Today we’d like to introduce you to Mark Otim.
Hi Mark, thanks for sharing your story with us. To start, maybe you can tell our readers some of your backstory.
I’m a sound designer who came from Uganda to the States to study about four years ago, throughout my time at the Savannah College of Art and Design, I learned so many incredible things that allowed me to pursue my dream of becoming the best possible sound designer I can be. I had originally started my degree as a major in film and television but as soon as I took my first sound design class, I fell so deeply in love with it I switched my major the very next day; after I started the class, I threw myself into the deep end and figured it out from there. All my teachers were super supportive of what I wanted to do and who I wanted to be in the industry and they pushed me towards that goal in full force my sound for video game professor Matthew Akers directed me on the path of sound design for AR/VR and video games. I was able to land an incredible internship working for Xbox and that is where I met my other mentor Nick Wiswell. I learned what it meant to be in the video game industry as a sound designer and the amount of work it takes to be good at it. Once I came back to SCAD, I had my professor Robin Beauchamp who pushed me to become a mixer and a mix Tech and he also made it possible for me to receive my Dolby Atmos certification. I became the 19th person in the world to have the certification in the newest version of the software. All these things led me to be the person I am today and as I’m graduating college with a lot of uncertainty, I’m excited for what comes next.
We all face challenges, but looking back would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?
This path that I had taken of sound design was not the smoothest, to say the least, I had struggled and spent so many sleepless nights running off straight caffeine and stress in order to get all my work done on time and sounding fantastic and as I’m graduating during the most stressful time for the whole film industry (because all the writers are on strike), there is a shortage of work which has led me to be wary of what comes next but I’ve been in talk with a couple of studios and a couple of my graduated seniors who are helping guide me through to find my big break.
As you know, we’re big fans of you and your work. For our readers who might not be as familiar what can you tell them about what you do?
I graduated with a bachelor’s and sound design and the main focus of my practice was geared towards creating immersive audio experiences, I achieved this by learning implementation for video games, surround sound formats for film and music including Dolby Atmos, and my sound effects editing. I would say that my two biggest focuses throughout my creative career have been mixing in Atmos and sound effects editing which I hope to bring to the big screen and to music. I’d say that the works that I am most proud of are the projects of my senior year at SCAD and the 10-Year Anniversary trailer for Forza Horizon that I worked on while I was interning at Turn 10 Studios.
Do you have recommendations for books, apps, blogs, etc?
A lot of my knowledge and feel that sound design came from my professors who have been an abundant resource of knowledge. They made me study and practice extremely different aspects of sound design. Another great resource for me was YouTube. I would go on YouTube every other day looking for ways of cleaning up my mix and understanding how music theory works and applying music theory to my sound effects editing in order to create a sound design that flows elegantly with the music; a couple of great channels that I would always recommend would be, The Venus Theory, and In The Mix. I also think listening to music and watching media with great sound design are incredible ways of studying and giving me some awesome ideas and how I work for example most recently Metro Boomin came out with an album trailer that had a comic sequence which I had studied and referenced while working on my first 27 min pilot for a TV show.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.markotimsound.com/
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mark-otim-3800b7155/
Image Credits
Event Images by Ryan Orebaugh
