How the sound of “nothing” can say everything.
Every Frame A Painting explores how powerful a storytelling tool the “lack” of sound in a film’s sound design can be, in this look at Martin Scorsese – The Art of Silence:
Silence is as important as, if not more important than, any other sound in a film – in a longer-form installment of her video essay series, Candice Drouet shows us just how much there is to hear when there’s “nothing” to hear in film:
Try It Yourself
Room Tone and Ambient Sound – Film Editing Pro demonstrates Cutting Smoother Dialogue with Room Tone & Ambiance – even if you didn’t manage to record silence on set or location:
Stressing their importance, editor Mark Holtze demonstrates how he begins dialogue editing by first constructing a bed of room tone (“to give the illusion of continuity”), and then using ambient sound (“to add to the story”):
Environmental Sound – Peter McKinnon demonstrates how to world-build using self-recorded environmental sounds (demo begins around 2:57):
Further Viewing
A roundup of video essays about sound design in feature films:
Related Posts:
Audio School: Loudness, Normalized How to manage the loudness of the audio in your video project.
Audio School: Loudness, Explained How to understand, measure, and even out the sound in your video project.
Film School: Dialogue Audio Editing A step-by-step guide to improving the sound of voices in your film.
Audio School: Sound Design: Anime & Games Where the sounds that create worlds can come from.
Audio School: Recreate Environmental Sounds Using Synthesis A master class in how everything we hear is made of soundwaves - and how you can modify them to echo the world.
Film School: Mixing Audio in Premiere Pro A roundup of tutorials on improving the sound in your video editing.
Film School: Sound Design Film students should ask: "What do your ears see?"
Film School: The Insert Shot The dramatic peak of a dialogue scene is often a close-up... of an object.