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Today I’m sitting down with Joel Green. Joel is a professional sound designer, helping to generate amazing audio for game titles such as Need for Speed: Undercover, Mass Effect 2 and 3, Dragon Age 2 and Inquisition, and is currently the Producer / Audio Director at Cloudhead Games working on the VR title The Gallery: Six Elements.
Show Notes
- Graduated from Vancouver Film School
- Worked on Need for Speed: Undercover
- Worked under Charles Deenen
- From there got hired onto Bioware’s team to work on Mass Effect and Dragon Age titles
- Took time off to learn C# and Unity
- Found position at Cloudhead Studios on Vancouver Island
- Rural Living + High Technology
- We don’t need to live in cities to work on games.
- Be willing to start with big ideas and expectations that get whittled down to the core idea of what something is.
- If you shoot for the stars — even if you fail — you’ll at least be in outer space.
- Bioware’s employees have an extensive collection of larping gear, weaponry, and armor.
- Mass Effect 2 was a highlight experience in Joel’s career
- Seeing a game come to fruition is incredibly rewarding
- Virtual Reality is so new that every step into the technology is defining the medium
- Everything being done in VR is breaking new ground
- Audio in VR has a number of new considerations to take in such as Binaural listening
- We have a huge discussion on Binaural recording
- The Dark Crystal was freakin’ terrifying
- Implementing orchestral music is a challenge in VR
- Getting the player to look where you want them to is a challenge within VR — you have to figure out how to draw attention naturally
- VR won’t only change the gaming world. It’s going to be a global shift in how we communicate
- VR has the ability to create incredibly great things and incredibly dark things
- Story Studio
- The conversation takes a philosophical turn discussing the implications of Virtual Reality and its future impact on the world
Short Answer
Favorite Mic
Sennheiser MKH 80-50
Favorite Game You Haven’t Worked On
Super Mario World or Super Mario 64
What Book Would You Recommend
Elon Musk: Tesla, SpaceX, and the Quest for a Fantastic Future by Ashlee Vance
Best Piece of Advice
“You can’t wait for your ducks to all be in a row because they’re never all gonna’ be in a row… There’s times when you have to plan, and then there’s time when you just have to do it, and deal with what comes up.”
The Gallery: Six Elements
Story Studio
Henry’s Premiere from Story Studio on Vimeo.
Thanks again to everybody for the massive support you’ve been giving. Be sure to subscribe to the podcast! Also, if you’re feeling saucy, generous, or amazing, please leave a review on iTunes. Your feedback and love drive the podcast to new levels, and help celebrate the amazing folks that make audio happen.
Cheers!
Michael Heuer
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