Hello there! It’s been a while since I posted a blog. Starting today, I am dedicating myself to reading for an hour and writing for an hour every day. These blog posts are here for anyone to read, but most will be like a diary of thoughts I can one day compile together into a larger book of information to read. :)
Today I’ll start with something I recently told while I was at Game Sound Conference. In a room full of audio professionals and aspiring sound designers, I gave this advice:
Do the Job that you want to do.
I want to let you in on a secret. This is the key to getting any job that you want to get, in theory. It may sound so obvious on paper, but often we don’t realize it.
I’m a Skin Sound Designer on League of Legends at Riot, so I want to use my job as an example for this section here.
Let’s try a simple activity. Open up a notepad app, and take a moment to write down 10 things that you think a Skin Sound Designer on League of Legends does every day. Let’s give ourselves 2 minutes to do it.
Did you do it? Did you write down 10 things? (Seriously, try it.)
Chances are, you’re blanking on it and having a tough time filling out all 10 things. And even if you did fill them out, you’re not quite sure if some of the things are actually what a Skin Sound Designer would do.
Do you know what you’ll be doing daily at your dream job?
It’s unfair to ask you to know every single detail about what goes on in the life of a skin sound designer. That’s what the onboarding process is for when you’re hired - when you’re taught how things are running and how to do your job.
But what if you, as someone who might be interested in becoming a skin sound designer one day, can research and learn those things ahead of time and already even be doing it? I think it’d tremendously make you stand out and be an excellent reason for any company to want to hire you.
I didn’t realize it when I was preparing my website portfolio. I padded it with as many small game jam projects as possible, going for Quantity over Quality. But I didn’t actually think about what job I wanted to get, or what company I wanted to work in. Had I thought further about which specific company I wanted to be at, what position I wanted to work in, and what that job required me to do, I’d have actually practiced the craft and it’d have helped me get the job that I wanted.
Shotgun vs Sniper
Picture a shooting range with 20 targets that are 50 meters away.
Would you rather use a Shotgun to try to shoot these targets? Maybe you can Hope that one lucky bullet will somehow land on the bullseye of one of these 20 targets. It could possibly happen! But also the chances are extremely low.
I would personally prefer to use a Sniper rifle that has a decent scope that lets me zoom in on a single target that I want to hit. Sure, I wouldn’t be looking at the 19 other targets since I’m focusing all of my attention on one target. But I have a much higher chance of actually hitting my target in the bullseye.
If you were the employer if it came down to choosing between two identical people with the same skills, personality, and work ethic, wouldn’t you want to hire someone who is familiar with your game’s lore, and IP and has been playing your games for quite some time?
From an employer’s perspective, it is much more sensible to hire somebody who has dedicated much more time to researching their company, games, and culture. It shows that they are passionate about the game and won’t jump ship so easily when things are looking rough.
Becoming who you want to be
Imagine in your mind a fit person. Most people will picture a single snapshot of a muscular, toned-bodied person. What most people won’t imagine is the person doing the actual research, eating the right food, sleeping enough, and training their muscles. Working out is a challenge that one commits X times a week to but eventually becomes a habit and a lifestyle that a fit person does daily without a second thought.
Going back to Skin Sound Design as an example. How would you imagine a “Skin Sound Designer on League of Legends”? It is someone who spends time researching the Base sounds, and important gameplay reads for the Champion they work on, creating new thematic material for the theme they’ll be working for (Space Groove? Lunar New Year? PROJECT?), and receiving feedback on their work.
Get yourself into the habit of living and breathing these things. Just like how when working out, you need to be in the right mindset & have a great schedule, you need to put yourself in the actual shoes of that person who’s doing the job.
Whenever you’re working on a cinematic sound redesign project - instead of just covering all the basic moments and calling it done - think about what actual thought process a real cinematic sound designer would have when working on the cinematic. If there’s a cinematic you’re trying to redesign and you see Yasuo fighting, maybe you should try to recreate (not copy) Yasuo’s swords & ult SFX in the cinematic so that the audience who’s watching can recognize Yasuo’s sounds and think “oh that’s Yasuo’s SFX”.
Same thing when working on skin redesigns. If you’re working on a redesign of a Space Groove skin, try to listen to the other Space Groove skins that Riot has already created and make sure that yours are feeling aligned with the others (key signature of the musical elements, magic source, seriousness to name a few) - because when we ship these skins, they all get released as a package together! Below is Space Groove Nasus. He and the other skins in Space Groove are all thematically aligned, not just individually sounding cool. On top of that, he still sounds like Nasus (his heavy cane, important gameplay reads, satisfying Q hits, and more!).
Space Groove Nasus’s Full Kit - Notice this skin line's bubbly, shiny, and, most importantly, groovy musical nature!
Now let’s move it into action. Here’s your assignment for the week! Let’s practice getting your mindset into shaping yourself into who you want to become.
First, write down who you’d REALLY want to become. Write down a dream job that you want to have.
Then, write down 10 things you THINK you would be doing as a professional in the industry who’s actively doing that said job.
Now afterward, reach out to someone in the industry who is currently doing that job, and figure out if those 10 things you wrote down are actually accurate.
Finally, start doing those things on your own. What is the style that this game is in? What kind of mindset do you have to be when working on a certain project? Who would you be working with? What kind of gear do you need? (and do you really need expensive gears?)
I hope this helps you get started and feel like there’s a bit more direction and what approach you should take when preparing your portfolio. If you’re still here, thanks for reading! Please feel free to reach out to me on twitter (if twitter hasn’t burned down by then) and say Hi at @RiotKDan.
~ Daniel K.