New
Interview at M4G. 'In
The Studio'.
RA3.
James is currently working
on Command and Conquer: Red Alert 3
for Electronic Arts.
April
2008
- Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. Work
is underway on the
score for the next installment of the Harry Potter series
from Electronic Arts/Warner Bros. - due
for release later this year. Watch
the teaser trailer here.
This
year James
has been working on two scores for Kuju London,
both for currently unannounced titles. Watch this space
for updates.
March
2008
- Movie Music UK Awards, 2007 -
Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix wins 'Best
Score' in the VG category. Click
here for details. Buy the soundtrack from iTunes.
January
2008
- IGN lists 'Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix'
among the best scores of 2008.
Click here for the feature.
Read IGN's earlier 'Magic in the Air' interview.
New Interviews with
Movie Music UK,
G Soundtracks
and
HecticSL
November
2007 - Channel 4 Online:
Click here for '21st Century Opera'.
'Brief
Encounter' - James
discusses what constitutes a good brief with industry
colleagues. Click
here for the Develop magazine article.
October 2007 -
BAFTA Online article:
The current edition of BAFTA magazine, Academy, is running a
feature on music for games, featuring comments from James.
Read the online version here.
October
2007 - 'Video
Games Live' 2007.
A collage of James's music
for Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix
(Electronic Arts/Warner Bros.) will be performed at the
upcoming concert in London. The show will be held at the
Royal Festival Hall on October 22nd and will feature The
Philharmonia orchestra.
July
2007: 'Soundtrack
of the Month' at Music4Games
June
2007-Post
Magazine:
Article by James
posted in the June 2007 Audio Newsletter.
Music for Ducati launch, 2007.
The
leading edge Audio journal has run a three-page feature. on
James and his approach to music. Read
it here.
BAFTA
Awards
2005:
James
has received his fourth BAFTA nomination for the music of
Evil Genius (Elixir Studios/VU Games).
Other titles nominated include Fable (Russell Shaw/Danny
Elfman),
Hitman: Contracts (Jesper Kyd), Harry Potter and
the Prisoner of Azkaban (Jeremy and Julian Soule),
Demon Stone (Rob Mills) and Rome: Total War (Jeff Van
Dyck). In 2000, James shared a win with Richard Joseph
and Bullfrog Productions for Theme Park World (Sim
Theme Park).
ROUND-UP
2005/Formula One Ferrari 'Red Racing' / The Bourne
Identity
:
James recently completed the score for an extended
two-minute pan-European cinema commercial promoting the
Ferrari Formula One Red Racing School, which
offers the chance to take a ride around an F1 course in
a customised three-seater version of last year's Ferrari
/// James's music on the West One label has recently
been heard in The World's Wildest Police Videos, Destination
Future and trailers for The Bourne Identity
on British Network Television.
Best
of 2004:
Soundtrack.net placed Republic: The Revolution in
the top 5 Soundtracks of 2004 (best
of 2004), and has also posted a favourable
review.
November 2004 - Catwoman:
Work recently concluded on the
score of Catwoman (Electronic Arts/Warner Bros.)
April
2004 - Develop
article.
James has written an in-depth article on music for games,
which is this April's cover feature in industry journal,
Develop. The article looks primarily at the unique role
and function of music in games and speculates as to how
music can be better integrated with them as the industry
moves on. Plans are afoot for a series of new articles on
this and other related issues. To obtain Develop,
go here. To read the
article on this site, please visit the
articles
section.
Sony
Media Pictures: James has been featured in
the 2004 production catalogue, talking about his long
standing use of Sony production tools such as Sound Forge
and Vegas.
Tony Hinnigan sessions:
James recently worked with the hugely talented and respected
wind instrumentalist Tony Hinnigan on an unannounced
project, recording at Spatial Audio with veteran engineer
Gerry O'Riordon. Tony's distinctive sound can be heard in
numerous soundtracks, ranging from the penny whistle and
flutes of 'Titanic' and 'Braveheart' to the panpipes of 'The
Mission'.
Music for the Media:
Guy Michelmore, Course
Director of the world's largest training programme for film
and television composers, conducted a video interview with
James which will be distributed among students in the near
future.
