This is a piece from a film score I wrote. The scene involves a person struggling with their mental health, and then they’re being comforted by a friend. As the scene progresses, someone comes along to antagonize them, and then their mind starts racing and they become overwhelmed by their own surroundings. It builds to this final crescendo where the character - looking straight ahead - asks, “Is this really happening?”

This was for a game I worked on called Rapid Eye Madness. The director wanted a feeling of mystery for the secrets menu, which were audio logs that drove the narrative in the game. I wrote some chord changes, sat down with my guitar, improvised some licks and phrases, and wrote them down as saxophone parts that would later be performed through a sax plugin via midi. I also took extra care with the piano, drums, and bass to ensure that it sounded like an improvised session, which is difficult to do when you’re pre-programming all of the instruments’ performances.

This was for a smaller project I did with Team Moonstorm that was about climbing a mountain as quickly as the player possibly could. As the player’s speed increased, more instruments got layered in to give the player the sense that the intensity of the game state was increasing.

I got this sudden surge of inspiration to write something that was more in the Thrash Metal style, and then have it go through all these mood and dynamic changes that span a few other styles of Metal, as well. I played the guitar parts, bass parts, and programmed the drums all on my own, as well as composed and arranged the song, recorded it myself and did all of the mixing and mastering on it.