SFX EDUCATION

Audio director PAUL WEIR on making No Man’s Sky sound out of this world

- Luke Kemp

Sound design, music composition, voice direction… Paul does it all, and pretty much anything else to do with audio that you can think of. He’s a free agent with experience in games, film, radio, advertising, and more; and he’s currently singlehandedly working on No Man’s Sky’s audio for Hello Games.

Paul had an unorthodox route into the game industry. Using a BBC course in TV directing as a springboard to radio work and composing, he went for a job interview at the now-defunct Perfect Entertainment, mainly for job interview practice. He didn’t get the job, but while he was there, he passed a tape of some of his self-written music to their composer. A week later, Paul signed on for unemployment benefits. An hour or so after this, his phone rang. It was the composer, who’d found him a job. Paul describes his break as very lucky, but also points out that sustaining his work as a career is “where the real work is”.

If you want an example of how and why Paul has managed to stay in the audio business for over 25 years, you need look no further than the work that went into generating