To create compelling soundscapes, it’s essential to understand professional techniques. Even if you don’t have a similarly large budget, you can still step up your sound game. Here's how:

During shooting, the director prioritizes visuals, but once things move to post-production, sound is critical. If quality sound hasn’t been captured during shooting, a great deal of time – and money – will be lost in post-production trying to rectify it. At that point, creators will have to use automatic dialogue replacement (ADR) by rerecording the dialogue and sounds, or hire professionals to fix the tracks. However, that’s not always easy to do. Sounds can sometimes be overly compressed or plain noisy. 

So, what can creators do to ensure their sound is top-notch? First, it’s essential to buy professional-grade equipment and use professional people. That way, the chances of having to make major changes in post-production are reduced. And when it comes to post-production, too many people with online content believe it’s easy to fix a noisy track. While there are fancy studios today that can do a lot of things, it requires a lot of knowledge, experience and skill. 

To ensure hiring is spot-on, there are ways to vet a sound professional. The first is by watching their reels. Do they fit in with the creator’s vision? If a reel shows an ability to create clear, loud noises, dramatic gunshot firing or a grand cinematic scope, they might not be the right person for a sitcom. In those instances, you need someone who is good at cutting dialogue and mixing. Creators shouldn’t be afraid to ask questions directly. 

“Sound design requires a delicate balance between effects and music. While the effects will provide the detail, music sets the emotional tone, providing rich texture in both documentary and feature productions.”

Once a sound editor has been chosen, it’s important to ensure they can work with the video editor. Everyone in a studio has an ego; everyone wants their own work to shine. The only way a collaboration between a video and a sound editor can function is if everyone is fixed on the goal of the project. As the most critical challenges tend to arise in post-production, ask how they have solved problems in the past. 

One way to head off conflict is to create checklists with bullet points and technical specifications. This allows both parties to follow the checklists, a kind of guideline. Another way is to follow an email chain for everything that needs to be done. By not leaving anything to chance, both the video and sound editor are clear on what’s needed. Then, if there are any conflicts, questions can be handled by the director or the producer. 

Sound design requires a delicate balance between effects and music. While the effects will provide the detail, music sets the emotional tone, providing rich texture in both documentary and feature productions.

Collaboration - a meeting of minds - between the post-production sound crew, the composer, and the editor, director and producer is essential in the melding of effects and sound. Music tempo, beat, structure are all considered to assure background music tracks complement the accompanying visuals and spoken word add meaningful effects to the overall production. Processing and combining dialogue, music and sound effects are a delicate and sometimes tedious process, but no less important to the overall theme meant to be delivered.

To this end, a structured timeline is an essential element in the workflow of a  successful sound production. There should be no guesswork. A constant flow, a give and take, is an essential element in strengthening the work for the most powerful audience impact.

No question, the sound track post-production process is often tense as a result of tightly structured deadlines. On the surface it may appear the system requires over the shoulder direction, but, in fact, quite the opposite is true. Once the post-production sound team reaches an understanding about the needs and desires of the producer and director, much of the process can be conducted through check lists and email chains. As detail work comes to a close, however, an in-person session is a natural necessity.

Hollywood has always understood that without excellent sound, you can lose an audience. Don’t let it happen to you. 

Great Hollywood sound first hit theaters in 1977 with the release of George Lucas’ “Stars Wars,” which was screened with Skywalker Sound by Lucasfilm. Over the past five years, critical advances in sound design have also been made with Dolby Atmos’ object-based audio and powerful surround sound.  

Advances in sound design have created thrilling productions that resonate deeply with audiences. “Top Gun: Maverick,” released in 2022, was a huge hit, in part because its sound felt so real. The movie won an Oscar for best sound design. 

Today’s content creators – even if on a smaller scale – should take a leaf out of Hollywood’s book by placing sound design at the top of their list, employing the right people and using the newest technology. Impactful, layered and thoughtful soundscapes are critical to a production’s success.

