An all-round talent: graduate Max Volz
If anyone has made the most of his time at the Akademie Deutsche POP, it's Max Volz from Stuttgart. The 23-year-old POP graduate has taken numerous courses in sound, video and photography, helped with Open Days, tutored and worked as a tutor. For his work in the team, he received a scholarship for the new Game Sound Designer courses, among other things, and crowned his time at the academy. You can read what he has to say about his time at POP in this short interview.
POP: You took a lot of courses at POP. Do you have a favorite?
Max: I would say that the video courses gave me a lot, video is my main thing and I now have a production company myself. But I liked the photography courses best. You could ask the lecturer all sorts of questions and he always had an appropriate anecdote from his professional life, which gave you a lot of insight.
POP: You've already mentioned that you have your own video company. Where does your interest in film come from?
Max: It started quite early on: I used to make vacation videos or funny movies with my brother. At some point, I filmed and edited a musical performance by the choir for my school. When I was 14, I made an election campaign video for a politician from our district. He actually moved to the Bundestag and I was allowed to accompany him for a few days in Berlin to shoot video material. That showed me that I could work in the video industry and that people would like to work with me again.
POP: And that's how you started your own video production company?
Max: Yes, bit by bit, so to speak. At POP, I was able to follow a cool path. If I had studied at a state university, I would have been 100% occupied with my studies and wouldn't have been able to do any projects on the side. So now I was able to gradually build up my company with little pressure and collect clients instead of making a hard cut from 0 to 100 from studying to working. Now I can make a full-time living from my job.
POP: Do you specialize in anything in particular?
Max: I mostly work for different companies and individual clients, so a lot comes together. But I also like to support social projects that I believe in. For example, I once accompanied a nature conservation project or like to support schools that otherwise don't have the budget for a video production or that otherwise simply film with a cell phone camera.
Combining skills: Game Sound Design
POP: Over the years, you have acquired a whole host of different skills in the field of image and sound. What happened next at POP?
Max: I was actually finished, but six months after I graduated I started giving video tutorials at POP. In return, I got a scholarship for the then new Game Sound Design courses, which I was also supposed to evaluate from the perspective of a participant.
POP: What is game sound design?
Max: In a movie with soundtrack, dialog, music and sound effects are precisely linked to a point in time in the movie. Sound effects in PC games, however, have to be interactive and flexible. The user decides when to press where and what kind of sound this triggers. That's why you actually have to prepare different sounds for every eventuality. With music, for example, you have to have different stages that adapt, e.g. during a car chase it has to be more exciting than usual. This in turn depends on many factors such as the choice of instruments and speed.
POP: That sounds almost impossible, how can you prepare for all eventualities?
Max: Fortunately, the randomizer in the Unreal Engine helps us with this. All we have to do is set a few parameters, e.g. variations in sounds, highs and lows or speeds. The engine then generates a randomized variant itself.
POP: What were the highlights of the Game Sound Design courses for you?
Max: It was definitely a lot of fun to take a completely different look at audio and video after all these courses, also in combination. The lecturer really picked you up well and the course was structured in such a way that everyone could get into it easily, regardless of whether you already have experience in the field of games or not.
POP: Who would you recommend the Game Sound Design course to?
Max: Game sound design is a very special niche that is now developing more and more. We also had the opportunity to work with VR glasses and 360-degree cameras to test the games we produced from the user's point of view. That was very exciting, especially as this equipment is being used more and more. The courses are therefore great for anyone who has already done sound courses at POP or comes from this field. You get to think outside the box of music production and see what else is possible. It's an exciting world in which everything is being reinvented and in which you can broaden your horizons as a music producer, video producer or game designer.