Talk:Director of audiography/Archive 1

Existence

The existence or non-existence of the role of DOA and SD in filmmaking is a matter of opinion since these roles only exist under special circumstances. However, there are enough authors and practitioners of filmmaking to support the viewpoint given here. Alternative viewpoints should include those of the Director and Director of Photography, who would probably argue that most sound problems can be fixed in post-production (but at a cost - as the Producer would point out. Egrabczewski

With all due respect to Yewd, the term "Director of Audiography" is absolutely unattested in any professional context, aside from his book, and I advise this article be deleted or merged with Sound Designer, a term that is used. The existence of a Director of Audiography is wishful thinking, and has no relation to professional filmmaking. Iluvcapra 04:12, 23 September 2006 (UTC)

My response is given in the section below on DOA. Egrabczewski (talk) 15:36, 7 May 2009 (UTC)

I'm not sure if this is responsive to the issue; "sound director" is an historical term from before the 1960s (in the US cinema usage), and the reporting chain and relationships dicussed don't really map to what Moulton and Shearer used to do. They were really VPs of sound editing departments. Iluvcapra (talk) 07:28, 14 August 2009 (UTC)

My information comes from the book I've referenced by LoBrutto - see the interview on page 22 with Don Rogers who calls Tom Moulton a "sound director". If you have a deep knowledge of this subject then please share it with me as I would be interested to discuss this subject further. Can you characterise the work of Moulton and Shearer as simply that of sound editing? Shearer was a sound engineer heading an innovative sound department was he not? If you feel that Moulton and Shearer are a class apart from Gordon Sawyer then I'd be interested to hear your views. I take your point that there is a historical difference between the old Studio system heads of department and the project-driven roles in modern filmmaking. This is why I've recently made the distinction in the article between the "sound director" of the old Studio system and the more recent role of DoA/DoS. Nevertheless, there's a lot in common regarding the goals of these two roles which justifies including both descriptions in the same article. Egrabczewski (talk) 23:40, 19 August 2009 (UTC)

Director of audiography (DOA)

The DOA role exists and is credited in Bollywood films like:

• Bachke Rehna Re Baba (2005)
• Yehi Hai Zindagi (1977)

The following article reflects the arguments found in this discussion:

• THE CULTURE­SPECIFIC USE OF SOUND IN INDIA CINEMA.

Yewdall bemoans the loss of the "Sound Director" found in older films. The main issues are therefore:

• 1. Is the Bollywood DOA role equivalent to the powerful SD role described by Yewdall, or does Bollywood just use the credit name to mean something else?
• 2. Is the current Sound Designer's role equivalent to the DOA/Sound Director's role described here and also by Yewdall?

We need to look at the scope of these jobs:

• DOA/Sound Director does the following:
• 1. Is responsible for planning the audiography of the film. This includes planning for dialogue, music, sound effects, sound design and mixing.
• 2. Budget for all these requrements, hence involvement in the preproduction phases of the film.
• 3. Ensuring that all aspects of audio are coordinated with other departments e.g. choreography, photography, art.
• 4. Provide a consistent and wholistic policy to oversee all the audio issues throughout all phases of filmmaking.

• Sound Designer does the following:
• 1. Is responsible for planning the new sound requirements of the film. This involves creating new sounds for the production e.g. dinosaur sounds, spaceship sounds and other new concepts in sound.
• 2. Budget for the new sounds in the film. This can happen at production but is usually in post-production.
• 3. Ensuring the new sounds coordinate with the music and sound effects departments.
• 4. Doubles as a supervising sound editor on some productions.

So to answer the two questions posed above, these roles neither have the same political scope or power in a production, nor do they carry the same responsibilities over the Sound department. To say they are the same would be missing the point made by Yewdall and others. If we propose to make the DOA/Sound Director role equivalent to Sound Designer then there is an even stronger argument for making it equivalent to the Supervising Sound Editor. The main article explains why neither option works.

--Egrabczewski 06:01, 23 November 2006 (UTC)

Original research in image

This image, File:TSM DirectorOfSound 02.pdf, has no references. It appears to be original research which is a violation of WP:NOR. If no references are brought to bear in support of the assertions the image makes, I will nominate it for deletion. Binksternet (talk) 00:08, 8 April 2012 (UTC)

Although no two productions have exactly the same structure, the basic relationships between the crew of a production are outlined in the following books:

• Chapter 13 of The Practical Art of Motion Picture Sound by David Lewis Yewdall, M.P.S.E., Focal Press (1999). This chapter shows diagrams similar to those in this diagram in question for sound crew.
• Figures 2-1, 7-1 and 7-2 of Film Production Management (Second Edition) by Bastian Cleve, Focal Press (2000). These diagrams show similar relationships once again.
• Chapter 4 of Dialogue Editing for Motion Pictures by John Purcell, Focal Press (2007). This explains textually the relationships between members of the Sound Department.

Egrabczewski (talk) 21:28, 10 April 2012 (UTC)