DAVID ZANG is the owner of AsparTateSounds in Los Angeles. He is an award-winning re-recording mixer, a sound editor, and a location sound mixer. Feel free to reach out to David on his website, www.aspartaterecords.com

After some long and painful fights, the issue of A.I. — at least for actors and writers — has been resolved. For the rest of us in Hollywood, however, the unpacking of A.I. has only just begun. Navigating the future of the sound design industry will depend on engineers and editors understanding how to maximize the capability and productivity of A.I. tools. 

While filmmaking and production were shut down for most of the year by the long and painful strike, the industry of Hollywood has continued to churn. Though the “Barbenheimer” craze over the summer cushioned the economic blow for some studios, the last six months have seen major Hollywood studios bend over backward to improve profitability. 

Studios direct-to-consumer offerings — streamers — have borne the brunt of these efforts; in this grand experimentation, everything from storytelling structure to pricing models have been on the table. Streamers have merged, shifted, and cut entire projects in an attempt to impress investors with their bottom line. 

It’s a reasonable concern, then, that having failed with the actors and writers, other, less powerful and more technical groups — such as sound engineering — may be on the line for A.I. replacement and the presumed associated cost savings. And it’s not necessarily a wild leap: it’s inevitable that A.I. will, as with other industries, dramatically shift what the workflow for sound engineers will look like.

Sound engineers looking to forge their future not only during these tumultuous times in Hollywood, but also in the “civilian” sector, need to be smart about how they deploy A.I. There are already tools available that can help us speed up our processes and projects. Two good examples:

• Sound cataloging and library management: Finding a specific sound in a sound library can be an incredibly time intensive process. I know that my own library is made up of over two terabytes of various sounds, and digging through it to find a specific one can take hours. There are A.I. tools on the market that can not only uncover a sound, but also generate timestamps inside each audio clip.

• Audio description mixing: Mixing for audio description can be a rote process. Clients have specifications they want met, and save for a bit of artistry, the process is fairly straightforward. A program’s audio needs to drop at a certain point before the narratives begin, and resume shortly after it ends. A.I. can automate the process, doing an effective first draft of the work, creating time for the engineer to check and fix any mixing issues after the first rendering. 

As in other industries, these tools offer methods of speeding up delivery and service, and will eventually become the standard practice. As cost savings continue to be a major priority for studios, expect to see A.I. technologies implemented to a greater and greater extent. 

But will sound engineers face an existential crisis as a result of A.I.? 

Yes — and no. 

As the more basic tasks of sound design — such as sound effects cataloging and audio description mixing — are outsourced to A.I. tools, other novice positions, like interns and PA roles, will likely dry up. If companies can find cost savings by using technology, they will, and the impact will likely be fewer roles for individuals just getting started and learning the business. 

At the same time, sound design — like many other post-production positions — is both an art and a science. The best among us have the technical skills needed to create a cohesive soundscape, while also having the artful ear that can create a character out of the audio. Part of being a sound designer is having the ability to translate a director’s vision into a rich and immersive sound experience. 

In an industry that runs on connections and creativity, removing the position of sound engineer likely won’t happen, especially at the highest levels. Certainly, the lower tier and newer streaming services — those who are just creating content for content’s sake — may turn to some emerging A.I. tools to churn out fast, good enough sound designs that simply gets the job done. As TikTok and TikTok-like mini productions grow in popularity, rapid turnaround will be prioritized over quality. 

But there will continue to be a happy medium for sound design and engineering. Work in this industry long enough, and you know that relationships are everything. Directors are on the lookout for partners who have the emotional sensibility and creativity to translate their vision, add to it, and produce something even better. 

The Oscar-winning directors of the world aren’t likely to give up that relationship soon, attached as they are to the individuals who help to drive the creative process alongside them. Similarly, independent artists and filmmakers, who are driven by creativity and passion, aren’t likely to pursue ease over art. 

Soft skills will still win the day for sound designers, but smart studios can, and will, start bracing themselves for an A.I.-driven future. 

DAVID ZANG is the owner of AsparTateSounds in Los Angeles. He is an award-winning re-recording mixer, a sound editor, and a location sound mixer. Feel free to reach out to David on his website, www.aspartaterecords.com