Reflection of Year 2

Moving on from year 1, my ambitions in sound were a bit more foggy. Whereas in year 1, I was quite confident that I wanted to go into sound design for games after the course. In year 2, I experimented more with future ambitions and what I could potentially do, looking into professions that intrigued me or were just interesting. Along with this, I was able to work with MA game students and got to see what sound design for games was like.

Most memorably, in year 2, I put together a sound sculpture in showcased it in Gallery 46. Here, I was able to experiment with being a true sound artist (as I never really dived into this before) and ended up with 3 potential sound sculptures, of which I chose one to exhibit. I really enjoyed doing this; it was completely different from what I normally do. That being said, I couldn’t see myself doing that as a job, mostly due to the lack of work and low income. But, I would love to be able to utilise sound sculptures in another field if possible.

As stated earlier, I got to work on a game as a sound designer and composer for the first time. To summarise my experience, it was mixed. I really enjoyed creating soundtracks for the scenes and thinking about how things sound. But, I also realised that if the devs want a certain sound, you have to fulfil it. I made an acoustic guitar campfire song, which isn’t particularly my thing but was needed for the game. Along with this, the team was quite hard to work with because we didn’t speak the same language. Despite these negatives, I did enjoy the process and feel like with a better team, I would enjoy it more.