#058 GAD BA7/8: Studio - Showreel Planning

For my show reel I am going to split it in to two parts. One part containing some quick turntables of 6 chosen assets at 10 seconds long, then the second part being a 45-60 second pan of my overall environment. Due to time, I am rendering out my work at 720p as opposed to 1080p. This slight adjustment will drastically reduce rendering times while still maintaining high definition. The turntables of my assets will include the base mesh as a Lambert, then transition seamlessly in to the fully textured and lit version (see video below). Each asset will rotate once in it's first stage, then again in it's second, taking 5 seconds for each rotation to allow the viewer to see as much of the details as possible with the time that I have.

For the audio of the showreel, I decided to try and see if I could use some music created by Frank Klepacki, who is one of my favorite video game music composer. He was behind the majority of the music from the entire Command & Conquer series as well as other well known games and movies such as Star Wars: Empire at War, Blade Runner and the Lands of Lore series.

Despite the chances of being able to use his music were slim to none, I decided to give it a try and sent an email to him. Below is the message I sent to him and his prompt response:

From me:

Dear Mr Klepacki,

My name is Nathaniel Russell and I am a student at Norwich University of the Arts in England, studying Games Art & Design. For my final year's project I am working on a environment revolving around an underground Russian bunker, complete with vehicles. To display our work we have been instructed to create a show reel, displaying our work. Being a huge fan of your work from C&C: Red Alert, I would love to have the chance to be able to use one of your track, named Hell March in my show-reel. I understand there might be some complications since it has been used in a game and the licenses might not belong to you, but I thought that contacting you directly would be the first step to getting permission to use your music.

Our show-reels will be displayed at our end of year exhibition, as well as shown in a private viewing at a local cinema. I will be more than happy to credit you for the music, and ensure that it is made known that you are the creator of it.

I hope that you will be able to grant my wish, but if not I will completely understand.

Sincerely, Nathaniel Russell

From Frank Klepacki :

Hi Nathaniel,

I'm afraid I don't have authority for C&C track permissions, EA controls that. But I do control my solo CDs which are similar in style, (Morphscape, Rocktronic, Virtual Control, Infiltrator, Awakening of Aggression, Viratia, Conquering 20 Years) so if you own a copy of any of them, you may have my permission to use any tracks from those if you like, a credit to my website, the track name, and CD it's from is fine. :)

If you're looking for heavier style tracks to choose from specifically, check out my songs Rocktronic, He Lives, Machines Collide, Epic Destruction, Smackdown, The Reaping, Ownage, Kill, Vengeance Beast, Bring The Fight, Take Me, Sonic Pain, Crank, Vigilante, Rage and Fury.

Thanks for writing!

- Frank Klepacki

Mr Klepacki was kind enough to respond to me within 24 hours, and as you can see, gave me permission to use some of his work as long as I had purchased it. This was incredible news, a lot of Klepacki's music is very dark and aggressive, which would be perfect for the sort of environment I am working on.

After sifting through his various works, I found a track named "INSERT TRACK NAME". It starts off fairly calm, then progressively builds up to something a bit more faster. The overall track is pretty much exactly what I wanted, something that toes the line between just a simple background ambiance and some dark and aggressive war music.