Russell Shaw is a BAFTA nominated British

composer A composer is a person who writes music. The term is especially used to indicate composers of Western classical music, or those who are composers by occupation. Many composers are, or were, also skilled performers of music. Etymology and def ...

and

sound designer In physics, sound is a vibration that propagates as an acoustic wave through a transmission medium such as a gas, liquid or solid. In human physiology and psychology, sound is the ''reception'' of such waves and their ''perception'' by the br ...

. He is known for his work in many

video game A video game or computer game is an electronic game that involves interaction with a user interface or input device (such as a joystick, game controller, controller, computer keyboard, keyboard, or motion sensing device) to generate visual fe ...

s, particularly those designed by

Peter Molyneux Peter Douglas Molyneux (; born 5 May 1959) is an English video game designer and programmer. He created the god games '' Populous'', ''Dungeon Keeper'', and '' Black & White'', as well as ''Theme Park'', the ''Fable'' series, '' Curiosity: Wh ...

Biography and career

Shaw was exposed to music at the age of 5, when he was given a guitar by his uncle.Sound Byte: Meet the Composer - Fable III's Russell Shaw
by

GameSpot ''GameSpot'' is an American video gaming website that provides news, reviews, previews, downloads, and other information on video games. The site was launched on May 1, 1996, created by Pete Deemer, Vince Broady, and Jon Epstein. In addition ...

. 10 January 2011. He trained himself in music playing in various bands through late 1970s to early 1980s. Though he had an interest in playing music, he wanted to be a record producer. After training at SAE London in the mid 1980s, he was hired by

Gerry Anderson Gerald Alexander Anderson (; 14 April 1929 – 26 December 2012) was an English television and film producer, director, writer and occasional voice artist, who is known for his futuristic television programmes, especially his 1960s production ...

(of Thunderbirds fame) as his recording studio manager, recording sound for various

TV show A television show, TV program (), or simply a TV show, is the general reference to any content produced for viewing on a television set that is broadcast via over-the-air, satellite, and cable, or distributed digitally on streaming platfo ...

s. including Terrahawks, Dick Spanner and Space Precinct. Around 1990 Shaw left Anderson and returned to music production, working for StreetSounds record label, providing releases for the

London London is the Capital city, capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of both England and the United Kingdom, with a population of in . London metropolitan area, Its wider metropolitan area is the largest in Wester ...

white label dance club scene. He also stated that he was "an avid gamer" at that time, owning an

Atari ST Atari ST is a line of personal computers from Atari Corporation and the successor to the company's Atari 8-bit computers, 8-bit computers. The initial model, the Atari 520ST, had limited release in April–June 1985, and was widely available i ...

, which he also used for processing and sequencing music. In 1992 he learned that

Bullfrog Productions Bullfrog Productions Limited was a British video game developer based in Guildford, England. Founded in 1987 by Peter Molyneux and Les Edgar, the company gained recognition in 1989 for their third release, ''Populous (video game), Populous'', ...

needed a sound specialist for audio in their games, and Shaw decided to try as he was experienced in both computer technology and sound, successfully getting the job. At Bullfrog, Shaw composed soundtracks for many of their games, but most memorable and successful were for strategy games ''

Syndicate A syndicate is a self-organizing group of individuals, companies, corporations or entities formed to transact some specific business, to pursue or promote a shared interest. Etymology The word ''syndicate'' comes from the French word ''syndic ...

'',

Theme Park An amusement park is a park that features various attractions, such as rides and games, and events for entertainment purposes. A theme park is a type of amusement park that bases its structures and attractions around a central theme, often fea ...

Magic Carpet A magic carpet, also called a flying carpet, is a legendary carpet and common trope in fantasy fiction. It is typically used as a form of transportation and can quickly or instantaneously carry its user(s) to their destination. In literature On ...

and ''

Dungeon Keeper ''Dungeon Keeper'' is a strategy video game developed by Bullfrog Productions and released by Electronic Arts in June 1997 for MS-DOS and Windows 95. In ''Dungeon Keeper'', the player builds and manages a dungeon, protecting it from invading ' ...

''. In 1997 Bullfrog's founder

quit the company and formed

Lionhead Studios Lionhead Studios Limited was a British video game developer founded in July 1997 by Peter Molyneux, Mark Webley, Tim Rance, and Steve Jackson (British game designer), Steve Jackson. The company is best known for the ''Black & White (series), Bl ...

