How to compose music for Plarium, Elden Ring and Netflix. Interview with composer Bohdan Yeremenko

Bohdan Yeremenko is a Kharkiv-born composer who writes music for games, movies, and series trailers. His portfolio includes tracks for Elden Ring, Fortnite, Star Trek, Ahsoka, and Venom: The Last Dance. Bohdan also works closely with the Plarium team, and recently won the Production Music Awards in the category Best Use of Production Music in a Sport Promo with his track “Flamboyant”.

We spoke about how his career began and where he sold his first tracks. We also discussed working for Netflix and Disney, choosing musical instruments for different bosses, and his view on generative artificial intelligence.

“And then they explained how much I would be earning.” On discovering music and turning down a place in a youth orchestra

— Bohdan, hi! Let’s start with when you first got into music. Do you have a formal musical education?

Hi! I started picking out little songs and melodies on our piano when I was about five, without even knowing how to read music. Around third or fourth grade my parents transferred me to the Kharkiv Specialized Music School. I enrolled there as a percussion major: that meant xylophone and snare drum. But something didn’t quite work out, and in fifth grade I switched to double bass. Classical, not jazz, although I played jazz as well.

I finished eleventh grade as a double bassist. Then I wanted to enter the conservatory, but I had problems with the Ukrainian history section of the external exams, so I couldn’t get in. I thought: what should I do? I didn’t want to just waste a whole year doing nothing, so I went to the Kharkiv Music College. I spent a year there, retook the exams, and did get into the conservatory. Graduated as a double bassist. Right before this interview I even checked what it says in my diploma: officially I’m an orchestral performer and double bass teacher.

— So it turns out you had a clear musical path from childhood?

Yes, and thank God it happened that way. I never had that thing my classmates or friends had when they finished school and said: “Damn, what should I do?”, “What am I supposed to do?”, “I have no idea,” and so on. I was like: the only thing I can do is music — play, create something. I always knew it would be music one way or another.

The only thing was that the prospect of playing in an orchestra or teaching at a school didn’t excite me very much. Luckily, I met some friends who were composing music for AudioJungle at the time. It’s a music stock platform where you write tracks, upload them, and they get sold there. I remember being surprised, thinking, “Wow, you can write music and sell it for dollars.” I started looking into it, poking around, trying to understand how everything worked. It was difficult — all those technical things were totally unclear.

— Did your parents support your plans to pursue music specifically?

Well, they were the ones who transferred me to that school, it was their initiative. I was in third grade and had no idea what was going on around me. A small, clueless kid: they told me to go to that school — so I went. But I’m really glad I did. I think it would’ve been much better if I had started at five — in the preparatory group, before first grade. Maybe the adaptation would’ve been easier. But instead, they moved me from fourth grade back to third so I could catch up with the program. It was very difficult because I didn’t understand harmony, solfège — all those things. I didn’t understand what was happening or what they wanted from me.

— And your parents also had musical training?

They don’t have formal musical education, but they do have talent: they can hear pitch, they can sing. My dad played the bayan and plays the guitar. My mom sings. Basically, my whole family is musical: my sister is a teacher, a music instructor. My brother also plays, sings, and spent years performing in bands.

— So overall, it sounds like a very musical family. And it’s great that your parents enrolled you in music school right away and supported this path later. Sometimes it’s the opposite.

Yes, hearing you say that now makes me realize it really is pretty cool. I just never thought about it: that my parents sent me there, and how everything unfolded afterward. But it’s genuinely great that they supported me. And that’s despite the fact that musicians, regular performers, don’t earn much in Ukraine — unless you’re maybe already some sort of professor.

“But my double bass teacher at school also worked construction on the side”

I remember the situation very clearly — I had already enrolled in the conservatory and wanted to start earning at least some money. So I tried to get into a youth orchestra. I passed the audition, they really liked everything, and then they explained how much I would be earning. And I thought: “No, I’d rather stay broke than spend that much time and energy for a handful of pennies”.

They named the amount, then subtracted the taxes, and my parents and I just... yeah. And I’m not from a particularly well-off family. I had everything necessary for life, but I can’t say they could easily buy me a new phone or nice sneakers. But my parents looked at the numbers and said: “No, you shouldn’t take this job — it really isn’t worth it.”

— Was your decision to go to the conservatory already a conscious one? As in, you already knew music interested you and that you wanted to stay in this field?

Well, there weren’t really any alternatives. If you’re doing fine with music, you continue — it’s straightforward. There’s music school, then the conservatory. After the conservatory, you can study further if you want. Everything was clear. I had classmates who applied to other fields unrelated to music. But that’s because their music studies weren’t going particularly well.

