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“One of the first things you have to teach yourself as a sound designer is to forget about the literal,” Thom said. For example, he said, when you’re being asked by the director to come up with the sound for a gangster’s car, the most important information is not what kind of car it is. It’s who the gangster is, what kind of person he is and how he wants to be perceived. So if the car is a souped-up Ford Mustang, Thom said, you could certainly start with a recording of an actual souped-up Mustang. A good sound designer then asks what can be layered into that sound that will be credible but also convey the essence of the character — say, that he’s wild and out of control. Simply put, it’s someone who wants to tell stories through sound, Darling said.
Junior Audio Designer
Have a presence online in the spaces where your prospective clients are. For example, Flores said, if you want to work on commercials, you have to find where the directors or producers who are making commercials live on social media and build relationships with them there. For many people who pursue entertainment as a career, it takes years to get yourself to where you are making money from your creative work. For making money in the meantime, there’s always waiting tables.

Audio Engineer Intern
Darling said that most of the sound design work she’s doing now is creating preset sounds for music tech companies. Chances are, most of the sound you hear in the theater or through your TV speakers wasn’t recorded when the scenes were shot on set. Instead, it was done by audio specialists after the filming wrapped up. The music, dialogue and sound effects are typically handled by different teams, although on low-budget productions a few people may do it all. The production’s composer oversees the music, and the rest is overseen by the supervising sound editor.
Installation Technician
A common feature is a background in music, with or without formal training — Darling, for example, was an electronic musician before she became a sound designer, and Bautista was a classically trained pianist, while Lucero and Acord were in bar bands. The sound effects team includes the people who clean up, enhance or replace the sounds recorded while the cameras rolled. They record sounds in the field, pull them from effects libraries and create them from scratch, then edit them to fit the narrative (and satisfy the director). Paula Fairfield is an International and Emmy award winning sound designer for tv, film, commercials, and basically anything that makes noise. She has 10 Emmy nominations with two wins for her work on Game of Thrones, along with multiple wins and nominations for her work in both The US and Canada....
Control Room Audio Utility
Successful designers have a solid grounding in how sound is generated and shaped, the frequency ranges that different sounds occupy and other fundamentals of the science. He also pushed back on the argument that you have to master ProTools or other specific programs to make it in the industry, noting that new options are continually emerging as the technology evolves. “Today’s tools are so powerful and accessible that it’s really about the creator, not the vehicle.
But more and more people are turning to platforms like TikTok, Twitch and Patreon. It almost goes without saying that the job requires an ear for detail, an ability to peel apart the layers of a complex sound. That’s something you can develop with practice and experience, the pros say.
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Increasingly, the demand for sound designers is coming from technology and video game companies, not just filmmakers. Which is not to say that you should abandon your dream of crafting medieval battle sounds for the big screen and aim instead to design the warning tone your car makes when you leave the lights on after parking. It’s just to note that the world of sound effects and sound design is evolving.
Oftentimes, people will start by handling multiple other sound jobs on smaller productions. The skills involved are different, though; editing dialogue is nothing like performing as a foley artist or mixing sound. So on productions with larger budgets, the tasks tend to be split among people who focus on each of those specialties. Still, some sound designers say that it’s good to get experience at all of these jobs. And as a practical matter, the more sound tasks you can handle, the greater your chances are of finding work.
Who becomes a sound designer?
To be truly immersive and transporting, a film or television show needs to have sound that matches its imagery and advances its story.
This article is part of a series on starting and building entertainment industry careers. Click the link in the email we sent to to verify your email address and activate your job alert. And for people and companies who are looking for sound talents, it offers a centralized place to look, rather than plowing through hundreds of individual websites. “I like to think more often that we discover sounds,” Thom said, fitting pieces of what they’ve experienced together into something new that serves the story. For a glimpse of the variety of jobs available for audio professionals, go to Soundlister.com.
“Because no matter how good a film school you go to or how good a sound course you take, it’s not going to be a perfect simulation of working in the real-world movie business,” Thom said. She got leads and tips from mentoring sites such as SoundGirls.org and People of Color in Audio, and as she did more work on low-budget independent products, she built up her presence on Instagram and other social media networks. For Lucero, the allure of music wasn’t just the songs, it was the distinctive sounds of the instruments — the tone of the guitar, the snap of the snare. Get notified about new Entry Level Sound Design jobs in United States. We call filmmakers “visionary” when they bring wondrous, strange or frightening worlds to life.
Increasingly, people train for a career in postproduction sound at a film school or other specialized program, as Flores did. You’ll still need to develop a body of work to show prospective employers and clients, possibly by tracking down some student filmmakers and volunteering to do sound for them. Another way to find opportunities is to scour the postings at sites such as StaffMeUp, Mandy and even Craigslist.