Role Description and Plan

1: Portfolio Proposal

My goal is to perfectly portray my abilities in the area of Game Sound Design, using my 3 artifacts for inclusion. This includes my AFMM Project, which will show off my creative ability to recreate entire scenes from game, film, or even short animations all by myself, using midi tracks, foley sounds, and voice acting skills I have obtained over a course of my education. My Synthesis and Sampling DAW Track, will show off my ability to create a song, using sampled instruments, midi tracks while meeting parameters put in place by my lecturers. Finally, my Recording and Mixing cover project will highlight my ability to capture sounds using high quality mics, as well as cooperating with a band to create music or even sounds that may be achieved through instruments. It will also highlight my knowledge of mic techniques such as Recorder Man or the Glyn Johns technique.

The planning stage of this will detail how my 3 chosen artifacts are relevant to my chosen role of Game Sound Designer. I will breakdown in detail the process and steps I will take to complete these projects. This includes timescales and explanations of the tasks. Finally, I will use a GANTT chart to work out the estimated times for these 3 projects.

The development stage will detail how I carried out each artifact in detail according to the planning stage. This will look at what I did throughout each week when creating each of the artifacts, and how each projects highlights my abilities and skills I have gotten from both Highschool, and College.

Finally, in the Evaluation stage, I will speak about how things changed from my plan to how it turned out. I will criticise myself on my work and note the things that went well, and the things that did not, as well as anything I would change and how I would change them

2: Role Description

Sound design, in its most fundamental sense, is the art of creating an audio foundation. It is also the technical discipline behind sound for any sort of media project. It involves developing, processing, and assembling sounds. This involves much more than just recording existing sounds. It is about constructing an original sound world. For a game designer, they must create grounded or even the most abstract sounds that make a player feel all sorts of emotion, as well give a time, atmosphere, location or character a sense of stature, importance to a story. Having an advanced knowledge of audio software such as Ableton or Pro Tools is required, especially when making high quality audio. Sound Designers must be creative to thrive when innovating sound, they must also often balance projects a lot, which might be a challenge, therefore, strong organisational skills are highly important. Finally, you must be perspicacious in any and all differences in sound quality as it is important when refining sound elements and producing a final product. The average pay for a sound designer in the UK is roughly £23,798, with entry-level positions starting around £21,126 and experienced designers earning up to £49,650 annually. Being approachable and easy to work with are key traits to have in the music industry, being kind to those you work with will help in the long run of a job like this. Being punctual for projects, and deadlines are also extremely helpful, especially if you want to work on big projects, as they will expect a lot from someone. Basic traits like kindness and compassion are always wanted, but project managers will look for more, such as creativity as they will want a wide variety of different projects with different genre’s and will not want a “one trick pony”. There are 5 steps to becoming a Sound Designer, 1. Obtain a Bachelor’s Degree – Pursue a degree of Sound Design or something similar such as Audio Engineering to build a strong foundation in sound principles. 2. Gain Practical Experience – Work on Student-projects or something of a similar beginner level position until you require the basic skills needed for a project. 3. Specialise – Find an area that interests you the most and focus on it, whether it be game sound, film sound or theatre sound. 4. Continue Education – study at university or take a year to research everything you can to enhance your knowledge in sound design. 5. Portfolio – Finally build a portfolio showing all your best work such as best projects or audio demos. Following these steps, I will be starting from college and slowly making my way up, starting theatre sound or student projects.

1 of the 3 Game Sound Designers that inspires me to pursue this area of work is Darren Korb, he is an American born composer and music writer, he is the main composer, writer, lyricist and instrumentalist for the songs in both Hades 1 and Hades 2. He has also worked on the games Pyre, Transistor and game creators Supergiant, He is an inspiration to me because he made all the songs for both of these games alone and that in itself makes me want to pursue this as a career as I like working on my own, and to know that it’s entirely possible to make an entire soundtrack alone is truly inspiring.

The second artist that makes me want to pursue this job is American born Bear McCreary, he composed the music for Game of the Year winning God of War (2018) which won multiple awards including best soundtrack and God of War: Ragnarök which also won multiple awards for its music. I’ve chosen Bear as the God of War franchise has such a nice atmosphere for classical music which I am a huge fan of, and that inspires me to make music for games that will require it.

My third and final Game Sound Designer, is American born Jeremy Soule, the composer for Skyrim, one of my favourite games of all time, and was crowned as the SPIKE Game of the Year despite not winning the official GOY, it is filled with iconic sounds in the gaming industry and to work on an action role-playing game is a dream of mine, which is why I chose this for my final example.

 

3: Artefacts for Inclusion

 

Artifact 1 - Audio For Multimedia (SpongeBob clip)

The first artifact I plan to use is my Audio for Multimedia project clip. This artifact will show my ability to recreate entire scenes without the use of original clip sounds for help within a deadline including specific requirements. It will also allow me to show off my extensive knowledge acquired through Audio for Multimedia, Recording and Mixing and finally Synthesis and Sampling modules, to show off my knowledge of sound creation using foley and midi, directing a voice actor and my wide array of skills such as mic placement techniques, and midi skills to create background music. This artifact will also highlight the my confidence and competence to use a DAW such as Ableton and Pro Tools

 

Artifact 2 - Synthesis and Sampling (DAW Track)

I will use my Daw Track Project from the DAW Synthesis & Sampling Assessment as an artefact for my graded unit. This artefact shows my ability to work towards a deadline as well as my ability to create a track while following requirements. This also shows my creative ability and understanding of the DAW when making tracks as well as sound design skills for a career in game sound and design. In this assessment I had to ensure I was using specific types of effects on the track, using a simpler and sampler, using two synth patches made by myself, using automation as well as using midi and recorded aspects. This artefact will also show the skills in which I adapted from this unit, including automation, sampling using a sampler instrument, sound design from creating synth patches made across different types of synthesisers, organisational and file management skills shown by my work ethic, midi skills as I will record midi notes with the midi keyboard as well as drawing them in and using midi sequencing as well as mixing skills with my use of EQ and dynamic effects on the track. In the final mixing stage of the project, I will EQ the samples and instruments used and ensure the level balance is up to a professional standard. 

 

Artifact 3 – Recording and Mixing (Geese Cover)

For my third and final artifact, I will use my Recording Project from the recording & mixing assessment for my graded unit. This shows my ability in recording live sounds, including instruments and vocals as well as working to a timescale, managing studio sessions client communication and mixing, which all ties in well with my dream of being a game sound designer. It will also show my knowledge in mic techniques, as I will be recording in both stereo and mono and using different mic placements for different recordings. The track will also show my knowledge in polar patterns as I will be recording in a number of them. This project will also show my ability in working in a studio as I will be in charge of levelling the gain before recording as well as signal flow and routing of the cables. It also shows my ability to work and collaborate with artists. This will also show my ability to work towards a deadline as well as my ability to use a studio and session arrangement. This will also show my abilities in mixing and mastering as I will level the mix and will be using EQ for creative and corrective intentions, using effects such as compression, delay, reverb, echo as well as using Melodyne for pitch correction, and I will use skills I have obtained from my skills for business module for this project as well, due to having a recording plan.