Julie Buchanan: "I don't normally recommend anyone to go into the game audio industry"

Photo: © JENNIFER BERNING

Julie Buchanan is a freelance game audio composer who spoke on this years Most Wanted: Music about her unusual and rare career path. We wanted to know more about this and asked her a few questions.

INTERVIEW Boris Messing

CCB Magazine: How often do you think at work, oh God, I can't hear that anymore?

Julie Buchanan: Haha, quite often actually. In general, I find it’s best if I don’t spend too much time at once on a single sound or piece of music, because at some point it is hard to distinguish between what I want it to sound like (or what it sounds like in my head) and what it actually sounds like. I often come back to something a few hours later, or a day later, and have a totally different opinion on what I did.

CCB Magazine:What do you like most about your job?

Julie Buchanan:Recently I’m really appreciating the game audio community – my peers and sometimes coworkers. As a freelancer, I often run into problems that I need to resolve on my own, or have unique situations where I need advice from others who have been through the same thing. Game audio is a super niche field of work. Composers especially run into a lot of problems with contracts and negotiations, as a lot of studios and even lawyers are not well versed on music law, and many contracts that we receive are not fair towards us or don’t include clauses which protect our rights. Having a community that is familiar with these same issues is invaluable. I also am happy whenever I can give back in the same way, and share some of my experience and knowledge. Creatively I really love that every project I work on is different, and it never gets boring. Whenever I start writing music on a new project, I often choose some new tool or instrument that I want to use.

CCB Magazine:Tell us briefly: How did you come to do what you do?

Julie Buchanan:I started playing music and video games from a very young age, but I had no idea that “game composer” was a job title I could ever have. I eventually decided I wanted to pursue music in university, but without any real direction of what I wanted to focus on. I ended up as a film scoring major at Berklee College of Music, and that’s where I realized that I could do music for video games and maybe get paid for it also. Since graduating, I have spent years gaining more experience and becoming more skilled at both composing and sound design, and while I think Berklee gave me a head start with music technology, most of what I do in my jobs today I learned through experience on actual projects. I have always been drawn to electronic music in various genres, and I have definitely been inspired by what I listen to for fun. I have also been influenced a lot by my stubbornness. There are not a lot of women in game audio, I think the latest GANG survey said maybe 12%, and throughout my career I’ve felt the impacts of sexism in the industry. But I love to do whatever people tell me I shouldn’t do, or do what people don’t expect, so I think obstinance is really the main reason I am still in game audio. I am happy to be just one more visible representation of queer women in game audio.

I would like to see the game audio industry get to the point where a woman is not the exception, but the standard

CCB Magazine:What were your biggest mistakes along the way?

Julie Buchanan:Unfortunately, I learned the hard way that being friends with the teams you work with doesn’t negate encountering bad experiences. As a contractor you are in a very vulnerable position to get blamed and receive the consequences for their mistakes. There are not so many protections for composers when gigs fall through or we receive bad treatment. I had a very bad experience with two teams here which were completely out of my control. But from these experiences I have made the decision to no longer do any free consulting, and also to make sure that contracts get taken to a competent lawyer who is familiar with music law immediately. I also fight very hard to keep my soundtrack rights now, as most game studios/publishers (especially indies) are not adequately equipped to act as a music publisher, and therefore shouldn’t receive a publisher’s share of soundtrack royalties.

CCB Magazine:Who would you say your type of work is suitable for? What qualifications does it require?

Julie Buchanan:I typically don’t recommend people to get into game audio because the industry is very oversaturated. The exception is, if you are really stubborn and convinced that it’s what you want to do, then I say go for it! I think it takes a very hard-working person to pursue a career as a game composer or sound designer, and there are also components of luck, privilege, and location which are important to mention. Some practical considerations about working in game audio would be that you spend a lot of time working alone, and a lot of time at a desk. Especially as a composer, your income for many years can be unstable and you most likely need to supplement with a main or side job. Personality-wise I think it's helpful to be someone who really likes a challenge, loves to learn new things, is very creative, and loves problem-solving. If you have a good understanding of computer technology/hardware and game engines in general this is also very helpful. If you are a freelancer, it’s also important to be able to negotiate for your contracts, and do all of the administrative stuff that comes with running your own business.

CCB Magazine:How will your work change the music industry?

Julie Buchanan:I am hopeful that as game audio as a whole becomes a more established profession, that music rights organizations and music law will adapt to also include and protect us. At the moment, music rights organizations (PRO, PRS) don’t really collect anything for us because there are very few countries that collect music royalties for video game sales. We also don’t have so many public performances or get played on radio, so these traditional forms of income that composers are used to receiving don’t really apply to us. In Germany, game composers actively avoid becoming GEMA members because their music royalty collection schedule is so obtuse and doesn’t make sense for how music is played in games. It's really a shame that the largest music organization here, almost a monopoly, does not actively protect game composers, but rather discourages them from joining. There are lawyers here advising studios never to work with composers in a PRO because of the hypothetical chance that GEMA might collect money even if the songs aren’t registered with a composer’s PRO (even non-GEMA composers). But progress also requires an active effort on the side of studios to work together with composers, competent music copyright lawyers, and music rights organizations to treat and pay their composers fairly. I also hope that by just being a visible queer woman succeeding in game audio, that I can help destroy the image of the music and games industry being a boy’s club. I would like the industry to eventually be in a place where being a woman in game audio is not an exception but a standard.