Sound in the Filmmaking Process

The use of sound in a film—whether it utilizes atmosphere, specific sounds, silence, or any other sound—is influential in helping to shape the audience’s reaction to the story. And, as a result, everyone on the sound team should be conscious of the film’s meanings. Every filmmaker must think of sound as another element in their arsenal to shape their storytelling.

We have been talking about the sound design as if the only thing that was involved was the choice of sounds. However, none of this means anything until the track is given some shape in the final sound mix. This is the place where all of the sound effects choices are combined with the music choices (which we talked about in the last chapter), and the other sound work to create a seamless whole track that should work with the picture.