BY CHRISTOPHER LEON
Imagine you could spy on a person’s webcam. Not only that, but you could search through their conversations for key words that would unravel their darkest secrets.
What would it all sound like?
Composer Nainita Desai was tasked with scoring this unusual project — a game constructed from fragments of video recordings, in which its actors speak to each other in private online conversations. And you have to figure out what they’re talking about
The 2019 game is called Telling Lies (Annapurna Interactive), and comes from Sam Barlow — who you might know as the creator of Her Story and Silent Hill: Shattered Memories.
Before we go on, you should probably watch the trailer. Nainita’s theme won the 2019 Music+Sound Award for Best Original Composition In A Gaming Trailer — here, give it a listen.
Nainita, you have mentioned in a statement that you’re a bit of a fan of spy, espionage, and noir genres. What is it about these genres that appeals to you, and how would you define the musical language that accompanies them?
I’m a big fan of genre films in general – I love mystery, intrigue, espionage, intelligent, complex storytelling.
I’m also a fan of Nordic and neo-noir, such as [TV show] The Bridge, [and films] Body Heat, The Game, The Grifters. The music tends to be dark with hints of jazz and mystery — cerebral styles that I veer towards and have always found attractive.
For Telling Lies, you worked on a musical mood board. Can you talk us through what this is? How did this process work in narrowing down your musical approach for the game?
When we first discussed the project [creator] Sam Barlow (Her Story, Silent Hill: Shattered Memories) told me in two words what the game was about, and then elaborated on some of his film inspirations that varied from The Conversation, to Three Colours trilogy, Shame, Sex Lies and Videotape. I was also inspired by the tone and textures of ’70s spy movies including Klute, All the President’s Men, Chinatown, etc.
I’m very visually inspired and when reading the script, as well as drawing from Sam’s elaborate and very visual analogies, I drew a mental picture of the soundworld. Sam and I had in-depth conversations about the characters, the multiple facets of their personalities and their dramatic arcs. In that regard, it wasn’t too different from scoring for film.
I then started creating music playlists for each character that Sam would feedback on. He would share music that we had been listening to while writing, and I’d share my playlists and ideas based on character notes, and eventually we would collate fragments of what we liked.
I felt organic textures that had a dark beauty about them would suit the overall vibe of the game. It worked as a great communicator, and really helped us hone down the core of what we were trying to say emotionally.
With the game, there is a difference between composing to reflect or enhance the on-screen action, versus here — where it’s more atmospheric and deliberately dissonant, where we expose the subtext and the ‘bigger picture’, scoring the player’s experience and understanding rather than the on-screen action. I feel that can be much more potent in allowing the player to get to the heart of the characters.
I worked from very detailed character notes and various drafts of the script. Sam is incredibly thorough and, as a result, I had to step into each character’s shoes and totally inhabit each character’s personality. It helped me paint a musical picture.
The main title is a favorite of mine – it was the last piece to be written and, having lived with the script for such a long time, I felt I could do the game justice by encapsulating the game world in a piece that has dissonant, violent, unsettling qualities.
All of your instruments are acoustic in the soundtrack for Telling Lies. Why do you think players will connect intimately to acoustic music, rather than electronic? This is particularly in the context of a game, which exists in the digital world — and you have indeed composed electronic works in the past.
Most of my commissions are some kind of combination of acoustic and electronic hybrid score. Here, the crux of the story is about human relationships with strong, up-close-and-personal performances – you almost feel like you shouldn’t be privy to the private conversations taking place. It’s very intimate. So, with my sound palette, I wanted to get that intimate atmosphere across with the purity and rawness of acoustic organic sounds.
When we settled on the style, I instantly knew I wanted to bring the London Contemporary Orchestra on board, who are great collaborators and more than just a ‘band for hire’. The sound of the music, where you can hear the relationship between the musician and their instrument, was very important to me. You can actually hear the sound of the bow hitting the strings; that raw, visceral, grating quality of the bow and the produced notes — but in a very warm, intimate way.
So I’m inherently helping to create a subtle atmosphere that forces the player to listen to the detail – the small facial inflections, and rich detail in the actors’ performances are supported by the detail in the musical performances.
How would you describe the characters, and how did this knowledge affect your musical decision-making – especially given that you composed the music without the aid of final visuals?
The tone of the music is quite intimate and cerebral and needed to compliment the complex Machiavellian plot and varied narrative threads.
I had to rely on the words on the page, and pick up the essence of each character coupled with the in-depth backstory of each character that Sam would feed me, where all the characters are not quite who they say they are, and everyone is deceiving everyone consciously and subconsciously. There are layers of manipulation and hidden, dark secrets that delve into the human psyche.
