A Day in the Life of a Sound Designer by Gillian Lelchuk

BOOM. KNOCK KNOCK. RING RING.
 
Was that thunder you heard? Is someone at the door? Whose phone was that? Surprise! It was just me, your friendly neighborhood sound designer.
 
Sound designing is, in my unbiased opinion, the most interesting tech position on a show, especially on a shows like The Wake-Up Call and The Actor’s Nightmare. Working on these shows gave me the opportunity to discover great hits like “One Hour of Creepy Doll Music” and “Fifteen Minutes of Whale Sounds.”
 
At any given point, I had between five and fifteen tabs open on my computer, webpages like “Scary knife stab body pull out sound effects” and “How to Imitate Animal Sounds on the Didgeridoo.” I used two different sound programs to cut sounds, slow them down, speed them up, and warp them beyond recognition.
 
Unfortunately, when it came down to it, I didn’t get the chance to use the whale sounds. Sometimes that happens. Not everything makes the cut.