Sound Designer

The Sound Designer is a professional who is responsible for managing the sound post production department. He first obtains all the sound effects that could be live or recorded for specific film production. The sound designer goes through the script and participates in the initial design planning meetings with the other production team made up of the director, producer, and editor to form a picture of what the director wants to capture in a film. He then breaks down the script into three primary sound effects: the ordinary sound from actions on screen, the surrounding environment effect, and the sound design effects. The sound design is semantically related to the theme and narrative of the film.

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Sound designers make sure the audio feels realistic, they create different ambience tracks in order to make the viewer believe, that what they are hearing and watching, is the original sound from the place. Most audio in a film is added in post production, and sound designers really take the time to build different layers of sounds and textures in order to improve the film in general.

Mixing for films involves automated dialogue clean up, audio analysis, volume changes, equalization to taste and restoration. It depends on the experience of the director, producer, sound designer, and picture editor.

Surround -The first thing to establish in mixing for a film is determining what the director expects as a final output. Low budget films require just a stereo mix, but mid to upper level requires a 5.1 surround mix. These negotiations are discussed in the initial planning stage.

Sample rate and bit depth- The sound designer finds out from the picture editor what sample rate and bit depth is required in the film, whether high or relatively low.

Broadcast standards- There are specific standards that have been put by law concerning mixing sound for film production. They guide the sound designer to arrive at a balanced, smooth sound mix. Alterations can be made from these standards, depending on the client's needs.

Calibration of control rooms- This involves setting volume in a control room to a standard that responds to the dynamic range of mi in a similar way to the target listeners.

The sound designer incorporates all the above functions to ensure successful mixing for films.