— As I understand it, your focus was on classical and jazz music? Or did your relationship with music change over the years?

I listened to metal. I got enough classical music at school: I had to listen to a lot, study it. I couldn’t handle listening to it additionally somewhere else and genuinely enjoying it. Back then, I listened to metal. I’m a Christian, so I listened to a lot of Christian metal and rock.

Now I listen to absolutely everything. Sometimes something just “hits”... I used to dislike pop, hip-hop tracks, and so on. And at some point, everything changed — now I love pop. I can spend several days listening to Justin Bieber, Adele, or someone else — and I really enjoy it. We lived in the US for half a year, and I drove around listening, “catching up”: all those popular retro bands from the seventies and nineties. I listened to Lionel Richie, Wham!, and so on.

— Overall, how much music do you listen to?

A lot. Every day: I drop my kid off at school, pick him up, go to the store or just go for a walk — I’m always listening to something in my headphones. Constantly. It’s been like that my whole life.

— I’m curious, does your approach to listening to music differ much from that of an average person?

As I already mentioned, in my teenage years I listened to metal. Because I had this thing: I would only listen to music that I could imagine myself playing. If I couldn’t imagine that I was playing it or somehow taking part in it, then I wasn’t interested. That’s why I listened to metal — I imagined playing somewhere with those bands.

As for my listening approach... I think it is different. At school, we were taught a lot about how to listen to and analyze music: breaking it down into sections, melodies, leitmotifs, harmonies. We had dictations, different tasks in harmony and solfège.

There was a special class called “Music Analysis.” You listen and analyze: what section this is, what leitmotif it is, how it develops, why it’s done this way, why the composer didn’t do it differently. Now it’s the same: I listen and constantly analyze. “Oh, that’s a cool kick,” “Oh, that’s a great melody,” “Oh, that’s a nice synth.” And then I think: maybe I should make a synth like that? Potentially, I can recreate it and keep it as a reference?

“Alright, let’s start digging into trailer musics”. On getting started with Plarium, working with labels, and creating tracks for Netflix, Disney, and Fortnite

— Let’s talk about your career and how it began. When did it all start, and when did you begin building your personal brand?

I’m not sure if I’ve built a personal brand yet — possibly give it another ten years. It all started when I met friends who were making music for stock libraries. One friend gave me his old iPhone 5. I was like: oh, GarageBand!

That’s where everything began. I started tinkering, spending whole days coming up with melodies. I checked recently — they’re still saved. Later, another friend gave me his old 2006 MacBook, one of those really chunky ones. When it powered on, it made a ton of noise. I switched to it and started working in Fruity Loops. But it didn’t click with me; I still don’t understand it — it feels very strange to me. Then I moved to Logic, which I still use today. I began working on AudioJungle: writing music, uploading it — it sold a bit. I saved money to buy more gear. Bought a Mac mini, monitors, a keyboard. And then — a wedding... I was saving for that too!

I worked on AudioJungle for about three years, maybe more.

“At some point, I learned through acquaintances that you can actually write music for trailers. That there’s a real composer doing this, and it’s much more attainable than it seems”

I started watching YouTube channels with this kind of music, checking who the composer was, which label, searching for them on Facebook, adding them as friends, following who was getting what placements.

I began studying all of this together with my wife — she helped me a lot. I said, “Alright, let’s start digging into trailer musics”, and she would sit down with me every day. I picked a track from a top label on YouTube, we listened to it, and she would write down the structure on paper. Then I hung those sheets on the wall and used them as templates to understand how everything works. I started sending my tracks to everyone I possibly could. My wife sent them too. I was given a list of every label that exists in the trailer world, and we just started “spamming” them. One label replied — I still work with them occasionally. Then one label after another, one album after another... And then I got into the game industry. I think it was 2021. Maybe even 2022.

At some point, a friend of mine who worked at Plarium complained that something wasn’t quite working for him. He was working on a cinematic, he’s a sound designer. He found a cool track that fit the video well, but something bothered him — he wanted to make it heavier, thicker. He wrote to me and suggested I record double bass for it. I recorded it, and then I thought: maybe I could write something for Plarium? He sent my tracks and portfolio to his boss. They liked it, and we decided to try one track. They liked that one too. Since then, we’ve been working together regularly.

