Montréal has long been known as a hub for the videogame industry, attracting developers and programmers from around the world each year. What we don’t hear about as much is the entire creative ecosystem that’s grown around this thriving industry, where specialized screen composers can find great opportunities.
As he recalls the various detours he took throughout his artistic career, from learning the piano to studying film, it seems a given that Eric Shaw would eventually end up in the videogame business. Like so many musicians, he started out dreaming of fame and fortune in a rock band, before opting for a slightly more low-key profile. “For a moment there, I believed that maybe I was a member of the next Radiohead,” he giggles, “but life catches up with you: I had kids, and life on tour can be truly exhausting. I don’t miss playing live, but I do miss the camaraderie between bandmembers.”
And that’s most likely what explains the philosophy of Pixel Studio, a business he founded 12 years ago. “I started this company with three friends, very much as if we were a band,” says Shaw. “Thanks to a few contacts in the world of theatre and film, I ‘d done some screen composing, but with Pixel, we really wanted to develop ties with the videogame industry, and it became our main focus.”
Except you don’t become a creator of videogame music overnight. Beyond the artistic aspect, it’s a highly technical line of work, as Shaw explains: “We’re increasingly being solicited to do sound design or editing work on music that we haven’t composed. That requires a high degree of precision, and mastery of several complex [pieces of] software. I’m a music lover, but I’m also a huge nerd and a gamer, which is definitely a plus in this environment.”
Select the image to access the YouTube teaser trailer video for the videogame Été
While commissions might seem restricted, the realm of videogames, especially independent productions, sometimes offers amazing creative opportunities. Shaw was lucky to experience this thanks to Été, a game created by Studio Impossible, where the player becomes a visual artist, spreading touches of watercolour in an immersive stroll through Montréal.
“It’s an amazing game, but it’s very unusual,” says Shaw. “I would’ve really loved for it to become more popular, but it did allow me to explore like I’d never explored before. We controlled the sound design from start to finish, and that’s why all the sound effects are in tune with the music. It’s highly graphic-oriented, but even the paintbrush becomes a bona fide musical instrument.”
Although it was nowhere near being able to compete against the Assassin’s Creeds of this world, Été was recognized and lauded by the gaming world, as illustrated by its many nominations at the last Canadian Game Awards gala, including, of course, Best Original Music and Best Sound Design. Shaw didn’t win, but there’s no shame in that, since it was star Hollywood composer Hans Zimmer (Dune, Interstellar) who won for Dragon Age, on which Pixel collaborated as well.
Victory or no victory, that’s the kind of recognition that helps Shaw’s work as a composer find more exposure, at a point in time where his sound signature is increasingly being recognized as unique. “As I said, the nerd side of me helps, but I think I do stand out because of my melodic and harmonic choices,” he says. “I have extremely varied musical tastes, and I love analog synths and orchestral arrangements, preferably at the same time,” says the man who cites Trent Reznor, Philip Glass, and Oscar winner Alexandre Desplat as some of his influences.
After years of working away from the spotlight under the Pixel Studios guise, Shaw feels ready to put his name back out there, and to reveal different aspects of his personality – most notably, the songwriter in him, under the pseudonym Robot Chevalier. “I’m soon going to release a cover of Michel Rivard’s “Un Trou dans les Nuages,” but with my sound. I’ve never stopped making music just for fun, and I’ll keep doing so even if AI ends up replacing us. That said, I’m not overly worried about it, because 2025 is going to be a big year for Pixel and we’re even planning on expanding.”