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Eveline Novakovic
| Eveline Novakovic | |
|---|---|
| |
| Born | October 1969 Christchurch, Hampshire, England |
| Active years | Rare: 1993–2007[1][2] |
| Occupation | Audio engineer • Composer • Voice actress • Musician • Photographer |
| Associates | David Wise, Robin Beanland |
Eveline Novakovic (née Fischer) is a British musician, sound engineer, video game music composer and voice actress formerly employed by Rare Ltd. for their music department, where she worked together with Robin Beanland and David Wise as a close-knit team. Her first work at Rare and the video game industry in general was composing a part of the Donkey Kong Country soundtrack and more notably, the majority of Donkey Kong Country 3's. From 1997 towards departure in 2007, she leaned to creating sound effects and voice acting.
History
Before Rare Ltd.
Novakovic's musical education prior to joining Rare was “essentially classical,” having studied piano, church organ, and violin. As her father introduced her to new genres and artists, she developed an appreciation and was given an opportunity to discover different types of music.[2] Having played in a youth orchestra, her enthusiasm grew with concerts in some of the great venues in London and trips playing abroad.
This was followed by five years at universities - first studying music at Durham, earning a Master's degree in medieval music at Newcastle, and a postgraduate diploma in Electroacoustic Composition at Bournemouth University, which was the eventual stepping stone to her position at Rare. She found piecing images with music and sound effects enjoyable, and immersed herself in as varied a musical background as possible.[3] She drew inspiration from film soundtracks of Das Boot, Apocalypse Now and Shattered.[2]
At Rare Ltd.
When Eveline went for the interview at Rare, the company which was still a small business, it was just as they were opening their in-house music department. Unlike David Wise who as a freelancer had been working with Rare for six years and was well established in the industry, Eveline was brand new to composing video game music. The entire process to creating SNES tracks was painstakingly writing it all in HEX, which was far from intuitive, so David took on something of a role of her senior and mentor. Despite the challenge, it gave them a lot of creative freedom as they were not tied to notes on a page.[4]
David Wise took the lead and composed most of Donkey Kong Country, Robin Beandland contributed "Funky’s Fugue", and Eveline Novakovic was responsible for seven tracks, including the iconic "Simian Segue" and more atmospheric tracks like "Treetop Rock", "Voices of the Temple" and "Northern Hemispheres". She discovered early on that she was happiest writing the more atmospheric music. She sought to give each stage "a sense of place and momentum".[2] After Donkey Kong Country, she jumped at the chance to compose for the licensed game Ken Griffey Jr.'s Winning Run in an opportunity to branch out and try something new, while Wise solely took on Donkey Kong Country 2.
The music department's driver for innovation was trying to create audio "hopefully as equally impressive as the graphics" of the Donkey Kong games.[4] Novakovic followed her debut work by composing majority of Donkey Kong Country 3's soundtrack as Wise was busy working on Project Dream (later retooled into Banjo-Kazooie). Being aware of the success and iconicity of the previous two installments, she decided to "rethink" her approach to music, introducing more musical genres[2] and creating "a drive to keep the player moving on."[3] She next composed for the Game Boy follow-up counterpart Donkey Kong Land III and rearranged Robin Beanland's tracks from Twelve Tales: Conker 64 into Conker's Pocket Tales.
Since Diddy Kong Racing onwards, she gravitated more towards sound effects and ambiences/soundscapes. She describes creating them "a creative and imaginative process." Novakovic also served as the voice actress for a number of characters in Rare games, including Joanna Dark, the main protagonist of Perfect Dark.[5] In 2007, she left Rare and retired from the video game industry.[2]
Video game credits
| Title | Year | Credit | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Donkey Kong Country | 1994 | Music/sound | "Simian Segue", "Candy's Love Song", "Voices of the Temple", "Forest Frenzy", "Tree Top Rock", "Northern Hemispheres", "Ice Cave Chant" alongside David Wise and Robin Beanland[6] |
| Donkey Kong Country 3 | 1996 | Everything except "Dixie Beat", "Crazy Calypso", "Wrinkly's Save Cave", "Get Fit A-Go-Go", "Wrinkly 64", "Brothers Bear", "Bonus Time" ("Bonus Win", "Bonus Lose") which were done by David Wise[7] | |
| Ken Griffey Jr.'s Winning Run | |||
| Donkey Kong Land III | 1997 | ||
| Diddy Kong Racing | Voice acting | Portrayal of Pipsy[8] | |
| Banjo-Kazooie | 1998 | Sound effects | |
| Jet Force Gemini | 1999 | Voice acting | Portrayal of Vela |
| Conker's Pocket Tales | Music/sound | Alongside Robin Beanland | |
| Donkey Kong 64 | Sound effects/Voice acting | Portrayal of Tiny Kong | |
| Mickey's Speedway USA (GBC version) | 2000 | Music/sound | |
| Donkey Kong Country (GBC version) | "Simian Segue", "Treetop Rock", "Ice Cave Chant", "Candy’s Challenge" | ||
| Perfect Dark | Voice acting | Portrayal of Joanna Dark, Velvet Dark | |
| Perfect Dark (GBC version) | Music | "Title Theme", "Pelagic II", "Air Base" | |
| Banjo-Tooie | Special thanks | ||
| Donkey Kong Country (GBA version) | 2003 | Sound effects | Voice acting portrayal of Dixie Kong for Donkey Kong Country 2 and Donkey Kong Country 3 sampled from archived Tiny Kong recordings |
| Donkey Kong Country 2 (GBA version) | 2004 | ||
| Banjo Pilot | 2005 | ||
| It's Mr. Pants | |||
| Kameo: Elements of Power | Additional character voices (presumably Sneeker) | ||
| Conker: Live & Reloaded | Voice acting | ||
| Perfect Dark Zero | 2006 | ||
| Viva Piñata | Production, Sound effects, Voice-over recording, Compression encoding |
References
- ↑ Music: 52 Women VGM Composers You Should Know About – Eveline Novakovic (Posted by WILDCATJF on APRIL 1, 2018)
- ↑ a b c d e f A ‘Rare’ Interview with Donkey Kong Country Composer Eveline Novakovic (Fanbyte, Jack Yarwood on June 22, 2021)
- ↑ a b Entrevue exclusive avec Eveline Fischer (Gamer Québec, Michaël Bertiaux on October 16, 2018)
- ↑ a b SOUND TEST #06 - Donkey Kong Country (w/David Wise, Eveline Novakovic & Grant Kirkhope) (INTERVIEW) (August 31, 2018)
- ↑ Rare Revealed: The Making of Perfect Dark (Rare Ltd on December 24, 2015)
- ↑ Rare: Scribes (December 21, 2005)
- ↑ Rare: Scribes (February 9, 2006)
- ↑ Twitter - Graeme Norgate (former Rare employee)
