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 Defi ...

and sound designer. He is known for his work in many video games, particularly those designed by Peter Molyneux.

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. 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 (of Thunderbirds fame) as his recording studio manager, recording sound for various TV shows. 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 white label dance club scene. He also stated that he was "an avid gamer" at that time, owning an

Atari ST The Atari ST is a line of personal computers from Atari Corporation and the successor to the Atari 8-bit family. The initial model, the Atari 520ST, had limited release in April–June 1985 and was widely available in July. It was the first pers ...

, which he also used for processing and sequencing music. In 1992 he learned that Peter Molyneux's Bullfrog Productions 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'', Theme Park, Magic Carpet and '' Dungeon Keeper''. In 1997 Bullfrog's founder Peter Molyneux quit the company and formed Lionhead Studios, and Shaw followed him in the new venture.Shaw's profile at VGM Rush
His first project was the soundtrack for

Black & White Black-and-white (B&W or B/W) images combine black and white in a continuous spectrum, producing a range of shades of grey. Media The history of various visual media began with black and white, and as technology improved, altered to color. H ...

. A fan of ambient techno, Shaw composed an interactive, meditative and relaxing soundtrack in the manner of the genre. The music was positively received by sites such as IGN and GameSpot. Black & White was followed by 2004's Fable.

Danny Elfman Daniel Robert Elfman (born May 29, 1953) is an American film composer, singer and songwriter. He came to prominence as the singer-songwriter for the new wave band Oingo Boingo in the early 1980s. Since the 1990s, Elfman has garnered internation ...

was brought in to compose the theme music, and Shaw was asked to do more traditional orchestral 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. Among the conductors who worked with the orchestra in its early years were Richard Strauss, W ...

, 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 open world 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 ''F ...

, Fable III 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'' is a cyberpunk real-time tactics video game that was released in August 2015 for Windows, macOS, and Linux. The game was developed by Australia's 5 Lives Studios and is a spiritual successor to the ''Syndicate'' series, which c ...

,Satellite Reign development diary, September 24, 2014.
/ref> 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, 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 * {{DEFAULTSORT:Shaw, Russell Video game composers Ambient musicians British sound designers Living people 1962 births

Biography and career

See also

References

External links