Linnea Boyev

Music Composition, "Elnea" and the Whole Halo Thing

I played piano quite seriously in my childhood and did some competitive piano in high school, but didn't know much about composition.  My ex was a studio musician at one time, and he taught me a little about recording music (in the early 90s recording was still done on tape!).  I performed in a few shows in med school and in my residency, but that was about it.  

After getting disabled I started taking guitar lessons (because why not), and through my Halo videogame play with my son, I discovered the RedVsBlue machinima series, back around episode one.  (Yep, Roosterteeth used to just have one popular video.)   I started blogging there under the username Elnea (a username I chose in the late 90s because the name Linnea was always taken.  That became LNea and finally Elnea.  

Anyway, I met a couple at a RedVsBlue convention in Toronto around 2005 who wanted to do a machinima series called Silver Stars/Purple Hearts (SSPH) about a group of female Halo Spartans and wanted me to do the voice of the scientist doing genetic research on them.  As a joke I sent them the song "Blow Boys Away" (I recorded it in one sitting on a clunky 2005 freeware version of Audacity that allowed you only to record over and over across one track), and they made that into a video (as did one of my fans QuackJag).  Once they had the voice recording in place I suggested they needed a music soundtrack.  So then I started to teach myself music production, and at the time there was very little available.  I switched over to Mac and started learning Logic 9 and started taking private music composition classes with Michael Adamczyk, my guitar instructor at the time.  Most of the Halo music I did back then was, in retrospect, pretty terrible although I was rather proud of the More Than Just a Voice song (but wish I was a better singer), the Halo Unyielding part 2 soundtrack and other non-Halo orchestral and vocal pieces.

After that I did voice work, foley and music for a number of fan projects, including the SSPH miniseries pilots, a animation/machinima project called "Halo Unyielding", trailers, as well as some non-Halo stuff for folks that found me incidentally.  Lauren Urban (a.k.a. OboeCrazy) and I debuted the "I Want Master Chief" machinima video  at a Vancouver Halo Convention that got promoted on the bungie website in an interview.  It was a fun run.  At the time, thought about writing score music  professionally (I have a cousin that does so), but unfortunately was too sick at the time to pursue it.

Anyway:  music.  Everything I've written is Creative Commons 4.0 stuff anyone is welcome to use totally for free. I do write music with nothing to do with videogames as well.  So many hobbies...

Halo Action Figure Theater

My old Halo Action Figure Theater webcomic (2006-2013), hosted by the good people at halo.bungie.org.  It all started as I took photos of my kid's Halo toys, and somehow blossomed into a whole... thing.  I've had my chance at e-fame (with fan art, fan fiction, and all that weirdness), and it was very, very odd.  But at least it wasn't as invasive ase-fame possibilities are today. Regardless I keep meaning to continue the saga, especially since I now know how to use a camera.  I just have too many hobbies.