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P O R T F O L I O P R O J E C T
B Y . A Y M A N M E D D O U R
P R O J E C T D E S C R I P T I O N
This project is Intended as a central peice of my portfolio as a composer for film and game showcasing my composition capabilities, production quality and creation process through a 20-minute audiovisual concept album exploring and expanding upon dark gothic orchestral / Soulsborne-inspired music. The project itself does not intend to imitate or replicate existing works but instead engage with and expand upon the compositional ideas presented in the music of games such as Elden Ring and Dark Souls. By taking these ideas outside the relentlessly dramatic context of gameplay and boss fights and into the format of a concept album, I was able to explore narrative, structure, processing, and instrumentation much more freely within this dark and brooding orchestral palette.
The broader emotional themes I wanted to explore throughout this project are feelings of isolation, grief, torment, mystery, beauty, fragility, and the contrast between these emotions. I found concept art and Elden Ring lore videos especially inspirational in developing the compositional narrative for this project (see examples below). Each composition explores these ideas through its own distinct sound world, featuring unique instrumentation, processing techniques, compositional styles and atmosphere for each.
The project is paired with visuals of my DAW sessions to give listeners a closer look into both my workflow and compositional process. Additional recordings of myself and collaborating instrumentalists are also featured as a way of showcasing the more expressive and performative elements I wanted to explore throughout the project. The cinematic visuals derived from FromSoftware games are not intended to directly mirror the music but instead act as a visual doorway into the atmosphere and sound world being built.
This project is ultimately a culmination of two major areas of development: my compositional skills after months of experimentation and study, including a detailed understanding of orchestral libraries and how to get the best out of them, alongside the contrastingly chaotic and expressive world of live performance and recorded instrumentation and my attempt to incorporate them into my work. A major focus of the project was combining the clarity and finesse of orchestral libraries with the imperfections, emotion, and unpredictability of live recordings in order to create dynamic, engaging, and emotionally driven compositions. To further develop this, I collaborated with violinist Milo Bradley and vocalist Mina Esya, both of whom brought their own interpretation and expressive qualities.
At its core, this portfolio is intended to showcase a collation of my full skillset, from composition, orchestration, production, processing, and mixing, to collaboration and communication skills when working with artists. I intend it to also reflect my understanding of narrative on both the small and large scale, my ability to maintain high production values across a long-form project, and my editing and time management skills throughout the creation process. More importantly I hope the project showcases my own distinct compositional style while still engaging with and building upon the established musical context of Soulsborne games.
P R O J E C T C O N T E X T
Within the world of dark orchestral Soulsborne music, there is one team of composers that is the industry standard, that being the FromSoftware team. Each of the composers within the FromSoftware sound team has their own distinct style of composing. From Motoi Sakuraba with his bombastic and energetic compositions that dwell in constant rhythm and tension to Yuka Kitamura and her focus on elegant, tragic, and emotionally expressive writing. Tsukasa Saitoh meanwhile creates rich and dense orchestrations with a huge sense of scale and atmosphere. This project aims to dissect, understand and weave elements of these differing compositional styles together into a cohesive body of work alongside my own compositional voice and production background.
A particularly relevant inspiration for this project was “Lord of Frenzied Flame” by Shoi Miyazawa. This piece pushes beyond much of the previous orchestral language associated with Soulsborne games, leaning heavily into dissonance in a way comparable to the more unsettling harmonic language of Bloodborne, while still maintaining delicate articulations and expressive orchestral beauty similar to Kitamura’s work. The combination of these elements results in a uniquely expressive composition and became a major influence throughout my album, particularly within the first and second track, which utilises melodic dissonance alongside delicate articulations and subtle swelling string tremolos.
Another major influence was “Mother of Fingers,” again by Shoi Miyazawa. This piece further demonstrates Miyazawa pushing beyond the traditional orchestral palette associated with Soulsborne music through the incorporation of sound design, experimental audio sources, synths, pads, distortion, and heavy processing.
What I found most unique in Miyazawa’s work was his focus on gesture and movement rather than purely melody. At times, the melodic content of his compositions can feel almost random or disconnected from a clear rhythmic or thematic structure, yet the music still feels cohesive and emotionally directed. After extensive analysis, I believe this comes from his emphasis on texture, motion, atmosphere, and orchestral gesture rather than traditional melodic development alone.
This understanding heavily influenced my own compositional process throughout the project. Rather than focusing entirely on melody or leitmotif-driven writing, I began composing with a stronger focus on movement, texture, tension, and emotional direction across a piece as a whole. By combining this approach with the elements I had studied from Kitamura, Sakuraba, and Saitoh, from Kitamura’s delicate and emotive writing, to Sakuraba’s rhythmic intensity and Saitoh’s rich orchestral scale, I feel I was able to begin developing a more distinct compositional style of my own. These influences combined alongside my own focus on atmosphere, production, and hybrid sound design to create something that feels unique while still engaging with the established musical language of dark orchestral music.
Thank you for reading!
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