In video, perception is everything, and we only have two senses to work with, sight and sound. They’re not binary, they’re not separate. If they were, a sound designer wouldn’t be able to manipulate your ears. The sound of an egg frying is just that, an egg frying, but couple it with an image of liquid splashing in whisky still, it becomes a whisky distillation process.

How sight helps guide sound

For example, you would instantly distinguish the sound of rolling thunder, but attach this sound to an image of a distillery tank, and now we are thinking about an alchemical process, not about bringing an umbrella. As a sound designer, you can use the audience's imagination to help fill in the gaps. Simply guide them with a sound that ‘feels’ right, and the audience wouldn’t even question its validity, this is because a lot of sound design is intuitive - sight helps guide the sound and vice versa.

The consumption of these two senses in a visual medium can allow us to be abstract. Couple it with the right image and we as an audience wouldn’t even question if it’s grounded in reality. Why? Because the two senses are working in harmony. Light passing through barrels doesn't have a sound, but it does carry an imaginative gravitas that we can creatively explore. A light passing could be a low whoosh of bass or a high shimmering glitter. It’s the artist’s choice, and the choice is always informed by the visual.

Sometimes, you don't have the luxury of time on set to record a particular sound and you find yourself in the edit, struggling to mix it all. If you have audio recording equipment, you may engage in foley which is essentially a re-creation of sounds in a studio environment. A common example of this is snapping celery to emulate broken bones. For this project, we used a leather jacket to emulate a hand going into a glove and the sound of falling barley was substituted with rice.

Sound design as a singular experience

Lastly, and most importantly, sound design is more akin to music than anything else. There’s rhythm, melody and cadence. For us to enjoy it, it needs to have a musicality to it, the chaotic assembly of objects, feelings and abstractions should disappear within the audio layers and be a singular experience. Fifteen different audio stems should all work in concert with each other, just like in music; not against each other, as it often is in real life.

Speaking of music, it’s commonly referred to as the language of the soul, and most of the time, storytellers like you and me are trying to elicit emotions, imply themes and communicate messages, whether commercial or artistic. How do we do that? Music is one of the answers. And I’m not talking about orchestral compositions, I’m talking about ambient, atmospheric soundscapes composed of minimal instruments and maximum perceptiveness.

Ambient synths, rumbling drones or an oscillating cello tone comprised of a single note. They’re all evocative sounds that promote the emotion behind a visual, reinforce the aesthetic presence of the project and guide the audience in the appropriate narrative direction.

Understanding sound design and the power of ‘silence’

Ultimately, none of this can be built upon or optimised if you don’t have a foundational understanding of sound design first. Editing is a montage of images, and mixing is a montage of sounds, but what makes it unique is that it’s layered. Take a moment and listen. Some sounds are loud, some are quiet, some sounds are indescribable and others are literally inaudible (to the human ear). In your mixing practice, enhance your visuals with rich sound design that reflects the environment realistically, and one of the ways to do this is room tone.

This is a recording of “silence”, or the natural ambience of a space that is usually captured on location. This is an essential piece of recording needed for cutting dialogue, creating atmosphere and in this example, avoiding digital silence (0 decibels). In professional filmmaking, you won’t find a frame of true black, and similarly, you won’t find a millisecond of digital silence.

In this project, there are a couple of moments of stillness and that presents a challenge for aural immersion because you’re not relying on the actions and objects within the scene. You have to populate the mix with ambience and room tone to maintain this sensory continuity - digital silence would absolutely disrupt this.

With that said, rules are made to be broken, but only after you grasp them. If used correctly, the use of silence can be an incredibly powerful compositional tool that can elicit more emotion than any sound or score, and this comes back to your understanding of music - think about the crescendos in music, it's the same as climaxes in films, and the quiet moments that follow them.

The aforementioned ideas and practices are always informed by a question which takes precedence over anything else - how do we effectively communicate the client's story? This question guides our creative approach and enables us to work with clients without compromising the unique visual language behind each project. Quick tip, this is where those listening skills come into play. Ultimately, this is at the heart of what we do, and we love doing it.

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