Once the pieces were signed off and approved, we then orchestrated and went into the studio to record. In the end, we had a 15-player string section, two woodwinds, piano, and harp.
Once we had recorded the straight version of the music, we then did something quite unique in that we experimented in the session by improvising and trying extended techniques. We tried things out that you hear in modern classical music. That was one of the most exciting aspects of the whole process, because the score is incredibly considered, and precise — so what I wanted to do was to introduce an element of chaos and visceral edginess to the playing, to shake things up a bit in the studio. We used techniques such as spectral scrubbing that involves bowing the strings along the bridge in a circular motion. It gives the music a very airy, floaty feel.
From looking at the tracklist, it seems there are only six tracks in the game — is this correct? Often, a game will comprise hundreds of cues and associated tracks. How did you distil an entire game into a small musical package?
Yes! There are only six tracks in the game. We like to think it’s quality rather than quantity [smiles]. Seriously, though – there is so much dialogue in the game that you have to be careful not to overladen the player with too much music. When it’s there, it makes an impact and has a reason to be there.
The game is so rich in detail – I was given a several-hundred-page script to work from, so I had to be very careful with how score was utilised. In that regard, it is quite cinematic in approach.
We didn’t want to lead and detract from the detailed nuances of the performances and the dialogue. We took the idea of a smaller core of themes that could add some connective tissue to glue together the very non-linear and fractured experience of the game.
I wrote a theme for each of the main characters. Each theme had to have a duplicitous quality to it – the surface exterior of the character – the Main Loop and the Hidden Section that is revealed, once you dig deeper into the story and that person’s psyche and true motives.
As you play the game, if you get deeper down the rabbit hole of a plot moment, a hidden musical layer of that character’s personality subliminally reveals itself.
We wanted the music to have a relaxed pace overall, and aimed for a sparse, modern minimalist orchestral score that had repeated structures.
When you watch the video scenes, you can ‘rewind/forward’ like a video machine, studying bits again and again. The repeated structures in the music reflects the ‘mechanical’ video scrubbing motion that the player goes through.
On a more practical level, the score is modular — blocks of music sections that needed to flow in whatever order the blocks were played — so the challenge there was to integrate musical fluidity to the pieces; to create a natural organic flow within each piece without the player noticing.
In some ways, it feels that this game falls outside the ‘known’ forms of composing for screen — the musical process, as well as the aesthetic of the game and user interface, positions it as a niche experience for its players. Who do you intend for this game to target? What audience do you feel will most enjoy the experience?
It combines the oldest forms of entertainment with the newest ways we communicate – like a play that plays out over video chat. Anyone can play this game who enjoys rich storytelling and wants to engage in an experience. You don’t have to be a gamer or into video games to play this and, likewise, it is an intelligent game that makes you think about human relationships, piecing together the ‘mystery’ and ‘puzzle’ of the game.
I’ve known people play the game instead of wanting to watch a movie for the evening, and come away intrigued and engaged.
You worked closely with Sam Barlow, who has also created Her Story and Silent Hill: Shattered Memories. How did Sam’s background impact your creative process together? Did he have a ‘sound’ in mind from these experiences, for instance?
Initially, I was quite daunted about working with Sam and his pedigree. But I learnt to trust my instincts, and loved the story so much — I really felt I could bring my cinematic storytelling experience in music, regardless of the form that the project took.
Like many film directors, Sam gave me an overarching brief of the overall concept of the game. Sam had heard a couple of pieces I’d written for another score that he resonated with, but it was then up to me how to execute the vibe and tone he was after, which I really relished.
We thought about certain instruments representing different characters, and I narrowed it down to a chamber string ensemble aided by woodwinds, piano, and harp.
Sam gives very elaborate and strikingly visual analogies. His use of language and way he describes tone and mood is quite left-of-field, and the more prescriptive he was the easier it was to translate his intention. It can be quite esoteric at times! But the beauty of getting these sometimes wacky analogies and notes on each character drew me down roads I didn’t expect.
Outside game, you have a fascinating background — you’ve worked with lots of different artists across the orchestral, film, and television worlds, too. Where can we see your future career heading? Will you continue to work across diverse industries, or start moving more into games?
I definitely have a taste more for writing for games now! So far, it’s allowed me a lot of creative freedom and more luxurious time schedules, so I hope to develop that side more. But I do have quite a few TV and narrative feature projects coming out soon, ranging from a Netflix series to a cool new project with the BBC NHU (producers of Blue Planet and Planet Earth), to some feature films and two more soundtrack albums out later this autumn.
I find that I stay creatively fresh by writing in different musical styles across various genres and not repeating myself. I just love telling stories in fresh ways, collaborating with creative teams, and writing my own album as an artist, which I’m excited about.
Telling Lies is available on Steam.
Images supplied.
