5: Happy Halloween!
Happy Halloween, everyone! I hope you're all having fun getting spoopy (or - having a relaxing Saturday, if Halloween's not your thing). I'm spending the day with my partner - watching Halloween-themed movies, playing Luigi's Mansion 3, and getting cozy with some Korean soft tofu soup!
No big news this month - I'll talk more about why later - but I've got a few small items to share!
Ta-dah! My first sound design reel!
After about a year of really diving in to sound design, learning different tools and techniques, and constantly practicing and improving, I finally have a reel! It's really just the start, and I'm going to continue working on new things to add, but it feels like I've hit a huge milestone.
Isabella and Juan had huge hands in helping me put this together. My reel actually originally consisted of just two clips - the FFXV and Mei redesigns - to portray my desire to work on fantasy and magic sounds, and interest in AAA work. But Isabella and Juan ended up recommending the other pieces. Their reasoning for their advice: That there's so much more personality in something that you worked on because it resonated with you, not just because it fits an expectation of what you "should" be working on, and that matters even more than showing what you want to work on.
As someone who's been binging a lot of Power Up Audio's Reel Talk lately for their solid reel advice, as well as gathering any reel-making guidance I could, this was a really new and interesting take. I think it's super freeing, though, and I'm definitely very happy I followed it. I feel like my heart and my capabilities come out even more with this reel, and I'm so proud of that.
Unveiling - website update!
I promised last month that I'd be showing an update in the appearance of my website and - here it is!!
I've changed the template, updated text here and there as well as the reel and various portfolio pieces, but the most obvious change is, of course, the color. (Color!!!) I'd been yearning for a long time to inject a lot of color into my site and make it peach (my favorite!) because that felt like it would represent me better than the minimalist, white-background design, but I did hesitate because minimalism is so classic and clean. I'm glad I made the change though - it feels like me!!
Going forward, I'm going to be focusing on better defining the branding - logo, end-cards for reels/videos, font choices. I also want to re-work the layout still (I'd love to do a computer desktop GUI, something like this design from Daphne Di!) and add cute UI sounds (similar to A Shell in the Pit and Aaron Ransley). These changes will take some time, but I'll be sure to update again when items are implemented.
Goal for November: Life balance
August, September, and early October were a bit grueling for me. Quitting my old day job, starting a new one, pushing forward on several portfolio pieces, and still trying to fit in whatever socializing and down time and self admin and family care I could manage - I was trying so hard to have it all that I spent many weeks getting 3-4 hours of sleep a night, and going to bed at 3 or 4 in the morning. This wasn't (and isn't) sustainable, and it was taking its toll, but I didn't want to slow down for fear of losing momentum.
After the first week of October, when I released my first reel, I forced myself to take a break. And by forced, I mean - I started to get sick and I really did have to slow down because I couldn't work or really do anything anymore. (That's why I don't have any big news or pieces to share this month!) I spent most of October getting sleep again and going to bed at a reasonable hour - still a WIP, but at least I'm back to 6-7 hours again - and letting myself rest after finishing up my shift with my day job, only working on emails/applications and very light sound design.
I'm ready to kick off November with a bang and dive back in to portfolio work, but I'm going to make it my goal to work on developing a better life balance. I love being able to manage everything, but I'd also like to not be tired all the time! If that means that I need to schedule my sound design time and free time to make sure I don't stay up till 3am to fit both into my day, then that's what I'm gonna do. I'm still figuring out what will work for me in order to make this possible, so if you have any tips or methods that work for you, I'd love to hear them!
Other little updates
- At the beginning of October, I participated in the Wholesome Jam with Joe, Risky, and Manuel! We made a super cute pastel game based on the popular children toy Simon, and I wrote up a breakdown of the sound design on Twitter. You can play the game here!
- I also participated in Ludum Dare 47, a biannual game jam that thousands of game devs participate in! LD was actually the same weekend as the Wholesome Jam - 0/10 would not recommend doing two jams at once, it's stressful as heck and not fun at all. I'm not super proud of the work that I did, but I guess it was good enough for our players because our audio (sound design + music + voice acting) received 22nd place out of over 3,000 submissions. Pretty wild!
- Towards the end of 2019, I contributed to the Pixel Mixers FFVII Remake cover album as a recording musician on two tracks. In September, it finally released! (Yes, I'm late. I wasn't actually aware of the release until I got tagged on Twitter by one of the composers I worked with hahaha.) You can listen to the album here! I'm on "Tifa's Theme" and "Anxious Heart" :)
- This month, I attended Game Sound Con, Game Audio LA's Micro Talks, and Juliet Rascon's talk on foley with Game Audio Boston! Tons of great insights, but I have to admit that I was a bit disappointed with some of Game Sound Con's offerings. More on that another time.
- I've started getting back into KPOP again, hehe!!
- Media consumption: Genshin Impact, Hades, Spellbreak, Ikenfell, Part Time UFO, Super Crush KO, Starcrossed, Nice to Meet You, Final Fantasy Advent Children, Clueless, KC Undercover, Strong Girl Do Bong Soon, Julie and the Phantoms
& That's all for now! Thanks so much for reading, and be well!
Stay spoopy,
Amerlyn