FINAL CUT FORZA MOTORSPORT 5
hear how they’d approach collisions and also put in some drifting so we’d see how they’d handle skidding. We gave them access to source material and said they could use it or not. In the end, they didn’t – going entirely with their own ideas (that’s what we really wanted). Our direction was: ‘impactful, exciting, thrilling’ – like an awesome car movie chase scene. “Their lead guy, Al Nelson, had
recently worked on Cars for Pixar. Having no camera cuts to lock mix changes to proved a challenge. He had to find new ways to make the mix feel dynamic, so he broke the footage down into track zones – the excitement of the crowd at the start/finish line, then there was an area with an open run downhill with a big wall on the left and a large open canyon on the right; then a tunnel, followed by a big open lake plus driving through a town. He changed the environmental sounds (plus reverbs) quite significantly for these various areas. The results on this alone gave us some very interesting ideas about mix approach but there were places where the car really wasn’t audible in the mix – not something we could do in the
game because people rely on audio for gear shift and traction feedback. “However, it did prompt us to ask,
where do you need to hear things, and where don’t you? This led us down some new paths of creative thinking and subsequently tagging the track in various ways technically allowing us to create interesting sound moments. For instance, adding non-literal sounds to add tension in certain places, and going over the top in some areas. For example, they’d used cannons for backfires in certain points. “For them, the car became like the dialogue – the main character – mixed centre-channel heavy. Therefore they’d keep other things out of centre to leave that space. And these are techniques we carried forward to the game, in some cases over-riding literal 3D positions of sound emitters to provide more mix clarity.”
THE TOP GEAR PARTNERSHIP
“Working with Top Gear is a big part of the franchise,” says Nick Wiswell. FM5 features all three presenters, while the back-room crew produced those characteristic scripts. He adds: “That’s how we get true Top Gear content – they’re very much known for their own opinions. They’re great to work with and make a lot of ‘real-time’ edits as they record – it’s a lot of fun.”
MUSICAL MAKEOVER Meanwhile, music was also set for a radical makeover, moving stylistically from previous electronica to a dramatic orchestral approach. Wiswell adds: “Music in racing games is an interesting discussion. Yes, there are hardcore racers who don’t want music at all, and yet it does add to the feel of the game so we wanted those positives without being sonically hamstrung by conflicting frequencies, such as distorted guitars/car engines.
“It’s amazing to what extent
sound can ‘colour’ what you see, bringing powerful emotional influence to any visuals.” John Wendl
We wanted music to build
excitement towards the race and came up with ‘The Hero’s Journey’ – you have this Zen space – your ‘homespace’ where you select and work on your car. As you travel to the race location, music intensity starts to build a sense of exploration and discovery. Then, at the track, it’s all about race preparation – getting ready for battle with music very intense – big percussion and choral elements to set the scene. Then it’s the 3-2-1 sequence, all about focus, so we remove music and enhance the crowd and revving engines. Following the race, there’s the reward sequence with music contributing to a sense of accomplishment. It made sense to custom-create music specifically to hit
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