Never has there existed such an art form before. Whereas visual art is obviously perceivable by its very existence in front of one's eyes, and that it almost begs your observation and to ask questions of it, doing so in a colourfully blatant example of yearning for recognition, sound design plays its part on a subconscious as well as audible level.
It is an art form that can exist for thirty years of a lifetime before realization lifts its sleepy head to the fact that every film, movie, and television programme ever seen would have been as empty as a week without days, or a man without a soul, without its participation. The most intriguing aspect of sound design is in the creation of something that has never existed. Sometimes there is no reference material to go by; nobody has a long lost recording of the sound of a dinosaur gathering dust in their attic.
Over the years the fundamentals of sound design have remained largely unchanged, the only real advances coming about in microphone design and the introduction of digital technology. And during those years there has been a growing focus on sound effects and their role in film and television. One man, more than anybody else has been responsible for this, legendary Universal Studios sound engineer Jack Foley (Yorkville, N.Y. 1891).
Following in the footsteps of Foley, sound engineers, designers and producers have introduced approaches to post production that has seen a whole new area emerge in the sound industry. It is a booming profession that requires of a person a combination of skill, patience, imagination and hard work. Not just in film and television, the skills have lent themselves to the rise of the computer game industry, where the realism of the graphics experience has been equally matched by the need of sound to help put the player 'in' the game.
In truth, sound design has become as integral to the modern day forms of visual entertainment as the visual aspect itself, and will remain to do so as long as visual art such as film and TV, computer games, dance, radio plays and theatre etc exists. |
