Sound Design for the Stage

Gareth Fry

• Publisher: Crowood
• Year: 2019
• ISBN:
  9781785005541
• Topic: Médias et arts de la scène
• Subtopic: Mise en scène théâtrale et scénographie

Sound Design for the Stage is a practical guide to designing, creating and developing the sound for a live performance. Based on the author's extensive industry experience, it takes the reader through the process of creating a show, from first contact to press night, with numerous examples from high-profile productions. Written in a detailed but accessible approach, this comprehensive book offers key insights into a fast-moving industry. Topics covered include: how to analyze a script to develop ideas and concepts; how to discuss your work with a director; telling the emotional story; working with recorded and live music; how to record, create, process and abstract sound; designing for devised work; key aspects of acoustics and vocal intelligibility; the politics of radio mics and vocal foldback; how to design a sound system and, finally, what to do when things go wrong. It will be especially useful for emergent sound designers, directors and technical theatre students. Focusing on the creative and collaborative process between sound designer, director, performer and writer, it is fully illustrated with 114 colour photographs and 33 line artworks. Gareth Fry is an Olivier and Tony award-winning sound designer and an honorary fellow of the Royal Central School of Speech and Drama. It is another title in the new Crowood Theatre Companions series.

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HOW TO BECOME A SOUND DESIGNER

WHAT IS A SOUND DESIGNER?

The job title ‘sound designer’ means different things in different industries. In theatre it is an all-encompassing role, which essentially means you are responsible for all audible aspects of a production. That is, of course, incredibly vague, and deliberately so, because what those ‘aspects’ are varies massively from show to show, depending on the story you’re telling (if there is one), the venue, the budget available, and a huge number of other factors.

It can involve sound effects recording, music production, sound system design, live music reinforcement and amplification, vocal reinforcement and amplification, room acoustics, creating multi-channel sound effects and soundscapes, amongst other things. Each of these is a huge topics in itself, so we’ll touch on them briefly and pragmatically, so we don’t get weighed down by an excess of information.

On some shows you may do only a couple of those elements, on others you may be involved in all of them. Of course, no one is an expert in all those fields. Many of us have specialisms in certain aspects, and we often work with others to bolster any skills gaps we might have. Sound design involves working in a creative team, with directors, writers, designers, performers and musicians, collaborating together to make something hopefully awesome!

One of the lovely aspects about theatre sound design is that often we have complete control of the end-to-end process. That is to say, we control the recording process, the mixing process, the sound system it is played back over, and the venue it is played back in. This is in contrast to, for example, sound design for cinema, where you have control over the recording and mix of the sound design, but you have no control on how good the cinema sound system is, or indeed whether an audience member will hear it in a cinema or through a tiny speaker on their mobile phone.

Theatre is reasonably unique in giving us this end-to-end control, which opens up a lot of creative possibilities. For example, we can, if we want, put lots of sub-bass speakers underneath the audience’s seating. Or we can pan sounds around hundreds of different speakers in the auditorium. The limits tend to come from the architecture, the budget or our imagination!

THE SOUND DESIGNER’S PATH TO EMPLOYMENT

It is difficult to look at becoming a sound designer in terms similar to traditional careers, which may offer formal career paths with structured opportunities for professional development and advancement, and regular hours.

Like many careers in the arts, and increasingly in many industries, there isn’t an official path into it or through it. Everyone is making it up as they go along, and basically it’s up to you. This can be either terrifying or liberating, depending on your perspective. This lack of structure makes many ‘arts’ jobs feel like an insecure choice of career, but many people make a living doing good, interesting work. Like many freelance careers, the early years trying to get a footing can be challenging.

Sound design jobs are very rarely advertised, and this is down to two factors: how sound designers are employed, and how the creative team for a show is assembled. The ‘creative team’ typically refers to the director, the set, costume, lighting, sound and video designers, the composer, the movement director and suchlike. Each person is typically the creative lead for their department, with the director at the top.

For a good part of the twentieth century the sound design for a show was done by a combination of the director, stage manager and a member of the electrics (lighting) department – there simply weren’t sound engineers working in theatre, or anywhere else for that matter. As technology advanced, expectations rose, and the role grew more complex, and so sound departments started to appear. The sound design was created by a member of the sound department, alongside their other duties.

