Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/1538144
M OT I O N P I CTU R E S O U N D E D I TO R S 117 like that, you don't really have to care too much about fiction. It's deep-space miners fighting, just go with it. Just give me weapons that look like I got them out of Home Depot and call it a day. EM: Sascha, how big was the internal audio team at Epic Games on this title? SD: To be honest, I don't think Alex and I ever had a conversation while working on this game. I was just talking to Mark Rein, the VP of Marketing at Epic at the time, and he told me what to do. I did it and I sent them off, and that was it. There were no revisions or anything. It was just done. Those times were super simple. I remember when I worked on Quake 2, the IT department at id Software had 13 people. That was one of the small development eras of the 1990s. Like Alex said, everyone had different hats on. On that title, I think I actually talked to the level designer, American McGee, and he was also responsible for the sound design. There wasn't really much to UT. It was just me giving shit to Cliff, and then Cliff dared me and said, "Do it better." And then I did, and I sent the files off and that was it. EM: So, you were not in the building— you were sending files remotely? SD: Yeah, I was remote in LA. The workflow was just super simple. I think I was a bit overwhelmed in the beginning because I had no idea what to do. But I like a challenge, and that was definitely a challenge. EM: Lani, it sounds like the VO was also remote. Was this being done out on the West Coast while the rest of the game was being created in North Carolina? LM: Yeah. And it was funny because Jamey Scott, whose garage and studio we were using at the time, didn't have a phone patch. We had Cliff on a speakerphone. It was fun. For the announcer VO, Cliff and his team were saying, "And now we want her as a soccer mom. Now we want her with a British accent. Now we want her with a sexy one." It's just amazing because we don't know anything about the game. We just focus on the dialogue. We get the script and go do it. We have to ask things like, "Is this stealth mode? Is this over battle noise?" We have to find that kind of stuff out. But we get very little to go on. If you're going to credit a voice actor in anything, I don't care whether it's a film, television show or game, credit the scriptwriter first—or blame them. And then credit the director and then the actor, in that order. EM: Alex, you and your fellow composers recently released a remix album called Tournament Rematch, which takes the original music from this game from 1999 and expands upon it with modern music tools. What inspired you to jump back in and create this new album? AB: This was part of a plan that began with the Deus Ex remix album Conspiravision. There is the ability to remaster, remix, or make arrangements for the original tracks, and Materia Collective with Sebastian and Jamie chatted about it. At first, Sebastian was like, "Hey, would love to be able to have this album out there, put it out on LP, and put it out on streaming." For years, it has been a struggle to be able to release the original score for games. That's always been a challenge. It's slowly starting to happen in minimal ways, but there isn't a system where, as the composer, the soundtrack is part of your contract. You get X amount from the publisher. It goes to this publishing company the way you might do for films or other content. It's still the Wild West. Sebastian and Materia wanted to change that. And they were like, "Why don't you do Unreal Tournament next?" And I was like, "Yes, that's great." So I gathered as many of the original composers together as I could. There are songs on there by Michiel, Andy Saga, and Peter that are just so popular. People glom onto them and they say, "This is my favorite track from UT," and the ability to come back to them was fantastic! So, we went and wrote the stuff. MVDB: We had been trying to get something like this off the ground for about 10 years. That Deus Ex album we did was about five years ago, and that was pretty well received. So, we decided to give this a shot. I made about half of the new album. It was difficult because a lot of those songs have become evergreen, so you don't want to mess with them too much. For my track "Foregone Destruction," the drum and bass track are pretty much the same as in the original version, it's just a little bit elevated. It's got a little bit more of a modern touch to it, but it's basically the same song. It was difficult to make actually. PH: It was technically quite interesting. Originally, the music was made in Tournament Rematch: Unreal Tournament Remixed album artwork