42 Facts About Martin O'Donnell

Martin O'Donnell was born on May 1,1955 and is an American composer, audio director, and sound designer best known for his work on video game developer Bungie's titles, such as the Myth series, Oni, the Halo series, and Destiny.

Martin O'Donnell began his career in music writing television and radio jingles such as the Flintstones Chewable Vitamins jingle and scoring for radio stations and films.

Martin O'Donnell moved to composing video game music when his company, TotalAudio, did the sound design for the 1997 title Riven.

Martin O'Donnell ended up joining the Bungie staff ten days before the studio was bought by Microsoft, and was the audio director for all Bungie projects until he was fired in April 2014.

Martin O'Donnell composed the scores for Halo 3, Halo 3: ODST, and Halo: Reach.

Martin O'Donnell successfully sued Bungie for unpaid wages and stock ownership.

Martin O'Donnell ran for the US House of Representatives as a Republican in Nevada's 3rd congressional district in 2024, placing fourth in the Republican primary.

Martin O'Donnell describes his upbringing as "typical"; he received piano lessons and wanted to start a rock band when he was in junior high school.

Martin O'Donnell's father made films while his mother taught piano.

Martin O'Donnell began his musical career in the field after one of his colleagues who knew of his music background approached him to write for his film.

Martin O'Donnell talked to his friend Michael Salvatori, who had his own recording studio, and offered to split the profits from the job with him; the two became constant partners.

Martin O'Donnell composed the music for jingles for Mr Clean and Flintstones Chewable Vitamins.

Martin O'Donnell agreed, and in talking with Josh learned that he had friends in Spokane, Washington who were making a game Martin O'Donnell had never heard of called Myst.

In hearing the theme music to the game, Martin O'Donnell realized that the game industry was making great strides in creating "legitimate music" that contained dramatic elements.

Martin O'Donnell became acquainted with the game's developers, including brothers Rand and Robyn Miller, and was hired four years later as a sound designer for Mysts sequel, Riven.

On returning to Chicago Martin O'Donnell emailed a Bungie staffer and pursued them for a job.

Martin O'Donnell later composed the music for Valkyrie Studio's Septerra Core: Legacy of the Creator, during which O'Donnell met Steve Downes, whom he would later recommend as the voice actor for the Master Chief.

Martin O'Donnell described the work for Septerra Core as his most difficult assignment; during the production the TotalAudio studio burned to the ground and Martin O'Donnell had to be hoisted through a window in order to save some 20 hours of recordings.

In 1999, Bungie wanted to re-negotiate the contracts for Oni, and the negotiations resulted in Martin O'Donnell joining the Bungie team, ten days before the company was bought by Microsoft.

Martin O'Donnell was one of a handful of Bungie employees who remained working at the company since then, until his termination as of April 2014.

The music for Halo 3 contained refinements and revisions to previous themes heard in the series, as Martin O'Donnell stressed the importance of using previous motifs in the final installment of the trilogy; Martin O'Donnell wanted to "blow out" the epic sounds from the first game.

Martin O'Donnell introduced a distinctive piano theme which had not been heard before, and made its appearance in the Halo 3 announcement teaser.

Since Bungie was aiming for a smaller, detective story feel, Martin O'Donnell felt that a jazz-influenced approach worked best in echoing the film noir atmosphere.

In creating music for Halo: Reach, a prequel to Combat Evolved, Martin O'Donnell wanted to create music with a "grittier" feel because of the dark nature of the story.

Martin O'Donnell called the prospect of writing new music both a challenge and a relief to step away from the iconic themes of Halo.

Early in the video game Destinys development, Martin O'Donnell began composition of an eight-movement symphonic suite entitled Music of the Spheres.

In 2015, Martin O'Donnell founded video game development studio Highwire Games.

Martin O'Donnell worked on the soundtrack to their debut game Golem, a VR game which was released on November 15,2019.

For Halos music, Martin O'Donnell created "frozen" arrangements that represented an approximation of a play-through of the games.

Martin O'Donnell was involved in the implementation of his music as well as the composition, and was Bungie's Audio lead.

Martin O'Donnell composed at Bungie from a sound-proofed room in the corner of Bungie's office, dubbed the "Ivory Tower".

Martin O'Donnell said in an interview that he feels that one problem with games is those that play music non-stop, which he feels detracts from the overall impact.

Martin O'Donnell prefers to write music towards the end of the development cycle, because he would rather score the final timing for things like cinematics and gameplay changes.

Martin O'Donnell pushed Bungie to spend money on hiring singers and musicians to record the theme before Macworld as a way to present a strong showing.

Martin O'Donnell created a special arrangement that was used for a Halo 3 segment of Video Games Live in London, after which O'Donnell appeared.

In March 2024, Martin O'Donnell announced on his Discord server his intention to run as a Republican Party candidate in Nevada's 3rd congressional district in the 2024 House of Representatives elections, challenging incumbent Democrat Susie Lee.

Martin O'Donnell was defeated in the Republican primary, placing fourth behind Elizabeth Helgelien, Dan Schwartz, and Drew Johnson.

Martin O'Donnell has been married for more than 30 years to his wife, Marcie, and has two daughters, Alison and Christine.

Martin O'Donnell's children were part of a singing choir for the Flintstones Chewable Vitamins commercial jingle O'Donnell composed.

Martin O'Donnell's father did voice work for Myth as the "Surly Dwarf", as well as "The Prophet of Objection" in Halo 2.

Martin O'Donnell is a self-described political conservative, and Bungie coworkers described him as the most right-leaning employee at the company.

The Nevada Independent reported that Martin O'Donnell has a net worth of nearly $74 million, much of which is held in stock holdings through individual retirement accounts and investment portfolios.