Career Wise: Done With Class 12? Here's How to Develop Career in Sound Designing, Sound Engineering

In this week’s edition, let’s explore what it is to be a ‘sound designer’, or ‘sound engineer’.

Sound is an extremely important and yet often-overlooked aspect of content and how it affects the viewers. Whether it is a concert that left you dazed, a film with an unforgettable background score, or a theatrical production that gave you goosebumps – it is the ‘sound’ that made an impact. When creativity meets innovative technology, the art of sound takes on many different shapes and forms. Efficient use of sound design is crucial to put the audience in the centre of the story and enable them to experience the world as the characters do.

The career in sound design has emerged as a popular choice amongst the youth today due to the evolvement of technology over the last four decades, the increased accessibility, and companies like Dolby innovating with new technologies that are also easy to use.

Importance of Sound Design and Engineering

A great piece of content is a combination of sight and sound for a unified experience where one bolsters and elevates the other. A strong cinematic sound adds to the realism of the film, dictating the mood of the scene and triggering an emotional reaction from the audience. The creative use of sound is indispensable in various disciplines such as filmmaking, television production, theatre, live performance, video game development, sound recording and reproduction, post-production, radio, and musical instrument development.

Whether performing, editing previously recorded and composed audio, or creating sounds from scratch, a sound designer plays an imperative in bringing all the elements together.

Requirements for a Career in Sound Engineering

Sound engineering is an intricate field of work and hence, requires formal training to understand the nuances of the business.

A course in sound engineering will be suitable and extremely beneficial for students who have an interest in the art of sound and wants to learn different technicalities related to the subject. Being a sound designer means balancing creativity and technicalities, hence it is crucial to have a specific set of knowledge and skills.

For a course in sound engineering, graduation with physics and mathematics is advisable. Students will be dealing with sound which is physical energy and will be involved in a range of calculations and converting soundwaves into electric energy among various other technicalities.

It is also important to have an ear for details to envision and create sounds that are appropriate to the medium and suit the character of the content. Having an interest and knowledge of music will thus be advantageous.

As the field continues to become more popular, there has been an influx of training institutes for sound engineering in India as well as abroad. One of the most renowned institutes in India – The Film and Television Institute of India, Pune offers courses under the Film wing & Television wing. Similarly, many notable institutes such as L.V.Prasad Film and TV Academy, Chennai; Satyajit Ray Film & Television Institute of India, Kolkata; Department of Music, University of Mumbai; National Institute of Film and Fine Arts (NIFFA), Kolkata; MIT School of Film and Television, Pune; Ramoji Academy of Film and Television in Hyderabad; SAE Technology College (various campuses in India); Annapurna College of Film and Media in Hyderabad; Sri Aurobindo Centre for Arts and Communication; School of Arts New Delhi, also offer diploma courses in Recording Arts (audio engineering).

Sound Engineering and Sound Design: Career Opportunities

The career creates endless opportunities to work in live events and recording studios for television, music, advertising, gaming, theatre, etc. The exceptional career field allows one to experiment with different nodes of sound. It is a vast field with a variety of options such as becoming a studio sound engineer, studio designer, mixing engineer, mastering engineer, audio post-production, dialogue, music editor, recordist, Digital media entrepreneur, sound recordist, etc. There is also an option of working in-house, with a production company, in a studio or working as a freelancer.

Sound design and engineering is a vibrant field and a great way for people with an affinity for sound and music to pursue their passion.

— The article is written by Victor Dantes, Head -Technical services at Yash Raj Films

Read all the Latest News, Breaking News, watch Top Videos and Live TV here.