SoundGirls.org: Audio is a beautiful medium. There are so many things you can do within it, so many different paths your career can take. Sometimes, even if your passion for audio is as strong as it always has been, you can become disillusioned with your chosen discipline. This is what happened to me over the last couple of years.
4 comments:
At this point I am well versed in costumes, and have been introduced to lighting, scenery, and video media. The only design area I haven’t learned about is sound, which has always been interesting to me because of my love of music and composing, although I don’t plan on concentrating in sound design. This article was very engaging and I enjoyed reading about her experience, growth, and journey as she completed her education. I found a lot of what she shared about the reality of freelancing in the industry helpful, and I related to her statement about the cost of drama programs. I think that there are lessons to be learned from her experience in the field, not just for sound designers, but for all designers because of the high probability of us doing freelance work in our careers. I also enjoyed reading about a designer who isn’t based in the US.
Freelancing is incredibly scary, especially in such a niche profession. It is definitely one of the things I’m worried about when looking for jobs after school. But I’m incredibly privileged to be able to live with that uncertainty and I think my passion for what I do makes it possible. If I did not love what I was doing as much as I do, then I would not be okay with putting my future on the line for the chance to continue doing it. It takes time to figure out what you want to do, and the only way is by actually getting out there and doing it. I don’t think the author regrets their time spent in radio production, and it has led them to trying theater sound production. I think whatever path you take is worth it, even if the end goal changes.
Freelancing just seems so scary to me and even thinking about it is so intimidating. I understand the freedom that comes with it and also that it will probably be inevitable because of the industry that I hope to work in but still, all of it is so extremely intimidating to me especially the financial aspect of it. It’s scary to think about how when I join the workforce I will basically be working from gig to gig and it is all dependent on the new shows that are hiring or the connections that I make with other colleagues. Sure, the Carnegie Mellon name will help but I feel like technical theatre doesn’t really have agencies and people to help promote you and your work, you as a designer or production person have to do it for yourself or make it big enough that your name gets passed around and all of that is just super intimidating.
I love her notion that there’s always more to learn in the sound discipline because it’s absolutely true, I feel like a lot of people when they finish their training close off their mind to learning more or just anything new in general. That’s truly stifling to the mind of a designer and theatre technicians to keep up in the industry really do need to keep on learning whenever they can. I’m also glad that she found an education program that fits with her, I know a lot of people prefer going straight into work but I do think technical theater schools provide a good foundation of skills which are important to have in your career in a relatively short amount of time( despite their high costs). However I do think it would be hard for me to go into a stable job to freelance as they are quite different, I worry about me freelancing a lot so I commend her for just jumping straight into it.
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