What the heck does a Sound Designer do anyway?
This is the most eloquent answer I have yet seen, posted extemporaneously on the stagecraft mailing list by Chris Babbie on April 3, 2008:The job of the sound designer in theatre is to wrest control over every sound heard by the audience, and to ensure that it is appropriate, and adequate.Should the director choose to use a cap gun in his little play, and wish that it sound like a handgun, my job is clear. Should he wish to use the local children as actors, before they’re adequately trained to hit the last row of the balcony, my job is equally clear. Should he wish to pair a doddering old fool with the local opera diva, and wish that the fool’s voice match hers in volume, if not quality, I also go to work. I rarely get to address casting.The job of the Sound Designer is to transport and transpose. You should feel the time of day, the year, the location, and the emotion.
This is the most eloquent answer I have yet seen, posted extemporaneously on the stagecraft mailing list by Chris Babbie on April 3, 2008: The job of the sound designer in theatre is to wrest control over every sound heard by the audience, and to ensure that it is appropriate, and adequate. Should the director choose to use a cap gun in his little play, and wish that it sound like a handgun, my job is clear. Should he wish to use the local children as actors, before they’re adequately trained to hit the last row of the balcony, my job is equally clear. Should he wish to pair a doddering old fool with the local opera diva, and wish that the fool’s voice match hers in volume, if not quality, I also go to work. I rarely get to address casting. The job of the Sound Designer is to transport and transpose. You should feel the time of day, the year, the location, and the emotion. I train the very air molecules to do my bidding, and to caress the tranducers of your brain, to delude them into t
