Last spring, students in the College of Fine Arts taking Theatre and Dance faculty member Phillip Owen’s Sound Design course sat behind computer screens, microphones and electronic instruments, ready to showcase their final project – a recreation of Orson Welles’ The War of the Worlds. Over the 30 minutes that followed, their audience would hear bright piano tunes, ominous music, operatic performances and haunting sound effects paired with dialogue from Welles’ 1938 radio play. We spoke with Phillip Owen and a handful of students from across the college about their experiences working on this project and what it taught them about the art of sound design.
PLEASE NOTE: Interviews took place in the summer of 2023, before the start of the 2023/2024 academic year.
Thank you to Phillip Owen, Jonah Maughan, Dillon James, Juyoung Kim and Demian Chavez Galvan for speaking with us about this project. Audio clips included an original composition by Donghyuk Chung and clips from the Sound Design course’s live performance of The War of the Worlds.
Intro and outro voice over by Dana McLaughlin.
Written by Sydney Pattillo.
