It's a Date

It's official - the release date for the Wing Commander Movie is March 12th, 1999. Let the countdown begin. (The CIC Countdown is thanks to the amazing Trelane).

Previewing an Interview

FOX Fights

Apparently FOX, source of both good (Wing Commander) and evil (Ally McBeal) decided to balk at the prospect of releasing the movie of the year before that new Star Wars film. So those intelligent people over at Digital Anvil did the only thing they could - looked for a new studio which would satsify their pre-Phantom Menace needs. Apparently some other studio thought that the WC movie would be a wonderful thing to put out right now -- possibly Sony, who showed an interest in the film long ago. This scared FOX into getting things right, and it now looks like the WC Movie will be out very soon. (This exciting rumor comes, of course, from Dan's Wing Commander Movie Site).

Non-WC Kinda Update

Although this has nothing to do with WC, CZ poster Cav asks that we mention that Games Domain is running a petition to save the recently cancelled Star Trek game, Secret of Vulcan Fury. You can go fill it out here.

More from McCubbin

I asked Chris McCubbin, author of the Confederation Handbook, why he had to move the Kilrathi war up to starting in 2638 - his response makes a lot of sense, here it is...

OK, since you asked.

It's the damn Pilgrims' fault. EVERYTHING is the damn Pilgrims' fault. If they hadn't decided to make Blair Pilgrimerific, the continuity could have been a LOT closer to the games'.

Specifically, re. the date of the Iason incident ... OK, Blair's in his early 20s. His parents were both killed in the Pilgrim war when he was a toddler (actually, the script implies he was a bit older, but I fudged). If I stuck with the games' chronology, this means that the Pilgrim affair either *immediately* preceeded the Kilrathi dustup, or they actually overlapped.

So why is that a problem? Well, to me at least, one of the central themes of the whole Wing Commander milieu has always been the resonance with real-world history. Call it the "Pearl Harbor" metaphor. (Bill Fortschen has carried this metaphor sometimes to extremes in the game novels.) The assumption has always been that when the Kilrathi attacked, Confed was big, peaceful, reasonably enlightened and more than a bit complacent - just like the US when the Japanese attacked Pearl. If the Kilrathi had immediately followed the Pilgrim thing, Confed would have been a bit more battered but a LOT more ready. Like America going into Korea. That just seemed wrong, so I juggled the timeline to give Confed a few years' buffer between the wars. (And let's emphasize here that if I hadn't changed the dates, the Pilgrim thing would have still introduced discrepencies into continuity, they just might have been a bit better camoflaged.)

Basically, it was a choice between sticking closer to the chronology of the games, or to the central themes of the games. I decided that theme was more important to keeping the book a "real" Wing Commander experience.

That was my main reason, anyway. I think it's a lot better substantiated than making Angel English and Paladin French (although I think both actors are great).

Again, use this however you want.

Oldziey's Article

Wow, I finally found a copy of the January issue of Film Score Monthly - featuring an article by George Oldziey (who did the scores for WC3-WCP). Here's the article, which is rather well written and very interesting... there's a picture of the man himself at the bottom.

Wing Command Diary
One composer's experience writing in the Wing Commander Game Universe
by George Oldziey

I was living the quiet life of an Austin, Texas freelance musician during the spring of 1994 when a friend told me about a job opening for a composer at Origin Systems, a leading producer of interactive entertainment software. Since I've always been one to seek new musical challenges, I quickly sketched a piece in the best tradition of action films (and slightly reminiscent of that "galaxy far, far away"), sequenced it with a borrowed computer and synthesizer module (with a lot of help from a friend) and recorded the piece to a cassette tape which I delivered a few days later. Two days after I submitted the tape I was hired. Unbeknownst to me I would be composing the music for the cutting-edge CD-ROM title, Wing Commander 3. The next six months turned out to be one of the most exciting and rewarding periods of my life.