But in general... well, I actually dug up some old tracks. The first time I came across Plarium was back in 2017. My brother was working there at the time, and in 2017 they had some event, a Game Jam, sort of a challenge: half the team gets together and must whip up a game in a day — something like that. My brother decided to “ping” me and asked me to write three tracks for their team. I somehow slapped them together on an iPhone, clumsy and rough. I’m not even sure if they used them, but that was my first work with Plarium.

— I know you’ve also worked with other companies — Netflix, Disney, and so on. How does that collaboration work?

Everything happens through labels. No one reaches out directly — that’s extremely rare. You need genuinely close connections to communicate directly. Usually everything goes through labels, and you split the fee: 50/50 or 60/40, depending on the terms.

The system works like this: you write music, release it through a label, and the label pitches it. For example, they see that “The Avengers” will be coming out next year and think: “Alright, we can send them this track — maybe they’ll like it.” And you just wait. Everyone waits. No one gets paid upfront (though there are exceptions), you usually just wait for the track to be used. It may also happen that it never gets picked up, even if it’s incredibly good. It simply didn’t find the right client, or the label didn’t manage to place it.

All of my placements were through labels. For example, the label Brand X — I’ve had many placements through them. There’s also Trailer Rebel, which got me some big placements as well.

There are two more ways of working. The first is writing an album or contributing to an album that several composers are working on. The second is customs. That’s when a big movie comes in and says: “We want a Michael Jackson remix in such-and-such style,” and sends out a brief. But here the competition is fierce, because they can contact multiple labels at once, and those labels can give the brief to several composers. Composers each create one track, and then the client chooses. It’s usually very fast: tight deadlines — three or four days. You send it and wait. You might wait a year, even a year and a half — until the trailer is released. Then, when the trailer comes out, you finally see whether they used your music.

— How long does it usually take to create a track?

For custom tracks, the deadline is very strict. Typically, they can send you a brief on Thursday or Friday and say that by Monday morning Los Angeles time everything must be submitted. So you work over the weekend, but it’s worth it. Although the industry has changed a lot now. If earlier this was true only for the biggest films and not that often, now 90% of all high-budget trailers from Disney or Warner Bros are customs.

— Last year I spoke with the Ukrainian photogrammetry company deep3dstudio, which does 3D scanning and motion capture for Hollywood. They apparently have a problem: they can’t show their work even in a portfolio because of NDAs. Have you encountered this in your work?

As far as I know, you can talk about everything except Warner Bros placements. They have this rule that I cannot post those placements even on social media. You can put them on portfolio websites, but not on social networks; you also can’t mention them in interviews.

From what I can mention... I had placements for Netflix. For example, for the animated series Wolf King. I really liked that one: it sounds great, and the track works really well. Later they used it again in Star Trek. They used the entire track — that was really nice. Also, the final trailer for Venom: The Last Dance. They used my music there, and that one was a custom.

The track used for Wolf King and Star Trek

There’s also one in Elden Ring: when you open the PlayStation Store page for the game, the first trailer uses my music. I really liked how Elden Ring turned out. And there was one placement I genuinely loved. It was the announcement of the Disney X Fortnite collaboration. A short video, about 40 seconds, but they used everything I had worked on. They actually mixed it properly and highlighted the features and moments in the track that I had spent a lot of time on. They really valued it — I genuinely enjoyed that.

The track used for Elden Ring trailer

The track used for Disney X Fortnite collaborations

— We should talk about the specifics of composing music for the game industry. How does it all work? As far as I understand, your main focus is trailers, right? Or do you also compose soundtracks for games themselves?

There are three areas I work in: trailers, television music, and game music. Games — that’s Plarium. Basically, I work only with them. I had planned to branch out to other clients, but I simply haven’t had the time. For television, the system is the same: you write music and release it through labels. The upside is that you know the money will come. More or less steadily, but it will. The downside is that both trailers and television are very long-term games. I release an album and won’t see any money for a year and a half or two. Minimum. It works like royalties — they’re paid out quarterly.

— How many hours a day does your work take?

I can’t really say how many hours I work per day. It’s completely random. And honestly, I think I work pretty poorly. I don’t know, maybe on average — if I’m lucky — five or six hours a day. And that’s already not bad. Sometimes even less.

But once you’re writing a lot, there’s no “romantic creativity” like people imagine. There’s no wandering around, getting inspired, searching for sounds. You just sit down, look at the brief, and go: “Alright, I need to write this kind of track.” I can say that a single track usually takes a day, a day and a half, maybe two. With revisions and everything else included.

