Shawn Clement, SONAR, and Batman

Photo credit: 2001, Harry Frith

Turn on a TV anywhere in the world and you're bound to hear him. Shawn Clement's music can be heard on Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Dawson's Creek, The World's Wildest Police Videos, and many other productions. In fact, Shawn's music is played on TV so frequently, that he received the ASCAP 2000 Film and Television Award for Most Played Underscore. As if that isn't enough, Shawn has ventured into composing for PlayStation 2 games with titles from Disney Interactive, and he recently used SONAR to create the soundtrack for a top-selling videogame in the U.S., Batman Vengeance from Ubisoft. Shawn describes composing for video games as far more challenging than composing for film.

"It's a whole new medium. When you compose for film, you have a set series of actions for each scene. You view the scene, set the tempo, and score to the action. With videogames, it's like composing to an interactive movie. Each scene could get played out many different ways in a video game because it is a player controlled experience. You need to compose different cues to account for all of the different potential scenarios.

"When working on the Batman game, I would have to create as many as eight different cues for each scene. For example, there's one point in the game where Batman and the Joker are fighting. If Batman is winning, the idea is to have Batman's theme interwoven more into the mix for that scene, and if the Joker is winning his theme should be more prominent. You also need to take into account specific actions that take place and how they effect the dramatic dynamic of the scene, for example a specific weapon gets picked up, a civilian gets hurt, a key character gets killed, etc. You also need to accommodate for tempo changes within your piece to account for suspense, tension and release.

"The other factor that's different from scoring to film is that in games because there is an element of choice as to which scene will be the next scene in the playing experience, you need to write different transitions to account for those choices. For example, if the player chooses to go left the next scene will be different than if he chooses to go right and the music has to flow from scene to scene.

"What really amazes me is the work that went into creating the games themselves that allows the music to morph so seamlessly. Even with all the different elements, it's like a perfect soundtrack each time.

"Composing for video games has been very lucrative, but it has also been allot of work. I'm not sure I could get it all done without SONAR. The new interface enhancements have really sped up the editing and composing process. It's almost like my PC is just an extension of my creativity now. I think it, and then before I know it I'm hearing it. With the automatable DX8 effects and integrated DXi soft synths I'm now able to create sounds and textures that I could only dream of before. As far as I'm concerned if you are serious about composing, editing or producing music there is one choice and one choice only: SONAR is it."

Visit the Batman Vengeance website. Be sure to click on the link for the video trailer to hear Shawn's score.

Visit Composersnet.com to read a more extensive bio on Shawn, and to hear more examples of his music.

More artist stories.