This was quite typical until the mid-1990s: by then, directors increasingly wanted to work with specific sound designers rather than whoever was available in the venue. Many sound designers responded to this by going freelance, and so in-house designers are much less common in the UK and USA now than they used to be. If you are interested in a more complete history, David Collison’s The Sound of Theatre is a great resource.

While in the UK most full-time sound designers are freelance, there are also those who work for a venue and may perform a range of duties as well as sound design. Many people like the variety of different job roles that working in-house brings, and obviously a guaranteed regular wage can suit some people’s personal circumstances more than the variable income typical of freelance employment. In the Appendix you can read an interview with the Royal Court’s Head of Sound, David Mc-Seveney, talking about why he enjoys working this way, amongst other topics. When an in-house person designs a show for their venue they will often, though not always, be paid an extra fee, and someone may be brought in to cover their normal duties if they are not able to do both.

Some other sound designers work for companies, most often sound equipment hire companies, who might offer a complete package: all the sound equipment and all the staff necessary for a show, including the sound designer. These companies may also do dry hire, where they just supply the equipment without staff.

The designer benefits from a guaranteed income, and will be able to specify and budget for equipment from a stock they are very familiar with, plus have the full support of that companies infrastructure at their disposal. You can read an interview in the Appendix with Ian Dickinson, who talks about the benefits of working for Autograph Sound, a UK based company.

Also featured in the Appendix are interviews with Melanie Wilson, a freelance sound designer and composer, and Gareth Owen, who runs his own company, Gareth Owen Sound Ltd, talking about what works and their own experiences of sound design.

The USA is similar to the UK in terms of how sound designers are employed. In Europe, larger arts subsidies means there are more subsidized producing houses, many of which perform shows in repertoire (where two or three different shows might perform in the same theatre space each week). This means that the technical rehearsals for a show are typically much longer because they only happen in the mornings and early afternoons around the performance schedule. The longer duration of creating work is less compatible with a freelance existence, so in-house designers are still common.

ASSEMBLING A CREATIVE TEAM

The way creative teams are assembled is a big factor in why it can be difficult to get work as a sound designer. To explain this, it is necessary to explain briefly how a typical show might be produced.

Typically, an artistic director or a producer (the two people who choose what a theatre or theatre company will perform) will have an idea of a show that they want to put on in a certain slot in their calendar. Maybe that will be a specific play or a piece they have in mind, or an author they have commissioned. Perhaps there is a particular theme they want to explore, or a certain director or choreographer whom they want to come and make a show of their own choosing, or an actor whom they want to star in a show. Maybe they aim to programme a certain number of different types of show in each season.

They might then look for a director to develop and direct that show (though sometimes a director will come to a producer with a play they want to direct). In the dance world, it may be the choreographer who is the creative lead on the project, and it is likely they will do many of the things I shall discuss when referring to the director, going forward from here.

The director will often then develop a concept for that show. They may have creative team members with whom they work regularly, and with whom they want to work again. Or they may have someone new whose work they’ve seen or heard, with whom they’d like to work. Failing that, the producer or venue may have a list of creative team members they’ve worked with before to recommend to the director. Once the director and producer have identified the individuals they’d like to have on the creative team, those designers are contacted by the producer’s staff to see if they are free to work on the show: this is known as the availability checking period.

An availability check may happen long in advance of a show starting rehearsals – for example, an opera availability check might be anywhere between a year to three years before it is due to open. Plays typically are not scheduled as far in advance, so ‘AV’ checks may happen six to nine months before rehearsals begin, though it’s not unusual to get an enquiry just before rehearsals begin. The latter can often happen when the director is closer to the start of the project and identifies more specific needs that perhaps hadn’t been apparent in the planning stages – for instance, they hadn’t been planning to employ a sound designer but now they need one! However, the latter scenario is increasingly rare as sound designers are becoming a standard part of the creative team.

Some theatres and producers run planning – or ‘parameters’ – meetings far in advance of rehearsals beginning, to ascertain what resources, scheduling and budget a show will need. All these timelines can be affected by how the project is funded, and how much or little time there is between funding being confirmed and rehearsals beginning.

