Session 1: After covering the syllabus and an overview of the class curriculum, the week will be a mixture of review, for those of you who have had Audio Production in the past, and a few new concepts for everyone. We’ll start with discussing what sound is and how we react to it in our environment. Next we’ll look at the the concepts of recording sound and compare analogue and digital methods.

Reading:
Chapter 1 “Creating the Sound Design Step-by-Step” – Sound Design by Davis Sonnenschein

Resources:
Recording Technology History
Digital Audio Basics
Pro Tools 7 Quick Keys for Macintosh

Session 2: When creating sound design work for moving images forethought and planning go a long way. Start by reading the script and then begin to analyze the text for clues to what sort of explicit sounds are necessary for the piece. Some specific sound elements are obvious and often typed in all caps, but a far greater amount of sound is merely implied and left up to the interpretations of the sound designer. In class today we’ll take a look at the first few scenes from the script for the movie Blade Runner. While reading we will identify possible sounds made by objects, actions, the environment, emotions, and transitions.