in that kind of vein, even 10-15 years ago – the rhythms, the melodies, harmonies, and those kinds of things. It was more of a coincidence than anything. It basically had to sound as though it was in the current Bond mold, and that was the only real direction I was given. I didn’t have any contact with David, though I had met him a few times in the past, but I knew he was busy with the last NARNIA film as well as the GOLDENEYE game.
Wow, that’s just uncanny. I can’t believe it was just a coincidence!
Well, if you listen back to my HEADHUNTER soundtrack from 2002, a lot of people said that one bore similarities to David Arnold’s Bond work.
Does taking on video games for Hollywood franchises ever inhibit your ability to create with your own voice or palette?
It depends on what franchise it is, really. With something like ALICE IN WONDERLAND, I was pretty much given free reign as long as it sounded suitable. I wasn’t told to do a Danny Elfman thing, I was really on my own with it. STARSHIP TROOPERS had to be in a similar vein – it had to have an element of humor in the music and be slightly over-the-top. It really depends on the project, but I like to write big melodies and harmonies, so bearing that in mind, I’ve never really felt conflicted.
Did you actually use an orchestra on BLOOD STONE?
Oh yes, definitely! We had about 60 string players, 27 brass, ethnic percussion and related instruments, live drums, and bass and guitar for the theme. It was a pretty big production; like you would expect in a Bond movie.
I was wondering about that, because I think this was the first time that I heard a video game score sound so “big.”
[Laughs] Well, that’s part of the legacy of the whole thing. That’s one thing that I’ve loved about the Bond scores over the years is that they are so explosive and massive sounding. That is what attracted me to the project, and I hope that I rose to the challenge of meeting it. Of course, you have the more stealthy moments, and bits of romance and intrigue. But yes, they are quite big soundtracks, and as a viewer of the movies and a player of the games, I really tried to keep that going.
Did you score it linearly, following a storyline, or did you have to fill it out with repetitive cues?
A little bit of both, actually. We have an actual story by Bruce Feirstein, who actually worked on some of the Bond movies, and I was given an outline of the story from quite an early standpoint. So that gave us the blueprint for the score from start to finish and allowed me to think about it in a linear fashion. But the more I was composing, I moved in an interactive manner, because the majority of the score is interactive.
There are lots of gun fights where the music will ebb and flow with the action, so there are many moments where the score will cue up to five or six layers mixed to balance the intensity of the visual. I’m very pleased with the way that came out, because it makes such a difference to the gameplay than a straight, linear score would.
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