An availability check usually comes in the following form: ‘We are planning a show, it will begin rehearsals on … Fit-up will start on … First preview is on … Press night is on …’. Sometimes they may tell you the name of the show, the writer and the director, sometimes not, depending on whether the show has been announced to the public. Availability checks often contain confidential information that isn’t in the public domain, so it is important to keep them confidential.

Sound designers typically work with many different directors, so it’s not uncommon for the director’s first choice to be unavailable, in which case the producers then move on to AV checking another candidate. This is another reason why you might get an availability check close to rehearsals beginning – they’ve spent time going through other candidates before getting to you.

Once a designer has been identified as available, more details of the project will be revealed, and a fee can be negotiated. Some venues may have ‘fixed’ fees, particularly subsidized ones. Some designers may not be able to make the project work for the fee offered, and so the producer will move on again in their search.

This process may vary if the venue concerned has an in-house designer, or if the producer is looking to work with a complete service company. But you will have deduced the following from the above:

•Directors often have sound designers they work with regularly, and bring with them from show to show

•Directors often have people in mind with whom they’d like to try working, based on other work they’ve been to see, or designers they’ve heard about

•Producers often maintain lists of designers to suggest to directors. These may be designers they’ve worked with before, or well-known designers. Equally, they may well have a ‘black list’ of people they’ve had bad experiences with in the past. Black lists are illegal so may not actually exist on paper, but certainly if a producer has had a bad experience with someone previously, they’ll wish to dissuade a director from working with them (without blocking them outright)

Whilst there is much common sense in this method of employing a creative team, it does make the industry difficult to access when you are starting out. It is the typical Catch 22 of employment: you need experience to get work, but you need to get work to gain experience. This is one of the reasons why the industry is not as diverse in terms of gender, class or ethnic background as it should be. The UK theatre industry is predominantly inhabited by white male middle-class people, and so white male middle-class people find it easier to access the industry. This is something that must change, which we’ll discuss later.

In the UK there is a large theatre industry, both in London and across the country. This vibrancy means there are often plenty of jobs to go round, at a variety of pay scales. Producers and directors are often looking for new people to work with, just because they want someone new to work with, or because the usual candidates aren’t available, or won’t/can’t work for the available money. This means that opportunities do open up for those emerging into the industry.

THE SOUND DESIGNER’S BACKGROUND

As I consider the current crop of sound designers, I see a range of people who have come into the industry by a variety of paths:

•Some have trained at drama school, or attended specialist sound courses

•Some have been doing theatre sound for youth groups or amateur dramatic societies since their youth and have moved into professional sound (and to be clear here, I generally define ‘professional’ as meaning that you are earning part of your living from doing it, rather than doing it as a hobby)

•Some have worked in various roles in the theatre sound industry

•Some have moved across from other sound industries, either being trained in, or working in, studio recording, live sound (bands, concerts, church sound), film sound, radio, and so on

•Some have come in from a music background, starting out as a composer or musician, and then gained more interest in the sound world beyond that

Some people have started off with a degree, but many have started out with little or no training and have learned everything on the job. Many prefer to play with the technology and see what it can do. Some people even read the manuals. All of these paths are equally valid.

Beyond their backgrounds, some designers have then specialized in certain types of work. Those specialisms might be certain types of musicals, plays, dance, opera, devised work, site-specific work, and so on. This diversity of backgrounds and specialisms means that individual designers are often sought out for specific projects – it is what makes them stand out from the crowd. Of course, what makes you more employable in one sector can make you less employable in another, and designers can become ‘typecast’, based on their body of work.

WHAT DO EMPLOYERS LOOK FOR IN A SOUND DESIGNER?

It’s important to know what your potential employers want from you, namely the director, and the producer and the production manager.

The Director

For the director you occupy two roles, one as the sound designer, and one as a creative team member. It’s easy to concentrate on the former (covered in detail later) and forget about the latter, so we’ll consider that now.

You are there to be on the director’s side, to bounce ideas around – not just sound, but more generally, whether this or that scene is working, or not, and why. You have a responsibility to support them creating the show, and to do this you have to look at the show from the director’s point of v...