Interview with James Hannigan

[Sonic 292]

GameReplays.org have posted a short interview with James Hannigan, best known to Command & Conquer fans as one the composers on the Red Alert 3 and Uprising soundtracks. He also contributed to the Command & Conquer 4 soundtrack. Here's a couple of sample questions.

 

GameReplays: What has been the most demanding soundtrack you've worked on so far? Is there a soundtrack or song you're particularly proud of?

 

James Hannigan: It wasn’t really my proven style of music at the time I started on them, but I feel quite proud of the music for the last four Harry Potter games. It was a satisfying and pretty mind-expanding experience, working on those, from a compositional point of view. The downside, if there is one, is that there tends to be an assumption made by many that the music in them is derived from the film counterpart’s music, which isn’t really the case. Film licenses are fun to work on, but your music will always be overshadowed by the film’s score – regardless of how accomplished or otherwise it may be.

 

There are certain tracks in the C&C games I’ve worked on that I’m proud of, such as Soviet March, Yuriko’s Theme (the theme from Uprising), Enter the Shogun Executioner and a few others. Soviet March was quite a challenge in that I wanted the arrangement to be very like an authentic Soviet-era March. With Yuriko’s theme, getting the vocals and textures right took a surprisingly long time, and there were around 9 iterations of the track.

 

GameReplays: How did your initial ties to C&C come about?

 

James Hannigan: I’d been working on and off for EA since about 1995 but had not done anything with EA LA until audio director Nick Laviers invited me to pitch for Red Alert 3. I’d worked on a few RTS games and sims before, and loved the subject matter and the C&C games in general. So it went from there.

 

You can read the full interview right here.