The Movies

Score notes:

This was probably one of the biggest jobs I have ever had to do in my life. When I was offered it I originally spent a great deal of time trying to talk Lionhead's head of audio, Russell Shaw, out of giving it to me. I'm glad he didn't really pay much to me when I tried that.

I had to write, record and produce over 80 brand new pieces of music that would cover the last 100 years of movie making. These would have to feature everything from wonky old silent movie piano pieces to full blown John Williams style epics, bad synthesized chase music from the 1980's to Gone With The Wind melodramas, Mancini-esque big bands to Morricone influenced westerns. I recorded the score all over the world with many different line ups. I tried to record everything as authentically as I could – everything from full orchestras in concert halls to sourcing the same kind of synthesizers people like John Carpenter used. When I took it on I really had no idea if I'd ever be able to do it all. To be honest I was kind of blagging it. I had to jump in the deep end and try to learn everything I could about the last century's worth of film music in a matter of months. To this day I still can't really believe I did it all. But I did and the results sounded way better than I think any of us expected.

The soundtrack – named as 'the best game soundtrack in the world' for the year it came out by Gamespy.com - got nominated for a BAFTA. Unfortunately it got beaten by Tomb Raider. Luckily The Movies still won Best Simulation so I got drunk with everyone else and it was rather fun.