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I am a post sound b#itch. I love it. It is everything I have wanted since I ran my Cubase system in 89. There is nothing else for me. I started competing for time in the studio at age 13.
While I do call my female comrades "unicorns", as there are not many of us, those that exist would not at all be attracted to more "artsy" course titles or different ...
7
LATE TO THE PARTY -
This advice will be feature film-centric.
I'll start by telling you that I don't know a single person who got a gig because of a degree ... twenty weeks of Junior College here buddy. It's about your creativity.
I started at 30 and have been doing it for close to thirty years now with some success.
When I started I was a film geek and ...
4
Also, request access to the wardrobe head of department and art department so the recordist can lay down some rules.
This is the same as the DOP saying to wardrobe: No high contrast stripes on actors - this will not work with well with many HD digital cameras.
The head of sound department will say things like, no dangling metallic jewellery, no noisy ...
4
Well I have to say, I'm a woman, I'm 24 years old and I'm studying to become a sound designer also, I'm from Mexico and most of my girl-friends are into sound editing, recording, design, etc. :D
4
My career started in Montreal, Canada where I spent many years in post audio. To put a smile on your face and to tell you that there are lots of women working in the post audio industry there from mixing right through to ADR Supervising and on set recording. Natalie Fluerant and Diane Carrier are industry veterans there both in ADR and Natalie Moran and ...
4
To be absolutely honest, I can't say that your thesis, as stated, sounds like a terribly interesting read. Analysis, particularly when it comes to mixing technique, can be rather difficult to make interesting. It's kind of like reading the verbal equivalent of a spreadsheet. However, if you find a way to give it a broader scope in terms of how your ...
4
IMO, I think more than qualification, Sound Designers should have a proper training. It doesn't have to be from a state of the art university, or from a Film School where you gotta pay hundreds and thousands of dollars. It could be from learning from someone who's been doing it for a long time or by learning on the job. Qualifications might add to your ...
4
NO.
You cannot quantify creativity or talent.
To the person wishing for a union we have one (thank god) and the answer about the M.P.S.E. was also correct. We have those sweet initials for our credits, "M.P.S.E.", I always use them when allowed.
3
In Poland, a lot of trained sound engineers/sound editors, especialy those graduated from "tonmeister" course at Frederic Chopin University Of Music , are woman... I thought about it earlier and I think it's some sort of phenomen. ;)
3
I personally know a lot of women sound editors/engineers/whatever you want to call the profession...there are even a few on SSD here...but there's a lot of passive sexism in our industry. When guys make comments like Internet Human's comment above (no offense meant, but it's a good example), "I guess women in arts just tend to enjoy more "artistic" positions,...
3
I think it's interesting to make the distinction between an academic portfolio and a professional portfolio. I see that the latter tends to usually focus purely on the product whereas in an academic learning environment I understand that it's more important to focus on the processes, because those are what are being taught. In art disciplines it however ...
3
This is a really old question now but I thought I would add to the list. Rene Coronado (Dallas), Dustin Camilleri (Chicago) and myself (Toronto) have just released a new podcast that is all about sound design and audio post. Its called Tonebenders. If you want to take a listen to the first episode you can go to www.tonebenders.net and download it or grab ...
3
Tim hit the nail on the head, big surprise. Recording, Chopping, naming, Processing and the like are mechanical bits of knowledge. They are super important, but no more important than the art of storytelling with sound. How to record sound in the field and the studio, how to edit and mix, and the details of processing, archiving and handling large numbers of ...
3
Focus on relationships.
Knowing how to use sound is just a start, but just knowing the craft is not what's going to keep you employed, it's people.
A nice portfolio will show that you've done something, which can be both a topic for discussion and an artifact/asset. In job seeking it's what you'd mainly use in order to get to interviews. But past those, ...
3
I agree with everything @Internet Human said.
I've worked professionally at a studio for almost five years and relationships are everything. The people who really understand that what we do is fundamentally a service industry and structure their work philosophy around that are the ones who go the furthest.
Relative to a lot of disciplines, the social ...
3
As a game sound designer for over 20 years, I'll second all that has been said already! Know tools, know processing, know storytelling, know coding or at least scripting.
You might consider taking some acting and directing classes while at the University; I found myself on many occasions doing voice casting and directing and my experience in the theater was ...
3
The point of any academic course is not to provide training (that would be a training course), but to assess the academic level that the students can operate at, in the titles subject domain. In this case the level is Masters, although Iain does not say if it is MA or MSc, and the subject domain happens to be sound design. It is usual at a validation of any ...
2
The remaining 40ish years of your working life is a long time to be wishing you'd taken that other fork in the road.
My boss got into sound post something like 10 years ago, after 30ish years in the music industry.
My dad was a photographer for more than 30 years before getting into web design.
My girlfriend is, in her late 20s, embarking on a degree ...
2
Don't delay it more please! I completed my BA on Linguistics and Literature, but sound has been in my mind for about 9 years. First I didn't have the money and social environment to develop skills, then started working, I had the money but no time, then by the time I was 25, 26, I had some money and time but thought I was old for it and lots of discouraging ...
2
http://www.soundeffectsbible.com/ Book is excellent choice.
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For re-mounts and tours (same company) I charge 50% of the original fee. If another theatre wants to buy the sound design for their production, I negotiate by taking their venue size and multiplying it by the length of their run. I compare it to the same figure from the original production then calculate the percent difference, and apply it to the fee. It ...
2
http://shownd.com/ - Free
Vimeo - Free
Soundcloud - Free
Not sure if these are really what you are looking for. I just made my own website when I was in school and had links to clips on vimeo.
2
I am a 18 years old female french student in audio engineering, and well... We girls aren't so numerous (we are something like 10 for 180 students).
For my part, I want to work for live performance, music tours, festivals, that kind of things ^^
But I actually noted most of the girls actually in sound design for cinema, or as sound editors, for TV or for ...
2
When I started (around 25-30 years ago) it seemed like the only females were ADR & dialogue editors and foley walkers (now called foley Artists). That has changed.
When we were cutting on film it was a dirtier and much more physically demanding job. Sound FX and design was a boys club ... not anymore. Not even a little bit.
Women are everywhere (thank ...
2
I'm from Portugal and I don't know any other woman or girl into sound design in here.
I attended a bachelor on Music Production and Technology and between 16-18 students per year, usually there are 0 to 1 girls.
Even so, there are some live sound technicians girls and they all enjoy of a nice reputation, actually. I think they are seen as trustworthy.
...
2
I agree with all answers above, made similar experiences editing Audio Books (Hörbücher) here in Germany .
Most studios look for freelance editors that are reliable and deliver their work with consistent quality in the scheduled time. Deadlines are very important because the publishers will only choose studios that can fulfill their schedules. Voice actors ...
2
If I were to design a course I'd put a lot of the focus not on playing with noises, but sitting down and listening to noises (of all kinds). What I mean is two hour-long classes a week of just sitting and listening to music, radio-drama, musique concrete, random field recordings, movies with the picture stripped off, the sound of the room itself with ...
2
Depends on your interests. Game mods are pretty easy to find and join, because you can do that using the internet. There are also a few sites where you might look for short film projects. It might not be useful to work on sound libraries though, unless you're particularly interested in them or have ideas for something extraordinary, because you'd be spending ...
2
For games you can consider joining a game development team/company instead of enrolling in the university. Choose small ones so you can be directly involving and talking with senior sound designers there.
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