‘Bloodborne’ Original Trailer Music: Interview with The Hit House
For its client Petrol Advertising, The Hit House composed an original song for the 30-second television spot and the online trailer promoting Bloodborne, a new action role-playing video game, exclusive to PlayStation 4. The trailer has been nominated for “Best Video Game Trailer” for the 2015 Golden Trailer Awards and the track was made available to the public after the release of the trailer.
Driving, modern and epic, the song is entitled “Hunt You Down” and blends “monk chants, funeral dirges and a strange modern flair with an old school style of music”, featuring vocalist Ruby Friedman of the Los Angeles-based Ruby Friedman Orchestra. “Hunt You Down” was composed by Scott Miller and William Hunt, with sound design by Chad Hughes.
“Music is either emotionally powerful enough to get into your blood, or it’s not”, The Hit House says. “When Petrol Advertising challenged us to help them launch Bloodborne — one of the most highly anticipated, critically acclaimed, Playstation games in history — we knew it would take blood, sweat and tears. And more blood. So we wrote an original song called “Hunt You Down”, featuring the powerful, daunting, formidable voice of Ruby Friedman of the Ruby Friedman Orchestra.”
“My collaboration with Scott and everyone at Hit House was the most painless collaboration probably in the history of Art and Music”, Ruby Friedman explains. “No ego. Also, considering I was in New Orleans for the first round of studio work and only had spoken by phone for references, you’d think there would’ve been some bumps or misinterpretations of the material. But Scott Miller is a great producer as well as composer and all was elegant — it has been my favorite recording experience so far because I got to be weird and spooky and he encouraged the darkness needed to capture the song and atmosphere of the game. The Hit House, Bloodborne, Petrol, “Hunt You Down” and then the finished trailers all felt like Fate was involved. I’m very honored and proud, to say the least.”
On this occasion, we did an interview with Scott Miller, Creative Director at The Hit House.
INTERVIEW
Trailer Music News: Who took part to the creation of this track?
Scott Miller: It was myself (Scott Miller) and William Hunt who wrote the track, featuring Ruby Friedman on vocals.
TMN: How did your collaboration come about?
SM: The Hit House was hired by Petrol Advertising to find or compose the perfect track to launch Playstation’s Exclusive release Bloodborne. Scott and William started working on it together right from the start. In the beginning it wasn’t a full song, it was an instrumental. After that we wrote the full song and then built the 30 second and the 90 second trailers from that song idea.
TMN: What was the creative process behind “Hunt You Down”?
SM: We wanted to capture the darkness of the game and tell the story from the players view. We wanted it to be a message to the monsters that they could run and hide but they would be hunted down. We loved the idea of a funeral dirge and low male voices setting the tone. We also loved the idea of the church bells and old unusual sounding instruments like the Dulictone. We really wanted the vocals to feel like a voodoo curse so we knew we needed a very special vocalist. That’s when we found Ruby Friedman! She was in New Orleans and with one listen to the track she said she knew exactly how to bring “the voodoo” to it and she didn’t disappoint!!
TMN: What inspired you to write this cue?
SM: We were asked to be part of the campaign right from the start with the agency “Petrol”. They were pitching to win the account and knew the music was gonna be a big part of there vision. They won the account with their very creative concept and from that point “over many months” we got the music and the graphics to blend perfectly. It was a huge amount of work on both sides but worth every second.
TMN: Does the track feature live orchestra and choir?
SM: The male vocals were a combination of live vocals and samples. We recorded Scott singing the low voice parts and then we have Gregorian Chant samples blended in as well. The percussion, bass, guitars and cello were all recorded live, and we used samples to create the rest of the orchestra, and the giant, epic feel.
TMN: Do you plan to work together on similar projects in the future?
SM: Yes yes and yes! I would like to be doing projects like this all day. Working with a vocal talent like Ruby was incredible and we hope to do more for sure. As for working on projects with Petrol, we hope to be working with them for the next 20 years. They are so creative and willing to break rules to do something unique it inspires us beyond words.
“Hunt You Down” is available to the public for purchase through iTunes. For licensing information, contact The Hit House.
