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BEST SYNC IN A VIDEO GAME TRAILER

BEST SYNC IN A VIDEO GAME TRAILER / PROMO

Dead Island 2 – Gamescom Reveal Trailer

Supervision: Ben Sumner, Glenn Herweijer + Jack Thompson at Feel For Music, London

Track: Hollywood Swinging by Kool & The Gang (Claydes Smith / Ronald Bell / George M Brown / Robert Bell / Dennis Thomas / Richard Westfield / Robert Mickens)

Publisher: Sony Music Publishing

Label: Universal Music Group

Trailer House: Axis Studios

Game Publisher: Deep Silver Dambuster Studios

Feel For Music take us behind-the-curtain…

“Dead Island 2 is an action game developed by Dambuster Studios and published by Deep Silver. It is a sequel to the 2011 video game Dead Island and the third major instalment in the Dead Island series. Set about 15 years after the events of Dead Island and Dead Island: Riptide, Dead Island 2 takes place in the city of Los Angeles, now quarantined due to a zombie outbreak. Originally announced in 2014, the game was developed over the course of 8 years, passing through 2 developers before Deep Silver Dambuster Studios finally got the game finished. In 2023, Dead Island 2 launched to respectable acclaim and good sales, selling a million copies in the first 4 days.

Feel For Music acted as music supervisors on the game, writing, adapting and licensing music for in-game, score and marketing content.

The music choices for the game were led primarily by the L.A. setting. During the initial briefings, it was clear that the developers needed L.A. to be presented as a character, its legendary locations and historic musical and cultural scenes being represented by the music of the game. Tarantino's influence also needed to come across, not just through visual references but his use of music too. Using upbeat music to juxtapose extreme violence. Clearly emulated in this particularly trailer with the use of Kool & The Gang's Hollywood Swinging.

'Hollywood Swinging' was released in 1973 by Kool & The Gang on their album 'Wild And Peaceful'. It was the band's first number one single and according to Nile Rodgers, partly inspired Chic's 'Good Times'. Apart from being a comedic juxtaposition against our main characters bloody and violent journey through the city, the track has great vocal links to L.A., the city being mentioned throughout. The track also holds a certain musical relevance to the U.S. City, being sampled by artists like Too $hort and Bloods & Crips, among many other in the L.A. hip hop scene. It was important for us that the track featured in this particular trailer came from a musical heritage important to the location of the game - creating authenticity true to the game's influences and reference points and delivering on the overall pulp tone the developers intended for the game.”

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