Hello World! Anita Yung is a Canadian Sound Designer based in Toronto and Vancouver. With a passion for animation, Anita is originally a voice actor by trade. After working on the anime series, Black Jack (2017 reboot), and NHK’s WakuWaku Be Ponkickies, Anita would officially transition to audio post-production. Anita now works on post-audio and sound design for film/TV productions, animation and video games. Drawing from her time as talent and production crew, Anita uses her past experiences as the grounding base of all her audio storytelling works.
She can be found at www.anitayung.ca
IG @ anitayung.productions
twitter @anitayung
The episode starts with a shameless plug for Tangela's merch store. She chose a wonderful company in the UK named Teemill.com ; You can find links to it at beatsinabottle.com!
Next up is mouth noises, Izotope plugins, and "on sale" as a marketing tactic. Also, the pros and cons of ProTools v other DAWs. We mention www.reaper.fm
What happens when you google your interview guest, a la the other "Anita Yungs" on the interwebz. Also, Tangela vs the pokemon. What's in a name?
Anita's source of good equipment (a rental store that closed their Toronto location in 2020). Followed by Anita's gear set up she works with at home. a pencil mic by Sennheiser (en-us.sennheiser.com/microphones), Focusrite Scarlett 2i2 (focusrite.com/en/usb-audio-interface/scarlett/scarlett-2i2), Dynaudio monitors (www.dynaudio.com)
Tangela's gear KRK 5's in White (www.krkmusic.com/Studio-Monitors/White-Noise). The importance of a good looking desk and monitors that look good with it. IKEA product in America v Canada, colors available. Green Desk!
Aspiring vs professional, and impostor syndrome. Confidence vs arrogance in job interviews. How does that translate to the live sound scene?
We talk about concerts, mosh pits, an outdoor wintertime EDM festival in Montreal, and polar bear swims.
Anita's history of living in Winnipeg and Vancouver before moving to Toronto.
Anita used to be a voice actress before getting into audio. Tangela asks "How dat work?"
Anita got a degree in Communications. She became fascinated with audio engineering while working in voice acting for animated series. She went back to school for post-production.
Tangela and Anita talk a bit about the experience of being in college as an older than the 18-21 year old crowd.
Anita's favorite project was concurrent with her thesis. During the thesis, she put together a pilot episode for a new animated series and pitched it to some people. She is waiting to hear back on that and has an NDA for it. So no more details.
Anita really enjoys doing foley as much as possible for her projects, avoiding libraries.
Tangela references the previous episode with Alena Lecorchick. The subject of foley art reminds Tangela of the artists Amon Tobin (www.amontobin.com)
Anita credits her synth teacher in college with helping her fully understand a lot of fundamentals, such as eq and compression.
Tangela talks about how live sound is exhilarating and taps into her anxiety in a productive way. She points out that having the fundamentals down is the real key to running live sound. Everything else is bonus.
What are some of Anita's favorite audio tools? She really likes FabFilters for sound design (www.fabfilter.com). Spitfire audio has symphony orchestra samples. (www.spitfireaudio.com/shop/a-z/spitfire-symphony-orchestra/)
Anita has been using webinars to learn more about audio. She attends webinars from outfits like Soundgirls.org
Are conferences helpful for networking and career? That's kind of a yes and no. A significant portion of the people at conferences are there to promote themselves, not so much to actually connect with people. It seems to Anita that the people who are busy with jobs and projects aren't at the conferences. However the conferences are great for learning.
Anita prefers webinars at this point, because the focus is more on learning.
Manufacturers like Sennheiser have started doing webinars too.
The coronavirus lockdowns have helped people to open up the industry to minorities. Anita notes that most professionals in the sound industry are very happy to share their knowledge.
Anita references a Location Sound podcast episode with Judi Lee-Headman (https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/judi-lee-headman-is-production-sound-mixer-based-out/id1400611002?i=1000483183622) where the guest says, in order to know she experienced prejudice, she'd need to experience the other point of view in order to see the difference in difficulty. In other words, it's hard to say if she's experienced any serious prejudice. Anita points out she's lucky to do this work today than it must've been just a few years previous. Cause things are changing. There are advertisements for "BIPOC sound designers" etc. That didn't used to be a thing.
Anita thinks that in any job ever, there's always the potential for a jack ass or a power tripper, or a creeper trying their own Harvey Weinstein bullshit. And any person might experience that. Women, other kinds of minorities, even white men can have bad things happen with terrible people.
What kind of advice would Anita give someone for today's audio landscape?
Don't be afraid to ask questions or ask for what you want. There're plenty of people willing to help. But also, if one person doesn't open a door for you, there'll be someone else who will (metaphorically). Also, Chadwick Boseman's commencement speech at Howard University (www.youtube.com/watch?v=RIHZypMyQ2s)
Finally, keep working at it. If it's meant for you, it will come. Sometimes the hard road is worth doing tho.
How does Anita deal with stress and anxiety?
"That's so hard because ... I have my way, but I definitely don't know like how well it does for me. I over prepare ..." Basically it's a work in progress.
Tangela says if a workplace doesn't allow you the space to be human, "I don't know if that's an employer you wanna work for"
Tangela over prepares with questions for interviews. It's been fun tho, bye!
Reminder: LTA has a Discord server!
As usual you can find Tangela on her website where you can sign up for the Newsletter!