Mission Background

Wing Commander, the popular interactive space-flight simulator series, has been known as an industry leader in the computer gaming realm for its use of cinematic-style graphics, video and sound since its inception almost four years prior to my arrival at Origin. Chris Roberts, the multi-talented creator, producer and director of each installment in the series, had always had the vision of blurring the boundaries between gaming and cinema. With Wing 3 this "interactive movie" concept would be pushed to its limits. It was to be the first interactive title to feature full-motion video with Hollywood stars Mark Hamill, Malcolm McDowell, John Rhys-Davies and Tom Wilson, and it would require an actual film score to enhance its ground aspirations. That's where I came in.
   When I first arrived at Origin I was a neophyte to the computer game scene. I had been making my living as a performer (classical trumpet and jazz piano), composer and music teacher, both in New York City and Austin. Having just bought my first computer a year earlier, and having used my sequencing program just prior to submitting my Origin demo, I had rarely played any computer games and had never heard of Wing Commander. Nevertheless, I was literally thrust into a maelstrom that was the Wing Commander 3 production schedule.
   Chris Robert's vision for the music was that it have an orchestral, film score quality. Having had conservatory training (Manhattan School of Music) and the opportunity to perform regularly in orchestras in New York City I felt prepared for that particular challenge. However, when I found out that all of the music had to be arranged for the General MIDI format, I really had to put my arranger's hat on. While General MIDI music definitely has its place in the computer game music world, trying to achieve that big film-score sound can be a daunting task given the polyphony (number of notes that can be heard simultaneously) and patch choice restrictions involved.

Indoctrination

My initial assignment was to compose 30 minutes of "gameplay" or space flight music which would be heard while a player was within what the game programmers called an "action sphere." In other words, certain pieces would be grouped together and individually triggered by an event or level of intensity set in motion by the player. I was given an extensive list of short pieces ranging in length from five-second "jingles" which would be triggered by certain events such as blowing up a Kilrathi (big, cat-like bad guy) ship to three-minute "mission tunes" which the player would hear while cruising around the galaxy looking for action. Each piece, except the "jingles," had to be able to musically and seamlessly loop back to its beginning. They also had to be able to transition into any other piece that could be heard while in that particular action sphere. As a composer, I felt that this necessitated having music that did now establish a tonality, or key, for very long, if at all. All the music turned out to be tonal, and very thematic, but I kept it modulating frequently so that the ear did not perceive a sudden and awkward change when one piece would segue into another as the intensity level changed.
   It took a month of trial and error to find the exact sound that Chris was looking for. After I found that sound, I enthusiastically dove into the task of completing all the gameplay music. Then, at one of our weekly team meetings, I Heard discussion about Chris and several team members heading out to Los Angeles for the "shoot." I was a bit confused. I thought we were working on a computer game. No one had told me that there was to be an actual movie in the game - over 3 1/2 hours of picture as it turned out. I leaned over to a co-worked and quietly asked what they were talking about and if there was going to be music for all this. He looked at me strangely and said, "Yes. Aren't you going to compose it?" I told him, "Yes, of course" - still not knowing for sure. It was later confirmed that I had in fact been hired to compose for the game's interactive movie portion. My first reaction was apprehension, because I had never had the chance to compose music to picture before. It quickly turned to excitement when I realized the scope of what we were undertaking. I ran out and bought a book on how to compose using SMPTE and then readied myself for the first reel.
   Fortunately, when that first reel arrived, I was close to having completed my work on the gameplay music. Consequently I had a wealth of themes ad my disposal to use in the movie, to create a sense of continuity when going from playing the game to watching the flicks. The decision had been made to include a digital soundtrack to be synched with the digital video. This enabled me to go beyond the constraints of General MIDI and utilize some bigger sounds which I did with great joy.
   During an early spotting session I was puzzled that many of the movie scenes seemed to end very abruptly and were then followed by several different possible conclusions to the same scene. This was the "interactive" part of the movie. The player would come to this point in certain scenes and then be given a choice about which path to take. As the composer I had to figure out a way for the music to branch off into several different paths, of which the player would hear only one at any given time. This was less problematic than I originally thought. I used similar transitional material to get from the main storyline to each individual branch and would then take the music for each branch to a separate logical conclusion based on where that particular dramatic ending would go - such as success, failure, death or total annihilation of the human species.
   After coming to grips with the technical issues involved, I hunkered down for the remainder of the production and post-production schedule. Because of the sheer volume of picture involved, I usually had to begin working on a real before it was locked. I would received a locked reel weeks after I had finished composting to the unlocked version, which is nothing new to most film composer. Eight weeks and nine reels after I had composed over 2 1/2 hours of music to picture. A lot of work, but definitely a labor of love.

