DAY 005 – DESIGNING DANGEROUSLY

Consume Stories

I think avid readers have the potential to make great designers. There are a surprising number of sound designers I’ve met who majored or minored in English (I minored in English Lit, so I’m far from impartial on this subject). What is it about reading and theatre that seem to sync in some way?

I don’t read nearly as much as I used to, but I suspect stories reframe you while you’re young. Hopefully I still benefit from those narratives. I made the arguably poor choice of reading Cormac McCarthy’s The Road while Beth was pregnant with Lucas, and that book messed me up. Check out a synopsis if you want, but I’ll summarize it as a father and son’s post-apocalyptic journey to almost certain death, dogged by cannibals. It disturbed me, but it left a mark on my soul that films do not. There is an ache that differs from film, and I’m trying to sort out why. 

I think it has to do with a difference in investment. Theatre (and books certainly) require a reaching to the story that film doesn’t require. I’m much more likely to identify with characters or draw similarities to people I know in theatre and books. I never find myself saying, “Boy, the way Jack Reacher just responded to that comment was just like my college roommate.” These things ask for our attention, and there is no reward, no release if we don’t offer up our attention. Film is so focused and fixed that you can pop into the end of something perfectly scored and edited and it’ll make you weepy. There’s no way you’re going to get weepy during a play if you’re playing on your phone for the first 90 minutes.