After the capability audit and mapping the skills to all of the potential jobs, it is clear that not all skills needed for the job are present currently. This is why an action plan is needed - to outline all of the skills, techniques and qualifications needed in order to be eligible for the job. Below is the action plan to get a general sound designer job, as from research many sound design positions ask for the same skills and requirements. Using the two application forms posted in the sound design post it is much easier to see which skills are already attained and which ones will need work on. The Rockstar application can be found here, and the 343 Industries form can be found here.
As already mentioned in the sound design post, these are mid level jobs and generally require a few years experience, however the application forms won't omit the basic skills required to be a sound designer. So although this level of career won't necessarily be achieved straight out of university, the application forms can still be used as a checklist to make sure that the candidate is 'better' than a junior or entry level job.
Rockstar application:
Skills and responsibilities already acquired:-
- Managing recording sessions, eg vehicle engines,foley, ambience
This is something that has been done many times through university and A-level work. Although not recording vehicle sounds to any extent, managing a recording session can be adapted to for different situations. Foley sound skills can be briefly displayed by watching the 'Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels' coursework piece here. The main foley parts recorded here are the playing cards sliding across the table. Being a foley artist requires creativity. Just because a sound is made a certain way doesn't mean that the exact same actions need to be done when recording. The best example of this is from an earlier post, referencing Ben Burtt, the sound designer of Star Wars. Obviously a real laser gun can't be recorded, so the foley artist needs to be creative in their approach to recording a sound. With something simple like a playing card however, it is simple to recreate. In the project a train ticket being scraped across an office chair was used to record.
- Mentoring and development of junior sound designers.
This was done during A-level work, through volunteering at the school and while attending Rock School, which is explained in both versions of the CV. Although this mentoring was not for sound design in particular, the experience of working with young musicians helped greatly, as well as teaching the necessary skills to mentor people in the future.
- Expert knowledge of popular DAW packages such as Pro Tools or REAPER.
This is something that has been honed and practised over the whole time at university and A-level. Using both Logic and Pro Tools, as well as experience with Ableton Live, Reason and MaxMSP. This can be seen in all recording work on the evidence post.
- Ability to create and tune extremely high-quality audio assets from scratch, to a creative brief.
- Understanding of granular synthesis and other procedural audio techniques.
These two skills can be seen in the composition section of the evidence page, particularly on the 'compositional synthesis' track. This implemented additive, subtractive and granular synthesis, amongst other methods, to create a track to a creative brief.
- Knowledge of recording techniques and technologies - microphones, audio recording equipment, etc.
This is again something that has been honed over university. With a wide array of microphones available in the university, it was easy to try out different microphones for different tasks.
Skills still needed:-
- Working with level designers to understand and implement per-mission audio requirements.
Although I have a brief understanding of per-mission audio requirements, this is something that will need to be researched in order to build a better comprehension.
- Commercial experience using interactive audio middleware such as Wwise or FMOD.
This is the biggest area that needs work and is one of the most important things in sound design. Learning these middlewares is something that has been cut from the current music technology course, and will need to be learned through self-study.
- Understanding of technical limitations and trade-offs, and an interest in exploring the potential of new audio technology.
This will be learnt mainly on the job. Technical limitations are similar to audio requirements, but will need to be researched more to have a better understanding
- Understanding of environmental acoustics, and ability to create assets suitable for diverse open-world environments.
Acoustics was a module attended during university, which built up a knowledge base of how sound travels (in a more complex way than the first year 'fundamentals of sound' module). However this was more attuned to architectural acoustics, designing recording studios and other building attributes. Environmental acoustics in vide games is used to make sounds like wind and weather effects sound more realistic - getting quieter when doors are being closed, changing sound when being covered by a wall. Similar to how acoustics work in real life.
343 Industries application:
Skills and responsibilities already acquired:-
- Work on audio postproduction
Post production is something that has been heavily worked on in all recording, composition and sound to picture work. It is a very confident area.
- Work closely with external studios
When attending university, all of the studios in the building had never been used before. This meant it was a completely new experience. However they were quickly learnt and all can now be used freely and confidently.
- Some experience in traditional music composition and audio post-production linear content production
Composition is also a strong area, with many pieces of work being displayed on the evidence page. With different creative briefs being given during university, is taught a lot more techniques to use also.
- Must be able to operate Pro Tools as a primary audio editing tool
Quite simply, Pro Tools was the audio suite used during university. This tool can be confidently used for any project. Confidence with Logic is also present, as it was learnt during A-levels and is the primary compositional DAW used.
This job description requires a higher level of experience than the Rockstar equivalent. The skills needed for this job all require access to experience, which would be gained from entry level jobs. Middlewares like FMOD and Wwise are also necessary skills for this job, again.
As a general conclusion, experience is key in this industry. Although entry level or graduate jobs are hard to find for this type of work, once all of the skills outlined above are attained, it should be fairly straightforward to confidently apply for a job.
