Prospective Recording Arts Student

AProudHufflepuff·1/20/2015, 4:11:27 AM·1 votes·1,855 views

Hello. I am in my final years of high school, and I have been looking into some colleges. My top choice is Full Sail University, and I actually just came home from a tour of the campus and the surrounding town. I've fallen in love with it. I'm incredibly interested in Recording Arts and sound design for film, and especially for games. I know that there are at least a few Full Sail graduates who actually work on League of Legends, at least one of whom is something to do with the sound design. I was just wondering if anyone that knows about this kind of thing has any advice for me as I enter this field, or if it would be at all possible to get in touch with someone who is actually currently doing a job similar to what I have described. Thank you for your time, and if you have any important information, I really appreciate your help (in advance.)

2 Comments

RiotN0TAR2/3/2015, 3:57:08 AM1 votes

Hey AProudHufflepuff,

That's great that you're interested in sound design! The sound designer's path can a difficult one, but incredibly rewarding if you love audio. We actually do not have any Full Sail grads on our audio team, but amazing sound designers (such as David Farmer) have come from there. Another school you might want to look at is Berklee (where I attended), as they have a program specific to sound design and game audio.

Currently I work as an associate sound designer on the skins team, so if you ever have any sound design questions, lay em on me! I'm not sure how much experience you have with this but, a great way to start is to grab a video from a game, a movie, trailer, etc. and remove all of the audio. You'll be left with a video with no music, sound effects, dialogue... NOTHIN! It'll be intimidating at first, but to quote Walt Disney, "The way to get started is to quit talking and begin doing".

Once you've finished all of the sound work, I think you'll find that you've gained an insane amount of knowledge and skill. This will come in handy when you take your first professional project. If you take on this challenge, feel free to post up your work for any feedback!

Always be comparing your work to others. I'm sure you have a bunch of games and films that are constantly inspiring you. Draw from this inspiration. When you finish working, no one should every question that this was a student project. in fact, if you do a killer job, the average person won't notice all the hard work you did! They'll be lost in the story and universe that you've helped bring to life through audio.

Riot N0TAR