DAY 057 – DESIGNING DANGEROUSLY

Phoning It In

We’ve all done it on a production that didn’t demand much of us. There can be any number of constraints*: the script doesn’t leave much room, the budget is non-existent, the director is controlling or unpleasant. Within the context of education or no/low budget theatre, maybe this isn’t a big deal and we move on. However, when a theatre is compensating you well for your time phoning it in feels corrosive and dishonest.

So what do we do? We have to take the constraints as they truly are. We can’t ignore the limitations, and it won’t serve us well or the production well to live in a fantasy land. However, what we can do, what no one can take away from us, is specificity. To travel more deeply into the environment as it is, accept it, and continue to work. For me as a sound designer, that means spending more time thinking about whether a fade needs to be two seconds longer, whether I need to ride the dynamics (changes in volume) in a piece a little bit more, adjusting the quality of a reverb, tweaking timbre (quality of a sound).

It is a game of inches and it is likely work that no one else will ever acknowledge. However, this is an important and quiet work you are doing for yourself as an artist and technician. This is a shift from operating from a place of poverty to operating from a place of infinite wealth. If we have the will to look closely, we will realize that we have been given everything we need, we have all the raw materials on hand. It is work that you can see value in and recognize, the production will be better for it, and it will nourish you.

*not a comment on my current work–this came out of a response to a class project, fwiw.