Creating Perfection in Post-Production: Controlled Atmospheres

There are a few ways that you can build up tension in an audiovisual project or any film scene: through clever camera work, through intelligent pacing, and probably, and most commonly, through music. Like the music, you can hear many times in Steven Spielberg’s 2005 film ‘Munich’, where the tension can be felt thanks to music and other sonic elements.

We all know that movies have only two ways into our brains: through our eyes and through our ears. But if you ever had the chance to edit a movie or any short film, even a small video, it rapidly becomes obvious and apparent that, when you are watching something, the aforementioned two senses are oddly interconnected. 

The visual side of films gets most of the attention because it is right in front of us, and it is also usually what we remember the most after we watch a film or a video. But in many ways, the visuals are straightforwardly the face of the whole operation, while the audio and sonic elements are actually the puppet master —what really holds the power. 

If you have ever had the chance to watch a scene with and without sonic elements and sound, besides being infinitely better, it is easy to notice how sound truly affects what we see, but most importantly, from what perspective we see it. The point is, in a film, we really so see with our ears. More than we think. And sound actually does not mind that image and visuals get the credit because a key to the power of sound design is its invisibility. If a dialogue sounds close, then we are close to the person who is uttering those lines wherever they are placed in the moving images.

Sound is a really powerful tool for storytelling in giving your film or your project impact, sound and music set your scene, they can complement a character’s emotion and what they are feeling in a particular scene, but also let the audience and viewers know how they should be feeling as well. Deep sinister tones tell us that something scary is about to happen, high violin notes and sharp sounds might suggest tension, whereas more happy melodic piano sounds might convey peace.

Poor sound can ruin an otherwise spectacular production; sound effects are just as important to bring a scene or specific moments to life. If a character were to type on a keyboard, but you’re not hearing those subtle noises that every click of the keyboard makes, then something is just going to feel off or even wrong. 

You can have some of the best-looking visuals, but if you don’t have the music, the sound effects, and sonic elements to bring those visuals to life, your film or audiovisual project is definitely going to suffer.

Sound and atmospheres

Sound design, as you can see, is full of different nuances and styles. In fact, sound design is not a one-size-fits-all set of techniques, and what you can do with sonic elements and music will always vary from one project to another. 

A good way for producers and filmmaking enthusiasts to start editing sound for their productions is by actually going through the whole script whilst envisioning the nature of every scene. Aspects such as background sounds will receive a much clearer connotation as well as the action taking place. This is definitely a good way to start thinking of sound effects and possible atmospheres that could pertain to or enhance a particular scene.

Controlled environments

In most films, the only sound that gets recorded on set on the day of shooting is dialogue, especially if it is in a controlled environment like a closed set. This ensures the purest quality of the talent’s voices which makes mixing much easier than if there were a bunch of background noises to get rid of.

Everything else we hear in films has been added later in post-production, and most people would never notice. Sound designers are responsible for everything the audience will hear over the course of the film with exception to the original music.

Without the proper sound to match the visuals, scenes in films just don’t carry the same weight. Sound designers or foley artists are perhaps the most underrated jobs in cinema because if they are doing their job right, we are not even supposed to notice. 

When done well, we would never be able to tell that those sounds were actually created in a studio and not captured the day of shooting. And it goes further. When it comes to creating sounds that don’t even exist in our world, like a lightsaber, which is essentially the hum of an old TV and a projector combined. That’s the power of sound design: making our ears believe a lie.

*The images used on this post are taken from Pexels.com