CMU School of Drama


Wednesday, April 11, 2018

Sound Design: Mark Henry Phillips

Transom: Of course, every sonic choice you make is part of your design, but we're in a new age, abetted by remarkable digital tools, where the whole field of sound design is booming, for better and sometimes for worse. Transom is starting a new series commissioning features from some of the best sound designers in public radio and podcasting.

First up, Mark Henry Phillips (Homecoming, Serial, Radiolab and more) who says, "It's an interesting job: you work hard to layer sound atop sound and if you get it just right, all those layers become invisible. The listener thinks, 'That's just what it sounded like'--if they think about the sound at all. The majority of the work is about being unnoticed."

1 comment:

Rachel Kolb said...

That is why I find sound so interesting and so intriguing, and this article said it. It’s the manipulative power of sound (and like the article said, not in a malicious way). It has the power to effect all of the audience’s senses and heighten the audience’s emotion in ways that some other designs cant, and the best part they don’t even know. This would bother some people I think. All of your hard work and hours upon hours of long work in ProTools goes completely unnoticed, but I think this is the best part. You are making an impact that is so powerful they don’t even realize your influence. The size of sound is something that I also find very interesting that this article talked about. What I mean by this is that in order to make what looks like a couple taking a romantic walk through central park on a windy day. That may seem like a simple thing because the action is small, but in sound, in order to do it right there is so much going on and that is amazing. I don’t know why I find that so fascinating, but it is something that I love.