Down here in Oz we followed, for a long while, the model of sound designer which Randy picturesquely described above as ‘the grand notion’. Having learned my trade through that era (with inspiration from the magnificent tracks of Burtt and Murch and Splett) that is still how I picture what I do if I have to try and hammer myself into a category. These days the Supervising Sound Editor has become the norm here, and that role seems to have absorbed most of what I thought I did (but not all), but it isn’t a title I choose willingly because it just doesn’t seem descriptive of what I think is the most valuable part of my input. In the best of all possible worlds, I design the sound. That doesn’t mean (again cribbing from Randy) just ‘fabricating sound effects’, although that’s part of it, but is more about considering the whole scope of sound in the film and directing that sound to be informative of, and contributive to, the intent of the story. 

On a recent US movie on which I worked (and with which you will be familiar, Tim), the Supervising Sound Editor (a most honourable gentleman) insisted that I share that title with him. I think he was a little bemused that I seemed ambivalent about it, but I know he felt I wouldn’t be awarded due credit under the Hollywood system if I just took the sound designer credit. I am terribly grateful for his generosity but even now I wear that mantle uneasily because I don’t feel like I ‘supervised’ anything, really. I worked with the director and the editor and I just ‘designed’.

Personally, I’d hate to see the term sound designer go exclusively to people who just conjure up sounds. For me it would be a little like equating a carpenter with an architect. Sure, a carpenter can nail together a nice object, but that’s all it is without context: an object. In takes a designer to realise that context. In movies, in particular, that designer has to realise that context in terms of a complex dance of other contexts, and that, I believe, is a great skill.

I would hate to see the Academy drop the sound awards from the main Oscar presentations. That is the situation we now have here with our Australian Academy of Cinema and Television Arts (formerly the Australian Film Institute). As of a few years ago sound was relegated to a separate event – the so-called AACTA ‘craft’ awards. In my opinion it was a demeaning and divisive move, further rending an already-fractured industry, and cementing in the minds of audiences the idea of the film business being divided into what I call the Glamour and the Grunts.  I resigned from the AFI over it.  This idea that sound and editing are simply technical processes is deplorable and it needs no further reinforcing by film councils.

I really don’t mind the idea of the two Oscar categories folded into one, as you suggest. It might even help to focus more attention on the skills and creative talents of the sound department. For the sake of us all elsewhere in the world, you should strongly resist the Academy’s desire to push the sound award onto a technical night, though. In my resignation letter to the AFI I was, at least, able to defend my stance by using Hollywood and the Oscars as an example to follow. If they lost the sound awards, my argument loses its last exemplar. It’s a depressing thing to consider.

I work in this industry with sound on set as sound utility, boom operator and production sound mixer. The latter on smaller shows requiring isolated tracks; but I learned from location sound veterans that taught me to always work hard to mix a mono track that represents each frame captured on film or CF Card. The more opportunity I get to do this the more I understand that you guys in post take what we do on set and make miracles happen. We try very hard on set to give you the best possible tracks to work with because we know you guys have loads of stress and often times short schedules, yet are required every day to create perfection when marrying the location sound tracks with the foley tracks, and the sound FX, and the music, and the etc, etc. It’s a daunting task. The person who performs edits to these tracks and the person who performs the final mix of these tracks should be awarded for their artistry and expertise. It only makes sense for these positions be honored individually. I hope that as I continue to grow in this industry, I can become better at giving you solid, clean, and robust tracks from location. We still are a team, and I like to watch you guys be honored for your hard work.

I think all the jobs that merit creative awards involve “designing” with sound. So, I think all of us who do creative work in sound should call ourselves sound designers, and that on each project there should be supervising sound designers. Some supervising sound designers would be mainly mixers, some mainly editors, and some mainly fabricators of sounds; but in order to be called a supervising sound designer you need to also be in a supervising role. So, having the title “sound designer” wouldn’t qualify you for an award, but the title “supervising sound designer” would.

Randy

I suppose that is where the pretentiousness appears with the term. Every student film, every TV show, nearly everyone working seems to now describe what they are doing as Sound Design, when nothing they are doing has changed from the days when Sound Editing was enough of a description?

None of the categories of awards that are presented on the television broadcast are “technical” awards. Unfortunately people often refer to all the awards except for writing, directing, acting, best film, best documentary, etc. as “technical” awards. Cinematography is not a technical award, neither are editing, visual effects, sound mixing, sound editing, etc. They are awards given for artistic decisions, not for expertise in knob twiddling.

The Academy’s technical awards are engineering awards which go to people who design and manufacture equipment and tools.

Randy

Quite a bit of the opposition to there being one sound award comes from sound editors who remember the time when there was only one sound award, and only mixers were allowed to get it. It was a big breakthrough when sound editors were given their own category, and many of them are very reluctant to give it up. Even if the one award were to go to the same group of people who get it now as two awards…. up to three re-recording mixers, a production mixer, and up to two supervising sound editors… many of the editors still feel like they would be giving up something… recognition of sound editing as a craft.

It’s a complicated issue to say the least.

Randy

I would take issue with calling the award Best Sound Design which I’ll elaborate more on when I write something here (although at this point this thread is getting into it already). Mainly you’d never get the Academy Sound Branch to adopt that term I think, and the mixers would riot :)

If anything in a two awards system the best editing award should be renamed that, as it leans the meaning of the award back towards the creative and does imply technical as much as calling it editing might.