University degrees: Postgraduate
Course length: 2 years full-time
Sound design is the emotional heartbeat of a film, TV show or game. At the NFTS we marry together training in the technical skills of sound design with a passion for telling stories through sound.
Sound design is the emotional heartbeat of a film, TV show or game. The soundtrack has the ability to make you feel scared, to be uplifted, to bring you to tears, to build tension and release joy.
At the NFTS we marry together training in the technical skills of sound design with a passion for telling stories through sound.
“I wouldn’t have the confidence of doing what I do today if not for the NFTS. The narrative emphasis in its sound design curriculum was exactly what I needed. Undoubtedly, anyone who wants a career in sound design should go to the NFTS as soon as they can.” Graduate Ting li Lim, Director of Sound at Mocha Chai Laboratories, Singapore’s first Dolby Atmos mixing studio.
Students work in professional-standard facilities and learn all aspects of audio post-production, developing the techniques and creative awareness required to work as professional sound editors, sound designers and dubbing mixers. And they also have the opportunity to use their skills to tell real stories, collaborating with students across a range of disciplines to make films and practical projects, including live action, animation, TV, and video games. All production costs are met by the School.
NFTS sound design graduates have regularly won BAFTAs and other prestigious awards. Our students have won the student section of the Los Angeles based Golden Reel Awards for best sound editing 15 times since 1996.
All NFTS students can attend the School’s masterclasses programme, with recent guests including Martin McDonagh (In Bruges, Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri), Phoebe Waller-Bridge (Fleabag, Killing Eve), Asif Kapadia (Amy, Senna, Diego Maradona), Lynne Ramsay (You Were Never Really Here, We Need to Talk About Kevin), Louis Theroux, and M Night Shyamalan (The Sixth Sense, Glass).
This course is industry recognised by ScreenSkills, the industry-led skills body for the UK’s screen-based industries, and carries the ScreenSkills Select quality-mark which indicates courses best suited to prepare students for a career in the screen industries.
The components of the soundtrack – dialogue, atmospheres, Foleys, ADR, designed FX and music – are explored in detail in our professional standard post-production facilities. With a firm emphasis on storytelling, students develop an aesthetic awareness integrated with technical expertise, encouraging them to be collaborators from an early stage in all productions and throughout the whole post-production process.
The course represents a steady progression beginning with the basic technology and skills that underpin and support the creative process and ending with the responsibility for sound design on a range of graduation projects, including fiction, documentary, animation, science and natural history, TV, and video games. At each stage skills are added through workshops, to provide a comprehensive education that is of great value in understanding and communicating with other industry professionals.
