What is a sound designer? This is a very vague question. It is vague because there are many people in the audio field that fancy themselves a sound designer. It all boils down to a delicate balance of science and artistry. No doubt, a sound designer is an artist. For this essay, (and in keeping with the class work), I have decided to look at the people who design sound for film or video.
There are a few responsibilities that fall under the category of sound design; -sound effects mixers, foley artists, ADR (automatic dialogue replacement) editors, -sound mixers. I will now try to expand a little on each of their jobs, in order to shed a little light on Sound Design.
Sound effects mixers: Sound effects can be one of the most important parts of the movie. Aside from the actual pictures and stars, sound is what keeps you interested in the movie. As the sounds become more and more real, the viewer sinks further and further into an alternate reality. If the sound is poor, it becomes too much of a distraction to the audience and can ruin the film.
SFX mixers and recorders realize this. There are hundreds of sound effects collections available to the sfx mixers. The sounds are catalogued and stored for easy access for the mixers. Every sfx mixer has an extensive collection of these sounds. When a certain sound is needed they just turn to the collection.
This is just a general assumption. Many of the best professionals hate using these collections because the feel that they are just recycling "canned" sound.
The good sound effects mixers go out and collect their own sound effects. They want a sound that is as true to the real thing as possible. And the closest to the real thing is the real thing. ...