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How To Get Work As A Sound Designer.

Tyler Gillis

Tyler Gillis

Aftertouch Audio
How To Get Work As A Sound Designer

While I did start my Sound Design Journey in College, I don't believe that going to school is 100% necessary in getting into the audio industry. There is so much information out there that you can genuinely learn anything you need to know through online resources and by making some genuine connections within the industry. I would love to hear from you guys!

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Going to scool wasn't the right way for many well known people. Sound design is a wide field, as the rest of our life. There is not even a clear formulation of what sound design is. ;)
 
germancomponist said:
Going to scool wasn't the right way for many well known people. Sound design is a wide field, as the rest of our life. There is not even a clear formulation of what sound design is. ;)
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100% agree with you. School is great cause it gives you all of the fundamentals in 1 easy package, but they are just that. Fundamentals. You will still need to do a lot of your own self exploration and there is so many helpful communities out there and forums to help you "master" your craft.
 
Depends what you mean by "sound design". For me as a film sound designer I think going to Film School had a huge influence on my career - it was about so much more than fundamentals since working on films is as much about story telling and collaboration as it is about technical aspects... I wrote a few articles about getting started as a sound editor in post production (film, TV etc )

part 1 is more generalised, about finding your passion:

part 2 is specifically about film/tv sound post:
 
timprebble said:
Depends what you mean by "sound design". For me as a film sound designer I think going to Film School had a huge influence on my career - it was about so much more than fundamentals since working on films is as much about story telling and collaboration as it is about technical aspects... I wrote a few articles about getting started as a sound editor in post production (film, TV etc )

part 1 is more generalised, about finding your passion:

part 2 is specifically about film/tv sound post:
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School can be really imported as it gives you a solid foundation on core fundamentals that you need to be working in this industry. While you can learn this information elsewhere school gives it to you all in a nice neat package.

You won’t graduate a program a master at your trade but you will have the basic and advanced knowledge needed to teach yourself additional skills needed to solve more complex problems.

school is important but I don’t think it is 100% required to get into this career.
 
Tyler Gillis said:
School can be really imported as it gives you a solid foundation on core fundamentals that you need to be working in this industry. While you can learn this information elsewhere school gives it to you all in a nice neat package.

You won’t graduate a program a master at your trade but you will have the basic and advanced knowledge needed to teach yourself additional skills needed to solve more complex problems.

school is important but I don’t think it is 100% required to get into this career.
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That depends on which career and industry you are referring to? Eg becoming a 'game audio sound designer' has a different skill set than 'film sound design', which is different again from a 'synth sound designer'

I've made it a point over the years that before taking peoples advice I check what experience the person is speaking from. For example I've seen a few people share strong opinions about film sound design techniques but when I check their IMDB they have never worked in the film industry at all. That does not make their opinions or ideas invalid, it just puts them in a different light.

But as I mentioned in one of those articles, every person working professionally as a sound designer achieved their start via means unique to them - due to circumstance, their attitude, experience, history etc... So I don't think there is any "100%" anything, ever.
 
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timprebble said:
That depends on which career and industry you are referring to? Eg becoming a 'game audio sound designer' has a different skill set than 'film sound design', which is different again from a 'synth sound designer'

I've made it a point over the years that before taking peoples advice I check what experience the person is speaking from. For example I've seen a few people share strong opinions about film sound design techniques but when I check their IMDB they have never worked in the industry. That does not make their opinions or ideas invalid, it just puts them in a different light.

But as I mentioned in one of those articles, every person working professionally as a sound designer achieved their start via means unique to them - due to circumstance, their attitude, experience, history etc... So I don't think there is any "100%" anything, ever.
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You are correct. Anyone looking at getting into game sound design needs a solid foundation and understanding of how game engines and middleware work. Without these it can be very difficult to “break into” this industry. You can learn a lot of these skills online or by getting internships at a studio, there are also a fair amount of smaller programs online that help walk you through the software, and if you are an eager little beaver, programs like FMod and WWise have free starter projects you can download and play with to learn how they work.

Don’t get me wrong, school definitely helped pave my way but it really gave me the fundamentals that I needed to help teach myself and ask smarter questions.

I also try to keep an open mind to everyone that I talk to experience or not as you never know what you can learn from someone with a different experience.
 
germancomponist said:
So it is as it is. "There is not even a clear formulation of what sound design is." ;)
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Just depends on what you do for work really. A Chef is expected to master a lot of skills but is not expected to know everything.

lots of different sub categories to a ‘sound designer’
 
As I understand it, Sound Designer was first used as a term by Water Murch on Apocalypse Now... Many years and much evolution has occurred since...
 
In Germany you can now even study "sound design" at university. And even there they don't really agree what "sound design" is ..... :)
How is it in your country?
 
In NZ film industry sound designer as a term is a head of department term, shared with Supervising Sound Editor sometimes as the same person, and that tends to be how IMDB treat it also. Not sure about Game Audio industry as have never worked in that field...
 
There are a few master-level sound design depts in universities across Europe, and some of the graduates will be more prone to end up working in the artistic end of sound design, meaning they might work as artists on their own right, and pay the bills by doing sound for video artworks/installations, ads, and the like.
Not to mention there's a whole (and quite young) history of sound design for the stage, which could mean more technical execution of sound-related issues, or being on par with everyone else on the leading creative team (I know director-sound designer duos who work pretty much on equal footing in contemporary theatre).
 
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