A genius way to make a low-budget sci-fi film – and just a good-looking film in general.

“You forgive a bad image if you hear the sound well.”

Before director Gareth Edwards made Star Wars: Rogue One, his debut Monsters led to him getting the gig directing the Godzilla reboot (the one with Walter White, not the Jamiroquai one), but this movie is ten times as good, and many more times as memorable.

The “genius” is how an entire world / context / atmosphere is created with minimal production value (the odd “Infected Zone” sign here, skilful sound design there) and sparing use of CGI (there’s only one scene that really shows off the aliens, made by the director himself), so most of the focus is on the characters and their environment – gorgeously-shot, well-acted.

“Sound in a weird way becomes more important than visuals… you can paint a really big-scale world through what you hear.”

Here’s Gareth Edwards speaking in more detail about “prosumer” equipment, no-budget VFX, and the interesting process of making “Monsters”: