PAX East 2014 Panel: "Game Audio: From Indie To AAA"

Boston (Feb 16, 2014) - Fastestmanintheworld Media founder Duncan Watt (BioShock infinite, League Of Legends) will be speaking at PAX East in Boston on Friday, April 11th, as a member of the presentation "Game Audio: From Indie To AAA". The panel will be held at 8pm in the Arachnid Theater. 

This 1-hour long panel takes a behind-the-scenes look at designing audio for games, exploring the process of creating music and sound with the award-winning composers and sound designers for games like League of Legends, Bioshock Infinite, the Xbox 360 logo, Disney Infinity, Hyper Light Drifter, and The Last Symphony. In addition to showing and discussing examples of their work on these projects, the session will feature an open Q&A.

Panelists include:

• Duncan Watt [Founder, Fastestmanintheworld Media]

• Michael Sweet [Artistic Director of Video Game Scoring, Berklee College of Music]

• Richard Ludlow [Creative Director, Hexany Audio]

• Richard Gould [Lead Sound Designer, Composer, Hexany Audio]

• Akash Thakkar [Sound Designer, Composer]

Links:
PAX East 2014 website: http://east.paxsite.com/

Irrational Releases "The Jingles Of Burial At Sea"

Irrational Games Music Director Jim Bonney recently wrote a great blog post discussing the production of  the "jingles"  heard in Burial At Sea: Part 1, the DLC for BioShock Infinite. Irrational approached Fastestmanintheworld to arrange, produce and record instruments and background vocals for Bonney's "Bucking Bronco", featured in the article. 

"Bucking Bronco" plays off of the late-50's TV commercial tropes, with a narrated 'call-and-response' section in the middle, corny woodblock horse-gallop sounds, and an early American 'western'/Broadway musical feel.

Original post: From The Vault: The Jingles Of Burial At Sea

Click the link to listen: https://soundcloud.com/irrationalgames/bucking-bronco-vigor-jingle

BioShock Infinite Nominated for Best Soundtrack At 2013 VGX Awards

Saturday, December 7th on Spike TV

BioShock Infinite has been nominated for Best Soundtrack at the 2013 VGX Awards. The soundtrack features an arrangement and performance of Scott Joplin's "Solace", (featured prominently throughout the game) alongside Garry Schyman's orchestra underscore and works by Ken Levine, James Bonney and others.

Fastestmanintheworld provided a wide variety of music for Infinite and its expansions "Clash In The Clouds" and "Burial At Sea", all of which have gone on to near-universal acclaim. Infinite has been nominated for a total of eight VGX awards, including Game Of The Year.

Other nominees include"The Last Of Us", "Ni No Kuni" and "GTA V".

The awards will be broadcast live Saturday, December 7th on Spike TV, and streamed across Xbox One, Xbox 360®, PlayStation®3 (PS3™), Twitch, iOS and Android devices. Additionally, the awards will be available globally on VGXLIVE.com, Hulu, Yahoo Screen, the Yahoo Screen app and Viacom properties Spike.com, ComedyCentral.com MTV.com, MTV2.com, BET.com and GameTrailers.com. VGX will be live streamed for three-hours on Saturday, December 7, beginning at 6:00 PM ET / 3:00 PM PT. Spike TV will also air highlights of the show as "VGX Replay" on Monday, December 9 at midnight.

Fablewood Released

Fablewood (Hitpoint Studios)

Hitpoint Studios released Fablewood, the latest in their series of high-end casual games (Disney Fairies Hidden Treasures, Seaside Hideway, Adera, Gun Bros.). A high-fantasy based town-building/hidden object hybrid, the game features an original score from Fastestmanintheworld, a fantastic art style, and deep gameplay for the genre.

Bioshock Infinite: Burial At Sea - Episode 1 Released

Bioshock Infinite: Burial At Sea - Episode 1

 "Burial At Sea", the second of three downloadable content releases for BioShock Infinite, has released to the public. Included in the game are a solo piano version of Borodin's "Gliding Dance Of The Maidens" (from Polovetsian Dances), a variety of holiday music pieces performed by skating-rink organ trio, and an arrangement of of a period-specific propaganda jingle done in the Broadway-musical style.

Role: Composed, recorded and performed historical source music. Arranged, recorded and performed period-appropriate piano and organ-trio pieces. Arranged, recorded and performed additional historical source music. Transcribed and re-arranged pieces for live accordion.

IGN names League Of Legends, Bioshock Infinite some of the Top 25 Games Of The Decade

 IGN names League Of Legends, Bioshock Infinite some of the Top 25 Games Of The Decade

Two games featuring work from Fastestmanintheworld - League Of Legends (#13, PC) and Bioshock Infinite (#12, Xbox 360) - have been chosen for IGN's "Top 25 Games Of The Decade" series. Fastestmanintheworld founder Duncan Watt was Audio Lead and score composer for the launch of League Of Legends in 2009, and more recently scored the Twisted Treeline update in late 2012 - and Fastestmanintheworld Media created a wide variety of music for Bioshock Infinite and its expansion packs.

BioShock Infinite: Clash In The Clouds Released

Bioshock Infinite: Clash In The Clouds (2013, Irrational/Take-Two)

 "Clash In The Clouds", the first of three downloadable content releases for BioShock Infinite, has released to the public. Included in the game are the full solo piano version of Chopin's "Nocturne In Eb Major", a player-piano version of Joplin's "Easy Winners", and once again the player-piano version of Joplin's "Solace" takes front-and-center during the loading screens.

Role: Composed, recorded and performed historical source music. Arranged, recorded and performed a number of period-appropriate piano pieces. Arranged, recorded and performed additional historical source music.

"Now You See Me" Features Music From Fastestmanintheworld Media

 Summer blockbuster film "Now You See Me", starring Jesse Eisenberg, Mark Ruffalo, Woody Harrelson and others, releases in the US/worldwide. The film licensed solo piano track "Goodnight Benny" for use behind Morgan Freeman and Michael Caine's pivotal scene.

Now You See Me (2013, Lionsgate)

GDC 2013: "DIALOGUE: WHO, WHEN AND WHY"

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Left to right: Duncan Watt, Simon Pressey, Ed Lima, DB Cooper, Jason Blair

Fastestmanintheworld Media founder Duncan Watt spoke at the Game Developers Conference in San Francisco last week. Watt appeared on the panel "Dialogue: Who, When and Why" with Simon Pressey (Crytek, Bioware, Ubisoft, CrystalSphere)  Ed Lima (Respawn, Gearbox), Jason Blair (Volition, HumanHead) and DB Cooper (The Sims, Firefall, Syndicate).

BioShock Infinite Released

Bioshock Infinite (2013, Irrational/Take-Two)

Fastestmanintheworld created a number of period-accurate pieces for BioShock Infinite, the third installment in the BioShock series. The game released to near-universal acclaim, including perfect scores from multiple reviewers.

Role: Composed, recorded and performed historical source music. Arranged, recorded and performed a number of period-appropriate piano pieces, including a version of Scott Joplin's "Solace", which is used throughout the game. Arranged, recorded and performed additional historical source music.

"An amazing experience from beginning to end." - Game Informer: 10/10

"BioShock Infinite is one of the best told stories of this generation. It simply cannot be missed." - Joystiq.com - 5/5

"...a brilliant shooter that nudges the entire genre forward with innovations in both storytelling and gameplay." - IGN.com 9.4/10 (PS3/Xbox 360), 9.5/10 (PC)

League Of Legends: Twisted Treeline Released

League Of Legends (2009, Riot Games)

Riot Games has released the new updated League Of Legends'  Twisted Treeline expansion. This new map includes 28+ minutes of new interactive underscore written, recorded and produced for the project by Fastestmanintheworld.

Since launch in 2009, League Of Legends has been a runaway success, and continues to hold the title of "world's most-played video game", with more than 12 million active players daily (http://news.cnet.com/8301-17938_105-57531578-1/league-of-legends-the-worlds-most-played-video-game/).

Montreal International Game Summit

Montreal International Game Summit (2012)

Fastestmanintheworld Media founder Duncan Watt spoke at the Montreal International Game Summit in Montreal, Canada. His presentation, "Down In The Trenches: Creating Powerful, Effective Audio With Limited Resources", covered multiple ways to leverage simple, effective music to create and support player immersion, drive gameplay, and bring environments and settings to life.