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View, browse and sort the ever-growing list of sessions by day, pass type, topic, and format. With this Session Viewer, you can view GDC 2023 session details and speakers, and share your favorites via social media. You will be able to build your schedule and access it during the show via export or Mobile App, once live. Sessions do fill up and seating is first come, first serve, so arrive early to sessions that you would like to attend.

Chaos Theory in Game Music

Winifred Phillips  (Composer, Generations Productions LLC)

Location: Room 3002, West Hall

Date: Thursday, March 23

Time: 2:00 pm - 2:30 pm

Pass Type: All Access Pass, Core Pass, Audio Pass

Topic: Audio

Format: Lecture

Vault Recording: Video

Audience Level: Intermediate

In this technical deep-dive session, game composer Winifred Phillips will discuss her score for the Jurassic World Primal Ops video game. Phillips' music for Jurassic World Primal Ops is currently nominated for a Game Audio Network Guild Award in the category of Music of the Year. The score was also nominated in the Society of Composers and Lyricists Awards in the Outstanding Original Score for Interactive Media category, and has won a Global Music Award for Best Game Music.

By focusing on tonal ambiguity and unconventional harmonic progression, the music of Jurassic World Primal Ops was able to subvert expectations, keeping players on edge and infusing chaotic excitement into gameplay. The score employed extensive polytonality, frequent tonic pivots, complex harmonic structures and unusual ornamentation—all of which will be discussed during this session.

Audiovisual examples will bring these techniques to life and provide objective illustrations for the concepts included in this talk. By propelling and sustaining emotional unbalance and surprise, the music of Jurassic World Primal Ops added excitement and suspense to gameplay.

Takeaway

Attendees will explore an array of structural and stylistic choices that they can bring into their own projects. Using musical examples from her Jurassic World Primal Ops soundtrack, Phillips will show how unconventional and modernist composition techniques can add danger and chaos to the soundscape of a video game.

Intended Audience

This session will include topics derived from music theory and analysis, which will be of greatest benefit to composers. Other audio developers may find inspiration and ideas applicable to the preparation of music design documents and implementation plans for future projects.