Mission Accomplished

When I first arrived at Origin I literally had no idea how much excitement Wing Commander 3 was generating in the entertainment industry. During the course of production I was interviewed by various journalists who were doing stories on the progress of the game. I was being asked questions such as "How does if feel to be working on Wing Commander 3?" After all, we were doing things that hadn't been done before. I usually managed some appropriate answer, still wondering what all the fuss was about.
   Looking back at what I was doing before Wing 3 and what I've been doing since, I realize that it was a big deal, especially on a personal level. It's not often that a composer gets such a huge project for his first credit. That definitely is not the norm in the entertainment industry. I've since completed two other Wing Commander titles for Origin, the epic Wing Commander 4 (which featured over five hours of pictures shot on film and over 3 1/2 hours of music!), and the recently released Wing Commander Prophecy. Each of these titles has received a lot of awards and critical acclaim for their groundbreaking visuals, sound and technology. I couldn't have hand-picked a more exciting and fulfilling opportunity to get started composing music for games and film.

Telep Reports Too

Well, I'm just happy that these people actually read the CIC. Peter Telep comments on the Confederation Handbook and how it relates to his upcoming books... I think this situation is probably just fine, and since I'll have extra time tomorrow (no braille on Fridays!) I'll do a new review of the handbook, assuming that the movie and the games are completely separate. And now...

Just read Chris McCubbin's response to your remarks and have one of my own:

Chris writes:

For example, take the ship stats. Now, Peter was working without having seen even an early draft of the movie, and with very limited photo reference, so he pulled some things from the games. I was working a bit behind him, and had some better information, particularly about special effects and design. Therefore, my ship stats are MORE accurate -- to the movie continuity -- than the novels.

Peter responds:

Chris is absolutely right on this point. I weekly bugged the production people for materials and received some stuff, but materials regarding the ships seemed hard to get. I didn't even see a picture of the Tiger Claw until AFTER I wrote the novel and had to go back and make adjustments. But this is par for the course with tie-in work. They gave me about eight or so weeks to write the book, so I couldn't wait for them. Also, I was instructed to use as little material as possible from the games because of licensing restrictions. This seemed ironic to me, but I did what I could. I knew fans would appreciate some crossover between the games and the novels, but what we're really trying to do here is, as Chris writes, create another continuity.

With that in mind, my next two novels will rely on Chris's book as a bible of sorts. I'll be drawing from it liberally to maintain continuity and because it's one hell of a text. I'm certain that the next two novels will remain faithful to the movie continuity and to what Chris has done. I've taken measures to correct things like time (Zulu is gone, replaced by the digital clock), ship names (it's not TCS in the movie continuity; it's CS), and I've more accurately described the components of the ships like "rotary barrel neutron gun" instead of "barrel-shaped rotating laser cannons," which was my naive first attempt at describing them. The changes will, I'm sure, spark heated debate--but that's a cool thing itself.

Finally, I must confess that I felt a little awkward taking this job. William Forstchen's work looms over this material. I knew comparisons would be made (they shoulda got Forstchen to write the movie books instead of this Telep loser) and that I would simply have to deal with that. It's actually not fair to Bill either since he'll be exposed to the comparisons as well--and I do admire his work a great deal. He pays much more attention to the language than many others working in this genre and has produced an amazing body of work, both tie-in and original material.

When I get time, I'll fill you on the Merlin stuff and whatever else strikes me! Go ahead and post this if you choose.