John Tennant
Brief
Senior audio specialist; AAA audio pre-production and audio-team management, music interactivity design and implementation, speech systems design and implementation, adaptive SFX systems design and implementation, tools design, composition, production, and engineering; all aspects of adaptive sound design and implementation for video games.
Full Time In-House Experience
Audio Director: Unannounced Projects
Smoking Gun Interactive, Vancouver, BC, March 2009 – May 2010
Pre-Production, Sound design, Speech System Design, Music Direction, Music Implementation, Speech Implementation, Sound Implementation, VO Session planning, VO session direction.
Audio Director: Unannounced/Cancelled Project
Senior Audio Specialist: Unannounced/Cancelled Project
Pandemic Studios (Electronic Arts), Brisbane, Australia, June 2008 – Oct. 2008
Pre-production, staff planning, budgeting. Sound design, systems design, tools design, and pipeline design. Drafting technical design documents for programmers, game designers, and future audio team staff. Managing junior staff. Speech AI system design.
Audio Lead: Unannounced/Cancelled Project
Relic Entertainment, Vancouver, BC, Sept. 2007 – May 2008
Pre-production, staff planning, budgeting. Sound design, systems design, tools design, and pipeline design. Drafting technical design documents for programmers, game designers, and future audio team staff. Proving concepts in Max/MSP.
Audio Lead: Company of Heroes: Opposing Fronts
Relic Entertainment, Vancouver, BC, Sept. 2006 – Sept. 2007
Managing a team of 4 sound designers and 2 programmers, traveling to Berlin/Halifax/Los Angeles for speech record sessions, adaptive audio systems design and implementation, and tools design for the sequel to the highest rated RTS of all time.
Senior Adaptive Music/Audio Implementation Specialist: Company of Heroes
Relic Entertainment, Vancouver, BC, Feb. 2006 – Sept. 2006
Music implementation, sound implementation, speech design and implementation, and sound design for the ground-breaking RTS: Company of Heroes. This game won 5 ‘best sound’ awards in 2006.
Off-Site Experience
Playtime Media, Vancouver, BC Dec. 2005 – Feb. 2006
Majong Escape: Music Composition, Sound Design
Composition of 4-6 original soundtrack pieces, as well as a full compliment of sound effects for an online PC casual game.
Electronic Arts Canada, Burnaby, BC June – July 2005
Marvel: Music Interactivity Programming, Remixing, Editing, Engineering
Designed and implemented an interactivity strategy for 12 complex orchestral pieces using Pathfinder and Logic.
Electronic Arts Canada, Burnaby, BC July 2005
SSX4: Sound Design
Designed 12 unique multilayered textures and sounds to be integrated into the already existing sounds of SSX4.
Babasword Productions, Burnaby, BC March – April 2004
Swordplay: Executive producer and beat composer for Baba Brinkman’s debut release
Juggling the talents of 3 three producers, 2 instrumentalists and one very keen rapper to pull together a full length album in less than two months was a welcome challenge.
Electronic Arts Canada, Burnaby, BC Sept. 2003 – May 2004
Def Jam: Fight for NY: Music Interactivity Programming, Remixing, Editing, Engineering
Remixed, edited, and programmed 35 commercial hip-hop tracks into the game using Pathfinder and Logic. I used the instrumental and vocal stems of the tracks provided by the record label to create four levels of interchangeable musical intensity to correspond to game play variations. Consistently generating creative and musical remixes under very tight deadlines was a highlight of this project. This game scored the highest soundtrack reviews for any Electronic Arts game in 2004.
Electronic Arts/Black Box, Vancouver, BC Dec. 2003 – Feb. 2004
NHL 2005: Speech Editing/Cleaning
Regioned and named both stitched and non-stitched scripts including ‘seamless’ stitch editing (see NBA Live below) that was implemented for the first time in this release of EA’s NHL series.
Electronic Arts Canada, Burnaby, BC Aug. 2003 – Sept. 2003
James Bond – Everything or Nothing: Speech Cleaning, Leveling and Limiting
Cleaned, leveled, and limited speech for the English, French, and Japanese versions of this release. Exceeding EA’s exceptionally high standards for this game was an enjoyable challenge I had not encountered in other games.
Electronic Arts/Black Box, Vancouver, BC July 2003
NHL 2004: Speech Mastering/Leveling/Re-sculpting
Leveled, EQed, compressed and limited all commentary for the game. The primary challenge was to balance speech that was recorded for previous versions of the NHL series by different engineers spanning several years with different microphones, pre-amps, and compressors. I used a combination of Waves C4, L1, Q4, and PSP Vintage Warmer to correct this problem.
Electronic Arts Canada, Burnaby, BC April 2003 – Aug. 2003
NBA Live: Advanced Speech Stitching/Editing/Cleaning
Pioneered a means of seamlessly stitching commentary to deliver a more engaging and realistic gaming experience. Challenges included advanced administration skills, precise audio editing, and 100% accuracy under tight deadlines.
Electronic Arts/Black Box, Vancouver, BC Feb. 2003 - May 2003
NHL 2004: Speech Editing/Cleaning
Regioned and named both stitched and non-stitched scripts with short turn-around times over the course of several months.
Electronic Arts Canada, Burnaby, BC Oct. 2002 –Jan. 2003
Def Jam: Vendetta: Music Engineering and Programming
Reverse engineered the base elements of 15 Def Jam Records tracks to enable remixing for the game using Logic. Programmed the music into the game engine while maintaining the lowest possible file sizes and ensured seamless looping using Pathfinder. Time-stretched scratches and fills were added to best fit the mood of each of the tracks so that these could be used as one-time, game-play triggered musical events to make the music more interactive.
Electronic Arts Canada, Burnaby, BC Dec. 2002
Def Jam: Vendetta: Speech and Crowd Sound Effects Editing
Straightforward SD2 file regioning and naming.
Electronic Arts Canada, Burnaby, BC Sept. 2002
NBA Street 2: Speech and Sound Effects editing
Speech/sound effects cleaning and regioning of sounds extracted from a raw DAT courtside recording of a basketball game.
Music Performance and Production
For the past 10 years, I’ve been performing live electronic music shows throughout Western Canada. I’ve signed vinyl EP release deals with Vancouver’s Village Sound, New York’s Rhythmic Recordings, and the Paris label Telegraph.
Additional Skills
Max/MSP (MIDI/Audio object-oriented programming), Logic Studio, Wavlab 6, (many other audio-related apps), Ableton Live, 12 years of music theory training, Excel, Word, FileMaker Pro, excellent written and oral communication skills.
Interests
Wing Chun, Climbing, Running, Ski-Mountaineering, Traveling, Surfing
Education
Bachelor of Arts: Major in English and a Minor in Philosophy – including breadth courses in Electroacoustic Music and Max/MSP Programming,
Simon Fraser University, Burnaby, B.C. (1995-2001)
References
Are available upon request.