Austin Wintory is a composer who is scoring for film, television, and video games in Hollywood and Los Angeles.

Austin Wintory

Austin Wintory – How I managed a tight budget

On the game Journey, Sony couldn't afford to hire orchestra for the entirety of the game. To compensate and avoid MIDI, I made the orchestra an emergent component of the dramatic arc of the score. By the end of the game it's a fully orchestral score, but it starts out with cello solos echoing amongst a whole bed of electronics. I often end up doing that sort of thing. I put all my eggs in one basket and figure out how to approach and depart from that moment to build an arc that helps the drama of the story.

— Austin Wintory

Austin Wintory – Don’t write a score you can’t deliver well

A good score needs to sound like there is no more expensive version of that music that could exist. You don't want to look back on it later and have a thought like "If we'd only had a little bit more money..." I don't want to punish directors because they can't afford a live orchestra, and in most circumstances I would be if I used samples. A good score does something brilliant with the resources at hand.

— Austin Wintory

Austin Wintory – Successful careers are a function of luck

What I always say to people is that successful careers are a function of luck. Most people hear that and they shut off. They think "That sucks. I just have to get lucky." Except, you can manifest luck by being in the right place at the right time. Being in the right place is easy. The right place is mainly a state of mind, but it is also actively engaging in the industry, going to events, constantly meeting people, and just projecting outward in all directions that you give a damn about all of this, because people are drawn to passion. The right time, as in an opportunity, happens constantly.

— Austin Wintory

Austin Wintory – The intersection of budget and creativity

My job as a composer is to find the exact intersection between what we can afford and what we creatively want, because they do intersect. If you think of supply and demand curves in economics, they always meet somewhere. Similarly, what we can afford and what our creative musings lead us to will also meet somewhere. You can produce the perfect score for that budget, you just have to figure out what it is. I've found it often ends up being the most creatively stimulating work, because you wouldn't think that way if someone said money is no object.

— Austin Wintory

Austin Wintory – Production value doesn’t mean clinically perfect

In the early 2000s music was by and large very meticulously produced, as evidenced by hip hop, trance, house music, and film composers of the time. It was heavily edited, tightly controlled, and totally flawless. Now we've swung the other way, and widely popular bands like the Black Keys and many other indie rock groups keep the chair squeaks, the page turns and other little flaws. People suddenly have a new found appreciation for recordings that are produced in a way that's less sterile. The umbrella of acceptable production decisions has gotten a lot wider, and the benefit is that your production decisions can be more a part of your aesthetic expression.

— Austin Wintory

Austin Wintory – Many composers never went to college

I know plenty of successful composers who never went to college. By successful I don't mean financially successful, though they may be, I mean people that are happy with the course their life has taken.

— Austin Wintory


Austin Wintory

www.AustinWintory.com

Austin Wintory began his obsession with composing back when he was ten years old, when he discovered Jerry Goldsmith’s scores to Patton and A Patch of Blue. After a busy high school career composing for the student orchestras, Austin went on to study at NYU and USC with composers Morten Lauridsen, Charles Fussell, and Erica Muhl. Never satisfied with working in a single medium, Austin has worked in the concert world, film music, video games, and miscellaneous others.

In March 2012, the PlayStation3 game Journey was released, after three years of work. The game instantly became Sony’s fastest-selling PlayStation title, and the soundtrack album debuted on the Billboard charts higher than any original score in gaming history. In December 2012, more history was made when it was announced that Journey had become the first-ever Grammy-nominated videogame score. The score subsequently won an Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences D.I.C.E. award, two British Academy Awards, a Spike TV VGA, and IGN’s “Overall Music of the Year,” five G.A.N.G. Awards and host of others. The score features the Macedonia Radio Symphonic Orchestra and a lineup of top soloists (Audio excerpts available here). Orchestral excerpts, and the stand alone mini-concerto “Woven Variations” have been consistently scheduled for concert performances all over the world since its release.

Beginning humbly as a Kickstarter campaign, Austin’s next major game effort was Stoic Studio’s The Banner Saga, a unique and mature turn-based strategy / RPG hybrid with a dazzling art direction. The score featured the Dallas Wind Symphony, America’s premiere wind ensemble, and an all-star trio of YouTube musicians: Malukah, Peter Hollens and Taylor Davis. The game and soundtrack were released in early 2014 to critical and commercial success; the score earned Austin over a dozen awards and nominations, including his 4th and 5th British Academy Award nominations, and a nomination for the peer-voted ASCAP Composer’s Choice Award for “Best Video Game Score of the Year.” He is currently working with Stoic on The Banner Saga 2, which was announced live, on-stage at The Game Awards in December 2014 to an audience of nearly 2 million people.

Austin has also scored over 45 feature films, and his first major film score, for the Sundance Film Festival-winning film Captain Abu Raed, was shortlisted for the 2009 Academy Awards for Best Original Score by the LA Times. His next major film, Grace, was also a hit at the Sundance Film Festival. Austin’s score (which featured a wild array of custom-recorded sounds such as babies crying and horse flies, in addition to a large ensemble of clarinets at London’s famed Abbey Road Studios), was also highly lauded, earning a notorious Fangoria Chainsaw Award nomination and being cited by “Visions in Sound” (a popular film scoring radio program) as among the Top 10 Scores for 2010. His most recent film is writer/director Adam Alleca’s Standoff, starring Thomas Jane and Laurence Fishburne.

Outside of games, Austin is also very busy working in films and composing / conducting for the concert stage. The Boulder Symphony named Austin their Composer in Residence in 2011, first premiering the award-winning orchestral/choral work “Gray Rain.” In April 2015 Austin will debut “This Gaming Life” with the iconic Australian comedians Tripod, an evening-length show with the Melbourne Symphony.

Passionate about education, Austin is a regular public speaker at schools and events around the world, in addition to pre-concert talks and workshops. He also serves on the Board of Directors for the non-profit Education Through Music – Los Angeles, as well as the Board of Directors for the Society of Composers and Lyricists.

PRO affiliation: ASCAP

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