And the music sets in...

The army is pushing forward, and the front line is advancing into hostile enemy territory. Soldier after soldier goes down, but still they keep pushing with bombs exploding all around them and bullets whizzing past, mere inches from their heads. \nThe main character dashes across the screen and the dramatic music swells as our hero risks his life to do his duty. Suddenly, out of nowhere, a passing bullet strikes him and the music stops. He falls to the ground. Game over. This is the video game world, but it feels more like a movie. \nNowadays video games are filled with music: from every game's theme song to a separate music for every level. But gone are the days of simple synthesized music. Now we are seeing more and more games that are fully orchestrated -- and at the forefront of this trend is Michael Giacchino. When it comes to video game orchestration, Giacchino is fast becoming a master in his field. With several Playstation titles to his name now, the film student turned composer leads the way to a new era of video game music -- instead of tinny bleeps, now we'll be seeing more video game orchestration.\n"Movies used to be the only place to get that type of music," Giacchino says. "I hope we'll see it become one of the standard options on video games."\nGiacchino's boyhood fascination with movies and movie music is what eventually led him to filmmaking. In his hometown of Edgewater Park, N.J., he would make home movies with a small 8 mm camera with his friends. He also studied piano as a child. Eventually, he attended the School of Visual Arts in New York City. \nOriginally, Giacchino was interested in filmmaking, but later discovered he wanted to create movie music. After graduating from the School of Visual Arts, Giacchino began to study composition at the Julliard School at Lincoln Center and later moved to California and attended the University of California at Los Angeles where he entered the school's film-scoring program. He scored several short films before finally landing a gig with DreamWorks to score video games.\nGiacchino's first major job composing for video games was the Playstation version of Steven Spielberg's blockbuster hit "The Lost World," which contains the world's first ever completely orchestrated score for a video game. This job in 1997 led him to other Spielberg projects, the most famous of which is "Medal of Honor," a video game conceptually designed after the Spielberg movie "Saving Private Ryan." "Medal of Honor" was later followed by sequels "Medal of Honor: Underground" and "Medal of Honor: Allied Assault." Like a realistic movie about war, game creators decided that they wanted to make a video game as realistic as they could. \nGiacchino was chosen in 1998 to bring music to the game. The synthesized pieces common in most video games would not do. \nScott Langteau, the producer for the "Medal of Honor" series, wanted the music to be as authentic as possible, capturing the feel of the game just as the visual landscapes did. He also made sure the music was as high a priority as the other aspects of the game.\n"The music has always been inspired by history and our locations and scenarios in general," Langteau says. "Much of the music to 'Underground' dealt with the underlying tones of strength against an oppressive force basically bulldozing your life away… The plain fact of the matter is that every single component of putting the game together is vital to the whole, and if you skimp in one area, it's going to show in the final mix of things."\nThe intense nature of the action sequences and the emotional moments would give Giacchino a chance to let his artistic talent flow. But scoring a video game is quite different from scoring a movie. \n"It's not much different creatively, and it's kind of akin to writing concert music," Giacchino says. "But in video games, you have a lot more freedom to express ideas. In movies you have to know exactly what you have to do and exactly when you have to do it. In video games you write to capture the particular atmosphere of the level. Video games offer you more choices, so it's harder but more rewarding." \nRecording for a video game is closer to recording a movie than it is to an audio CD. Still, there are differences. \n"The only difference between recording music for a game and music for a motion picture is that when we record we don't have to have to wait around locating video," Simon James says. James is the concertmaster and orchestral contractor who worked on the "Medal of Honor" series. The Northwest Sinfonia, with which he works, was the orchestra used to record the music for the games. \nEven though orchestral music seems to be less popular today, Giacchino says he sees a large fan base for it. \n"Of course rock is big, but younger kids are playing these games. Modern 20th century (orchestra) is really all about trying new things," Giacchino says. "What we are doing is more like classical music and like music from the Romantic era. It's very tonal and really melodic in style." \nUntil recently, within the last five years or so, it wasn't even really possible to get high quality sound onto video games. Playstation uses CDs, so the music in the game can be heard at CD quality if the game producers wish to spend the money for a composer and an orchestra. Obviously, in the case of Giacchino and "Medal of Honor," DreamWorks was. With the help of the Northwest Sinfonia, the music for the game was written and recorded in 1998. \n"The game producers were really allies of the music," Steve Smith says. Smith is the recording engineer for the "Medal of Honor" series. "They wanted it to have a good and authentic sound -- everything from guns cocking to the Germans talking. They really focused on every aspect of the game."\nOne cannot help but be reminded of movie music like "Saving Private Ryan" and "Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade" (both are John Williams' works) when listening to "Medal of Honor." \nGiacchino says Williams, frequently regarded as one of the greatest soundtrack composers of all time, influenced his work. \n"What attracted me most to his music was anything that had a memorable melody -- something that you could lock onto while you were listening to it," Giacchino says. \nGiacchino is an up and coming star in the music world. With Sony putting more money into video games than they are into films, we are sure to see a continued trend in great musical scores for more and more games. Projects in Giacchino's future include "Medal of Honor: Frontline" and his continued work on ABC's hit drama "Alias." Giacchino is sure to be involved in many of the greatest scores yet to come, considering the response from his peers.\n"Michael is an awesome composer. His melodic themes instantly make emotions come out in the characters on the screen," Smith says. "These themes could work for any action movie"