| "Perhaps one indication that an academic discipline
has come of age is its international presence. I can’t pretend to
have comprehensive knowledge of the field, but can report that there seems
to be particular interest in sound design in Australia and Scandinavia.
In both regions, the interest also involves a redefinition of the field
that expands the areas of research. The internet is creating an international
community of scholars by making the exchange of information much easier.
I particularly recommend the extensive "Film Sound Theory" website published
in Swedish and English at http://filmsound.studienet.org.
Many of the recent articles on film sound design may be downloaded from
the site or its links, and earlier writings on the subject are being added
as of Spring 1999. The site is created and maintained by Swedish
Professor Sven E. Carlsson, whose interests include music video,
media pedagogy, and film sound theory. It is a mark of both internationalism
and close-connection between scholars and practitioners that Professor
Carlsson is planning to teach a course based on the writings of Randy Thom,
whose work can also be found on links at Carlsson’s site. The course,
"Narrative SFX," will be taught as distance education for professionals
starting out in the European film industry.
Although he has only published so far in Norwegian,
we can expect that Arnt Maaso, a Research Fellow at the University of Oslo,
will eventually be translated as he continues his work on sound design
in television, among other topics. Maaso co-edited a special
issue of the Norwegian Journal of Media Studies, no. 1, 1998 on "Sound
in the Media." Summaries in English of his article and those
of several of his colleagues can be found on Arnte’s Sound Site, which
can be reached through Carlsson’s address or directly at
www.media.uio.no/personer/arntm/english.html.
Maaso also informs me that a special issue on film sound in the Finnish
Journal Lähikuva no. 3, 1995 was published in English.
In Denmark, Birger Langkjaer has written about sound design in English
and in Danish. His book that discusses voices, music, and sound design
within a historical perspective has not been translated. However,
in 1997 he published in a British journal an article entitled "Spatial
Perception and Technologies of Cinema Sound," which he tells me is on sound
design."
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