Sound is an integral part of movies. What’s interesting is that our vision and hearing kind of blend into one when it comes to film sounds. If the sound design is good enough, we can almost “see” through sound, because the auditory cues give us an idea of what might be hapening in the visual department.
Sound design components include sound effects or SFX sound design, mixing, Foley sound design, dialogue, and music. Sound design is the final and most important element needed to create an immersive experience for the audience.
Examples of Sound Design:
- Lightsaber: combination of a film projector’s motor hum, TV interference, and waving a mic in front of the speaker to create “swooshing” sabers
- Velociraptor: mixing a dolpin’s shriek with a walrus’ roar to create the raptor’s screech
- Saving Private Ryan — recording period artillery to maximize the authenticity of battle scenes
Oftentimes, Sound Design is a bit overlooked within the film production timeline. Most people who are not in the sound industry would say that visuals are the main part of the movie, but the thing with sound design is that when it’s really good, it’s unnoticeable. But imagine watching a movie with no sound design? It would be quite weird. Only by removing sound completely can we see how much of an important role sound plays in movies.
Sound design can be used in guiding us to focus on the most relevant elements within a movie scene. For example, a movie can be done from a 1st or 3rd person perspective when it comes to sound design. Also tension doesn’t have to be built by growing crescendos- in fact, in “Munich”, Spielberg starts removing sound elements from a scene when building tension, making us focus only on the mail element in the scene, as well as a dynamic range difference once a particular scene reaches a climax. Here is a video explainig Spielberg’s practice in detail, as well as comparing the original sound design with a remake done by this channel:
Sources:
https://www.studiobinder.com/blog/what-is-sound-design-for-film/
