Learn Sound Design For Film
Although I do teach advanced courses in sound design, this article discusses how to start a sound design education. Once you get going, I would recommend hiring a paid professional to help.
You will be a much better designer. I have provided a list of books, training courses and tutorials you can watch on the Internet.
1. Books: Learn by doing
The Learn by Doing book by Peter Cline is a good place to start. It is full of tutorials and illustrations that illustrate how to animate, compose and mix the sound design of the film that you are working on.
A great part of this book is the large sample of dialogues. Since I went to film school, it would be nice to read a book written by someone who went to film school.
Learn by Doing uses both wet sound and dry sound techniques, but a major theme is that effects are secondary to the story you are trying to tell.
If you are looking to make effects more important, then I suggest looking at some books by Richard Quick and Howard E. Jones.
2. Advanced training courses: Learn by doing, wounded rider
The second series of courses from Learn by Doing is called Learn by Doing II: Screen Sound Production, and is much better than the first series.
These courses are full of details and clear examples of every step you need to learn. These are introductory courses to sound design, and do not really deal with how to learn the various techniques. If you are looking for that kind of advice, these classes are a good place to start.
3. Training courses: Animating the sound effects in Final cut pro X and After effects CS5
In each course, you will learn to animate all the sound effects. The first course is available for $10 and the second is available for $19.
I am currently teaching the third course, for $49, which is how much I charge for these.
The Animating the Sound Effects in Final Cut Pro X course takes the knowledge that you learn in the above courses and teaches you how to animate the sounds.
It uses stop motion techniques with different types of shots. After Effects has the traditional effects used in all film-making, but it has a lot of great features that can make your job easier when you are creating effects.
For example, the Final Cut version of After Effects has built in curves and compression, which makes it easy to move the points in 3D space and make the audio just as high quality as the visual.
4. Tutorials: Learn by doing, sound design for Final cut pro X
The Learn by Doing Courses have had dozens of tutorials available online for free for a while.
I am teaching a 5-week class on sound design for Final Cut Pro X that covers all the tutorials and provides a lot of background information on film-making, design and sound design. I hope to eventually add the completed class as a podcast.
Other than being an in-depth course with clear examples, the biggest drawback to the Learn by Doing training courses is that the format is fairly small and only goes through a few examples of a single effect.
The one disadvantage that I would like to see is a lot more examples of the different techniques available.
5. Online training courses: Expert sound
Some of the best online training courses out there are the ones run by Expert Sound. If you are just getting started and want a specific technique to work with, or want to expand your knowledge of one particular tool, then these courses are the way to go.
Check out the High Frequency Transmission and 10 Minute Course if you are looking to build an effects rack for your studio. The 10 Minute Tutorials are great for when you are new to the effects that Expert Sound sells.
These courses are broken up into 5 segments, and run for a few weeks, with a review at the end.
You can find all of these courses on Expert Sound’s YouTube Channel.
6. Tutorials: Design with the FCPX parameters utility and Mastering FCPX by Desmond O
Desmond O also runs his own YouTube Channel. In this series, he is breaking down the FCPX Parameters Utility by going through a variety of effects in the FCPX video category.
The first course covers Warp and Bounce, with a review at the end. The second course is a 10-week introductory course to professional audio effects, covering the fader and effect rack topics, and creating several different effects.
For more in-depth instruction, check out the Advanced Effects and Mastering FCPX by Desmond O series.
This series runs for 10 weeks and covers effects, including filters, compressors and distortion, with a review at the end of each course.
There are some good tutorials out there. Just remember that before you jump into a massive, in-depth tutorial, check if the tutorial is associated with an organization that you have worked with before.
7. The blog posts of the top editing software experts
Over the last few years, I have collected some of the top writing by editors and editing video companies. These are the blog posts I read most often.
If you are a beginning user, or even an advanced user, you should be reading all of these blog posts. I highly recommend reading about workflow, digital audio, surround, color correction, effects, workflow and much more.
If you are an editor, and you really want to hone your skills, you should be reading many of these blogs. Some of the most well respected editors and video companies write these blog posts.
Conclusion
Hopefully this was helpful to some of you. The blog post does not describe all of the best online training courses out there, nor do I claim that I have all of them figured out.
If you have any suggestions, I would love to hear them. Also, if you find any great free online training courses, feel free to leave a link in the comments. I will do my best to check it out!
We hope that some of the above training resources and tutorials have been helpful for you.
If you have your own favorite resources for learning FCPX, video editing, and sound, please share them with the rest of us in the comments below.
We really are interested in getting more knowledgeable.