“I think this won’t affect me in the game world”. Thoughts on AI, music for different bosses, and composing the soundtrack for Mech Arena

— Let’s talk specifically about your work for Plarium. How do you collaborate with people from other departments: producers, managers, game designers, artists, and so on?

I work with the sound design team. Very cool guys. Essentially, everything is simple: they ping me and say, “We have a new boss — we need music for him”. They send a brief and an image so I can see what type of boss it is. For example, thin and fast or big and heavy. I choose different instruments, moods, and timbres based on that. They send references — I listen to the references once, no more. And that’s it, I start composing.

— Tell more about how a boss’s timbre or instruments depend on their concept. How does that correlate?

For example, there’s a cursed city and a boss in it. I immediately understand that strong epic or heavy drum “slams” aren’t needed here. You need darker harmonies, dissonances. Then there was a guy who was half robot, made of copper or something like that. They told me it would be great to emphasize that somehow, so I added various metal and clock sounds, SFXs built from clock noises.

There was also a sand demon. I decided I could emphasize the high frequencies to make it really rustle. But at the same time, he’s a demon, so I took double basses and cellos in very low registers, then boosted their highs to make that “shhh.” So that it literally crackled in your ears.

— And do you use artificial intelligence in your work? What is your general attitude toward this tool?

“My attitude is negative. I actually believe that AI is from the Satan :) I don’t like it when someone uses it”

This is when a composer writes a track but doesn’t want to bother: finding a vocalist, writing songs, lyrics, recording all of it, processing it. They can simply use Suno or special plugins where you can hum or speak a line — and it transforms the voice into anything you want. I react to that like: “Man, no, that’s not for me at all.” It kills the synergy you get when you work with another person.

Plus right now it’s still on a more amateur level. But I can see these tools improving. Maybe AI will replace me too. We’ll see, I don’t know. For now everything’s fine, I’m working.

— A lot of artists today react quite strongly to the use of AI.

I think in the game world it won’t affect me. At least not in the near future, because here everything has to be genuinely original. No one needs a generic track. Everyone wants it to sound fresh, with some new sounds, SFXs. I’m not sure AI will be able to get to that level.

In the production world, in the world of TV music, there’s already been a disturbing situation when some label started releasing these kinds of tracks. There was an album where you could literally hear that it was just AI. We have a closed trailer community, and everyone was like, “What the hell is this?” As a result, one album was taken down, and the other one is still there, as far as I know.

— How are you involved in testing? Let’s say you wrote a track for a boss, it was tested, and people didn’t like it. How does the work look in that case?

Revisions are always there. These are some nuances, usually small ones. Although sometimes they’re big. Sometimes the team doesn’t fully understand what the sound is supposed to be, and everything has to be agreed with the sound designers and people higher up. Sometimes someone just doesn’t like something, and they come to me and say: “No, redo this, cut that, move this, throw this out completely, it doesn’t belong here”.

— Could you highlight two or three aspects that fundamentally distinguish composing a track for a TV trailer, a game trailer, and a track directly for the game itself?

Most tracks differ a lot in terms of structure and sound.

“Especially in trailers, the sound has to hit you in the face. In trailers you simply can’t overdo it — you can only underdo it”

If it seems that the climax is already powerful, it’s better to add a couple more bars of some “pounding” to make it even stronger. In games, this doesn’t apply — the structure is different. You don’t need a long intro or development. No one needs that. Everything has to begin immediately. In a trailer, you might first hear a boom, then another boom, then a piano note. But in a game, you press “battle” and it starts right away. It doesn’t build up little by little.

— I know you worked on the soundtrack for Mech Arena by Plarium. Could you briefly break down that work?

I worked on it with sound designer Misha Stepankov — he’s a friend of mine. Before he even started composing music, we played in bands together, and he played drums. In this case they sent a brief, a task description, and references. But at first I misunderstood the references or maybe fixated on one particular fragment. That’s very bad. I made a track, but they rejected it the next day. I myself heard that I’d made it too dark. There were some cyberpunk elements. It might have worked for, I don’t know, a Call of Duty menu, but not here.

The next day I made a completely different track — it was approved on the second version. And the first version sounded good, but then there were some minor edits. I really like this project. I replaced absolutely all the music in the game: the menu, the countdown before the battle, defeat and victory, and post-battle stats. I liked that I created all of it from a single track. Using elements that echo across each part. I like that they appear not only in the main theme but also in the countdown and other places. It was cool to do.

Follow Bohdan on social media! At this link you’ll find his Instagram. Here are links also to his Spotify playlist and his list of placements on YouTube.

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