SDA006: Garry Schyman – Aliens, Bioshock, and Mordor!

Today’s guest is Garry Schyman. Garry has composed for many mediums, but as of late has had an epic streak of video games. To name a few: Destroy All Humans! , Bioshock, Resistance: Retribution, Dante’s Inferno, Bioshock 2, Bioshock Infinite, The Bureau: XCOM Declassified, Bioshock Infinite: Burial at Sea, and Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor.

Garry has also received a staggering amount of awards for his work, but I’m only gonna toss out a few:

The Bafta Awards 2014 Winner for Best original Music

The Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences – DICE Awards 2014 Winner for Outstanding Achievement in original music composition with Bioshock Infinite

Musican and Sound Awards 2014 winner for Best Original Composition: Gaming

New York Video Game Critics Circle Awards 2014 winner for Best Music in a game: Bioshock Infinite

Spike TV Video Games Awards 2007 Winner for Best Original Score – with Bioshock

2008 GANG Awards for Music of the Year: Bioshock

2007 G4 Television Award for Soundtrack of the Year: Bioshock

so, so, so many more

Show Highlights

Garry was born in Chicago, but grew up in California

Studied Music Composition at USC

Started working for Mike Post and Pete Carpenter

Worked as a ghost on Magnum P.I., Greatest American Hero, and others.

Scored movies in the 90’s

In 2004 Garry’s agent sent his resume to THQ and it was sitting on a fax machine. An executive saw it, recognized his name, and booked him for Destroy All Humans!

Fun Fact: John Williams scored Gilligan’s Island — who knew!?

Once upon a time Garry scored infomercials

Just finished an awesome project called iO Moon

Garry first learned to play the piano

Big fan of Mahler

Garry teaches at USC in the Scoring for Motion Picture and Television Program

Every composer should know how to operate both in-the-box and in a recording session

Garry has always been a contracted composer, not an in-house composer

Garry writes music in Digital Performer

Scoring the original Bioshock was a massive pull right away as was Dante’s Inferno

Nathan Grigg cowrote a lot of the music for Shadow of Mordor

It helps to remember when composing that “The journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.”

Applying limitations to your workflow can generate some amazing creative results.

The originally score of Bioshock was never sold. It was given away.

Go above and beyond with your composition. It often pays to compose extra pieces that may fit in elsewhere.

Deadlines can be a very strong source of inspiration.