When we wrapped our five-part series on the Game Design teammates who made Bloom at VFS then went on to forge careers at five different companies, we hinted that there was one more part to come.

Sound Design for Visual Media grad Joel Green was an instrumental part of the process – so much so that he co-presented with the rest of the team at Open House Day at Game Design Expo last year. Mike Wilson has called him “the sixth member of the group.” He’s at EA Black Box now, and just last month saw the release of his first game – Need for Speed: Undercover.

Like his collaborators from Game Design, we asked Joel to look back on the Bloom experience and catch us up on his career one year later.

How did you come to land at EA Black Box?

The lead Audio Director at Black Box has a pretty close relationship with the VFS Sound Design faculty, and he tends to let them know when Black Box is looking for new recruits. A few months after I finished the program, I was very happy to find out that my instructors had recommended me for an interview. I got the gig, and have now successfully made it through one full game cycle without dying, which I’m fairly proud of.

And how’s the work?

I couldn’t be learning from a more talented group of guys. The audio team at Black Box is one of the best in the business, and over the last year I’ve found out why. They have a very unusual group of people that excel both artistically and technically, combined with a ridiculous work ethic, and a healthy tendency to party hard during finaling.

Looking back, a year on, what do you think you got out of collaborating with the five Game Design students on Bloom?

Video games are a huge part of my life. I’ve been fascinated by the medium since I was old enough to experience it, and when I finally got the chance to help make one, I was very, very excited. Luckily, I happened upon some of the most talented guys to ever go through the program, and they were gracious enough to let me contribute to Bloom in a meaningful way.

What the experience affirmed for me was the importance of attitude and perspective. Believe it or not, Bloom was the only project pitched to our Sound Design class that nobody wanted to work on. It just seemed too wide in scope, too overwhelming, and frankly impossible to pull off in the amount of time they had. I ended up volunteering to work on the project because no one else would.

After subsequent meetings with the team, though, it became clear to me that these guys were incredibly talented, and that they had enough love, passion, and enthusiasm – fueled by a rabid badger named Brian Vidovic – to possibly, maybe, if they were lucky… realize their grand design.

The attitude of positivity was infectious, and I quickly became more excited about Bloom than I was about any other project I worked on. So much, in fact, that I continued working on it long after I was supposed to, and sacrificed some important film projects, and the marks that went with them, to take on a larger role with the team. It was a risky and slightly unpopular decision at the time, but in retrospect, one of the best I’ve ever made.

Have you found that the experience has informed your work in the professional arena at all?

To be honest, I’m not sure that I would even be in the professional arena at all without these guys.

Working on Bloom was the closest thing to real-world game development experience that I could have had, and my extended involvement in it showed the team at Black Box that I had a passion for games, and not just audio.

It gave me a base of knowledge that really helped my confidence starting out, and five good buddies to help calm my nerves when things started getting crunchy.

What advice would you give someone just getting started in Sound Design at VFS who wanted, ultimately, to work in the audio side of games? What about someone just graduating?

Humble yourself, and be willing to take in any experiences that the teachers are offering. They have carefully crafted an effective program that must be delivered in an incredibly short timeframe, and you need to trust them. Things that may seem mundane and irrelevant early in the program are likely foundations that will come into play later on. The “I already know this”, “I know better than this”, and “I don’t need to know this” attitudes are often just disguised laziness or fear.

If you’re interested in Game Audio, you still need to learn the film side of things and vice versa. Having said that, be sure to let the instructors know that games are where your heart is, and see if you can come up with creative ways (in later terms) to adapt the curriculum when you see fit. The class sizes are very small, and you’ll find that the instructors will accommodate your specialization if you earn their trust. A lot of students come and go without truly embracing the experience, so the instructors are always looking for bright eyes who really want to learn. If you energize them by demonstrating your potential, they’ll make sure you succeed.

To the recent grads: Keep an ear out for jobs, and be sure to apply everywhere you can think of, but most importantly, keep the momentum going. You have a skillset that is needed by a lot of indie developers, so go make some games. Make something relevant. Better the world.

Thanks, Joel! You can find out more about the Game Audio curriculum in the Sound Design program at VFS right here, along with Joel’s awesome video post-mortem of his time working with the Bloom team.