a word of advice to the aspiring sound designer
December 4, 2009
Don’t go to recording school. Don’t spend all your time learning Protools quick keys. Get a solid liberal arts education. Learn about the world, art, architecture, literature and poetry. Be able to coax your clients into your way of thinking by confidently throwing around words like “painterly, juxtaposition and poetic”. Seriously! The best preparation that I received for the world of sound, television and film was a liberal arts education from Mills College. I can’t tell you the number of times I’ve been able to draw from a client what they were actually looking for by using descriptive terms learned from art history classes. Read books. Read a lot. Go to museums. Learn about architecture. Have an intelligent conversation with those who’ve hired you. This is how your clients will begin to develop confidence in your work. Dig deep for inspiration and be able to defend your design philosophy when called upon to do so. It’s important to have a point of view and there’s so much in the world you can reference from. There’s plenty of time to learn editing software. Don’t get bogged down in technical minutia. It’s important. But not THAT important. What’s important is that you stand out as a sound designer who can bring the most intelligent perspective possible to any project.
