I've been a part of my schools theatre community since middle school. I started with acting but evntually joined the crew freshman year. I've built sets and props and hung lights and wires. I even ran cues for our production of The Drowsy Chaperone. Junior year I was asked to create a theoretical sound design and present it in front of a panel of judges at Georgia's Thespian Conference -- or ThesCon. I got a superior at the state level and qualified to compete at the international level along with some other students from my school. I also got a superior there.
ThesCon is a Thespian Conference. Each state will host a conference where any
thespian chapter from that state can attend. They offer workshops and classes
on various subjects related to theatre. Thespians can also compete in an
Individual Event, or an IE. There are many categories of IEs. For example,
you can compete sound design, light design, set design, costume design, or stage
management in technical IEs.
If you're competing a tech IE,
you can either use material from a show you helped design for in the past year
or you can create a theoretical design for a production. This is what I did.
There are two main components of sound design: the sound cues and the
layout of the sound system. The sound designer must plot the location of the
speakers and wires in connection to how they will connect to sound board and rack.
This can be especially difficult because many theatres (especially small ones like
blackboxes) racks are outside of the theatre. A sound designer must also know
how many speakers they wish to use or if they plan on using mics.
Then the sound designer must pick out sound cues. If a sound design is
created properly, the audience won't even notice it's there.
Once all of these materials are completed, they will be compiled into an
artifact binder.
An artifact binder contains all the relvent information about the design.
When presenting, the judges will be given the binder to look through.
A sound design artifact binder will contain a written statement about the design
and any relevent information about the play/musical the design is for.
It will also contain a:
-speaker plot
a visual representation of where all the speakers are located
in the theatre
-block diagram
a visual representation of how the sound board connects
to the speakers
-rack diagram
a visual representation of how the rack connects to the
speaker system
-list of all sound cues
including what # they are, what act and scene
they are in, the purpose of the cue, and how long the cue is
-script
a script of the entire show with cues written in the proper place
-sources
must include and cite any outside sources used in the creation of the design
I worked with my band teacher to create a song for my theoretical production.
It's a jazz lullaby based on the Fairy Lullaby in A Midsummer Night's Dream.
Here's that song: