When we think of making movies, we think of cinematography and what we see that makes up the story and action, but what many viewers don’t realise is in the best movies, what we’re seeing, is only what we’re hearing.
Where the visuals of a film are what we focus on, like the puppet in a puppet show, sound design guides our focus.
While the music sets the creative tone in a movie, the sound can do the same to an extraordinary effect. Secretly telling us who to focus on, how close they are, how they are feeling and even what they are doing, sound design is at its best without us ever noticing it.
YouTuber Nerdwriter1 gives an in-depth analysis of sound and its creative implementation in film, using the Steven Spielberg’s 2005 film Munich, as an exemplary model.