12: Musings about the future
Howdy, everyone!! It's been a few months since I've written, but I hope you've all been doing well and having a good summer. I miss my family and friends back home a ton, but I absolutely love the summers in Pittsburgh - all the greenery everywhere, the warm rainy days, the humidity, even the cicadas!
Of course, with the end of August comes the end of summer, but that just means fall and winter are just around the corner, which is very exciting. I'm not entirely sure what's in store for me, but I'm looking forward to it!
Work has been winding down a bit - though I've still been pretty busy with work at Schell and freelance work, and I also moved apartments earlier this month - and lately, I've had more time to think about what I want for the future: how I want to grow, where I want my career to go, where I want to live. There's unfortunately no easy answer to any of those questions. In some ways that's exciting, but in other ways it's a little bit overwhelming and disheartening - there's quite a few pieces that are just outside of my control, which makes it really hard to have faith that things will turn out the way I'm hoping. I guess all I can do is set my sights on a path and try to navigate it, and stay adaptable to wherever life takes me.
In any case, here's what's been on my mind, and what I'm hoping that journey would look like!
- I think I'd eventually like to move again. Pittsburgh is a lovely city, and I do love living here, but I miss feeling like I have a community that I belong to. To be totally fair, that might just be me feeling lonely in a new place - I had started to feel like this place was home until many of the friends I'd made here started moving away - but it just feels like something is missing, and I haven't been able to picture myself settling down here. Where that next place is though, I'm not sure yet. I have a few places in mind (Philadelphia, Chicago, Montreal - to name a few) but would also love to be closer to home so I can visit more often than twice a year.
- I think I'll eventually be looking to leave Schell and move on to work at another (hopefully non VR) studio. I'm actually not too fussed about working for an AAA or indie studio; I just really want to work on some magical/fantasy games, and I'd like to be able to work on projects with audio teams bigger than just one single person. Also, ideally the studio would allow for remote/WFH work! To be totally honest though, I'm lowkey hoping that even if I leave Schell, they'll let me stay on part-time/contract - I love working with the people here, and the projects we get are always really interesting and unique.
- This is kind of connected to the last point, but I'm hoping to grow in my creative sound design chops (love implementing, but I don't think I ever want to work on a project where I'm only implementing) and eventually make my way to becoming an audio lead on a project. I guess I'm actually somewhat there already - even though I didn't have the title, working on Among Us VR had me wearing all the hats of an audio lead - but I'd love to do that on a bigger scale with an actual audio team. Some of my favorite parts of sound design work are just getting to develop the palette and set the tone for the whole project, so my goals are to continue developing and flexing my creative voice. I don't think I'd mind later becoming an Audio Director, but my fear with that is that I would probably not be doing a lot of designing and implementing, which I'd definitely miss.
Twilight Guardian
With work slowing down and my day-to-day mostly just involving implementation and documentation, I decided to start getting back into personal projects again to keep playing around with sound design! I've just finished the first, which happens to be the “Twilight Guardian” film by Matt Herring that I began practicing with a couple years ago. I wanted to explore some sparkly, anime sounds, so I came back to this film and restarted my work on it, and I'm really excited with what I came up with!! I'll share a bit more about my process and findings in building these sounds in the next newsletter (spoiler alert: didn't use any synthesis?!), but for now, here's the project in its entirety.
Music: ayashi[!] - SUPER FANTASY
Other little updates
- I moved to a new apartment earlier this month! I used to live in a studio apartment and now live in a one-bedroom, and let me tell you - the change is very welcome. I didn't realize that working, sleeping, and chilling in the same room for a year was actually getting to me until I moved and finally had walls to separate all my activities! I do have to pay more, of course, but I've been fully WFH since I moved here (aside from a one-month blip where I was going into the studio for work) and I feel like it's worth it to make sure my living + working space are actually comfortable, rather than draining. I'm excited to share how I've been decorating at some point in the future!
- I learned how to cook Korean soft tofu soup! I haven't yet had it in Pittsburgh - there aren't a lot of Korean restaurants here, and the most of the ones that are here don't actually have soft tofu soup - but I was craving it recently and decided to try to make it. To be totally honest, I've always held off on this because most recipes call for fish stock for the broth and getting a ttukbaegi pot, but I used this recipe and it's SO GOOD. Cravings officially satisfied!
- I visited Philadelphia with Alex in May! This was actually our first time traveling with just each other (not counting his visits to me in Pittsburgh), and it was a lot of fun. I really love it there - it feels so much like Pittsburgh and San Francisco kind of rolled into one, and there's so much to explore! My favorite part of the trip was most definitely the food <3
- Media consumption: Genshin Impact, Overcooked! 2, Bear and Breakfast, Cozy Grove, Outer Wilds, Hacktag, Assemble with Care, Spy X Family, Demon Slayer, Steven Universe, Miss S, Strong Girl Do Bong Soon, Business Proposal, Belle
& That's all for now! Thank you so much for reading, and be well.
Stay cozy,
Amerlyn