, and Shaw followed him in the new venture.Shaw's profile at VGM Rush
His first project was the soundtrack for Black & White. A fan of

ambient techno Ambient techno is a subgenre of techno that incorporates the atmospheric textures of ambient music with the rhythmic elements and production of techno. It was pioneered by 1990s electronic artists such as Aphex Twin, Carl Craig, The Orb, The ...

, Shaw composed an interactive, meditative and relaxing soundtrack in the manner of the genre. The music was positively received by sites such as

IGN ''IGN'' is an American video gaming and entertainment media website operated by IGN Entertainment Inc., a subsidiary of Ziff Davis, Inc. The company's headquarters is located in San Francisco's SoMa district and is headed by its former e ...

and

. Black & White was followed by 2004's

Fable Fable is a literary genre defined as a succinct fictional story, in prose or verse, that features animals, legendary creatures, plants, inanimate objects, or forces of nature that are anthropomorphized, and that illustrates or leads to a parti ...

Danny Elfman Daniel Robert Elfman (born May 29, 1953) is an American film composer, singer, songwriter, and musician. He came to prominence as the lead vocalist and primary songwriter for the new wave band Oingo Boingo in the early 1980s. Since scoring his ...

was brought in to compose the theme music, and Shaw was asked to do more traditional

orchestral An orchestra (; ) is a large instrumental ensemble typical of classical music, which combines instruments from different families. There are typically four main sections of instruments: * String instruments, such as the violin, viola, cello, a ...

ingame score which would more fit Elfman's dark fairy-tale styled theme music. Hollywood conductor Allan Wilson (who worked with Elfman on his music for 1999 film Sleepy Hollow) was brought in to conduct the

Philharmonia Orchestra The Philharmonia Orchestra is a British orchestra based in London. It was founded in 1945 by Walter Legge, a classical music record producer for EMI Classics, EMI. Among the conductors who worked with the orchestra in its early years were Rich ...

, and Shaw used The Pinewood Singers to further enhance the dark fantasy nature of the score. Shaw not only composed the game score, but also coded the audio tools and libraries and implemented the sound into the game himself. The Fable soundtrack was successful, with IGN saying "It really couldn't have been a better score" and GameSpot calling out the audio as "quite possibly the best part of the game." After his success with Fable, Shaw went on to compose the soundtracks for

Fable II ''Fable II'' is a 2008 action role-playing video game developed by Lionhead Studios and published by Microsoft Game Studios for Xbox 360. The game is the second installment in the ''Fable'' game series, and the sequel to 2004's ''Fable''. The ...

Fable III ''Fable III'' is a 2010 action role-playing video game developed by Lionhead Studios and published by Microsoft Game Studios for the Xbox 360 and Microsoft Windows. The third game in the ''Fable'' series, the story focuses on the player charact ...

and Fable: The Journey, all using the Slovak National Symphony Orchestra. In 2012 Shaw decided to leave Lionhead and go freelance, forming his own music production company. In 2014/2015 Shaw composed the soundtrack for the computer game Satellite Reign,Satellite Reign development diary, September 24, 2014.
which incorporated themes from the first 2 games in the ''Syndicate'' series. In the summer of 2015 Shaw composed and recorded the orchestral score for the now cancelled Lionhead game,

Fable Legends ''Fable Legends'' is a cancelled Cooperative video game, cooperative Action role-playing game, action role-playing video game developed by Lionhead Studios and projected to be published by Microsoft Studios for Windows and Xbox One. Microsoft ca ...

, with the Philharmonia Orchestra. In June 2016 Shaw composed the music for the Google VR title Earthshape by Bithell Games. In October 2016 Shaw completed the orchestral score for the Sky TV movie adaptation of '' The Last Dragonslayer'' by Jasper Fforde. In April 2019 Shaw joined Wargaming UK (rebranded as DPS Games in 2020) as Audio Director Shaw's comment about his work in the game audio area:

"''I would not want to go back to the early days of game audio design. This was a time when audio was very much the afterthought. Nowadays, I need to be in on the early conceptual stages of game design if the game is going to sound any good. The audio designer can bring as much to the early game design as anyone else can''."

References

External links

MobyGames rap sheetComposer profile
at

OverClocked ReMix OverClocked ReMix, also known as OC ReMix and OCR, is a non-commercial organization dedicated to preserving and paying tribute to video game music through arranging and re-interpreting the songs, both with new technology and software and by vari ...

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Shaw, Russell 1962 births British ambient musicians British male composers British sound designers British video game composers Living people

Biography and career

See also

References

External links