RCM
visit 2005:
In January, James was invited to talk to the students of the
Composition for Screen Masters course run by Miguel Mera at
the Royal College of Music in London. A lively debate
followed over the role of music in interactive entertainment
and the relationships between music for film, theatre,
television and games. To get the ball rolling, James showed
a short video case study
looking at 'interactive music'.
Visit the
RCM site. For information on the
Masters programme itself,
click here.
West
One Music
: The production company has
reported on James's involvement on the Big Screen
movie promo CD.
Click here.
Gamezone Interview:
Part 1|Part
2.
Evil
Genius
(Elixir Studios/VU Games) has been released. Read reviewer
comments on the music here.
Post
Magazine.
The L.A. based magazine
has featured James as part of an article looking at
audio in games, which focuses on six audio facilities
worldwide. Click
here.
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Resolution
Story:
The specialist Audio Production magazine has conducted an
interview with James looking at his philosophy and
approach to creating music for games. Note of clarification:
James did not directly receive a Golden Reel
nomination for Lost In Space, as suggested in the article,
but merely contributed as a Sound Designer to the movie -
which was nominated for Sound Editing in 1998.
BAFTA
Games Awards.
Republic:
The Revolution (Elixir Studios/Eidos) was nominated for
an award in the Music category this year. James
previously shared a win with colleagues for Sound in
Theme Park World/Sim Theme Park in 2000 and has been
nominated for the music award on three separate occasions.
Republic CD info.
May 2004:
Mix Online
on Republic: The Revolution
Feb
04: Evil Genius Sessions.
James has adopted a swinging 60s sound for the
forthcoming Elixir/Vivendi-Universal title, recording a
series of Big Band tracks for this exciting strategy game -
followed by orchestral sessions. Also tapped are the talents
of George Sanger (aka The Fatman) and Evan Jolly.
Visit the Evil Genius website.
April
04:
Click here for Music4Games' review of the Republic
soundtrack CD.
Feb
04:
James participated on a
panel entitled 'Scoring Interactive Music for Videogames'
on February 17th, as part of the
BAFTA Interactive Festival, with co-panelists Nick
Laviers (head of audio, Electronic Arts Europe) and chairman
John Broomhall of Broomhall Projects.
Feb
04: Republic Soundtrack.
Click here for reviewer comments
and
here
for the Music4Games review.
Read the Soundtrack.net review.

Nov
03: Freelancer and Brute Force soundtracks.
Microsoft/Digital Anvil have released the Freelancer
and Brute Force Soundtracks on the Sumthing
label. Link to
Sumthing.
Oct
03: Musicworks 2003.
James participated in a masterclass at Musicworks, the
international cross-media music convention, with
Nick Laviers (Head of
Audio at Electronic Arts Europe, and former colleague of
James) - chaired by John
Broomhall, ten year
veteran of the games industry and, recently, music
consultant for Pop Idol. John later conducted an
interview with 007 composer, David Arnold.
Visit the Musicworks site.
Sept 03:
Guardian Online Report.
Click here to read a report on music for games,
featuring the views of
Barrington Pheloung
and
James Hannigan.
Aug
03: Edinburgh International Games Festival.
August 18th 2003: James took part in a panel discussing the
future of music in games at this year's Edinburgh
International Games Festival. The panel, brought together by
industry veteran John Broomhall, also included film
composer Harry
Gregson-Williams
(Shrek, Antz, Metal Gear Solid 2), Professor
Stephen Deutsch*
of Bournemouth University
and was chaired by composer, Barrington Pheloung.
Feb
03: Republic.
Recording is complete for
Elixir's forthcoming strategy game. The sessions were
conducted by Allan Wilson, whose credits include Harry
Potter and the The Chamber of Secrets (Electronic
Arts) and films such as
Sleepy Hollow and The Shipping News. At
times, the orchestra was recorded to comply with an
interactive branching music system, with some elements
rendered individually for real-time mixing in-game. Read
Reviews.
Feb 03: Interview with Republic fansite.
RepRev has conducted an interview with James on Republic,
also looking into more general issues surrounding music in
games.
Read it here.