Hi, I’m Michael. This is Lessons from the Screenplay. (monster lands) Sound always plays a particularly important
role in the horror genre, whether it’s a hair-raising score, a terrifying
effect, or just a noise that gives away a character’s
location. (crash) But “A Quiet Place” takes this a step
further, making sound itself a key element of the story. (noise on roof) As writer/director John Krasinski said: “The sound design is a main character in the
movie... The guys designing the sound, Ethan and Erik, they’re the most talented guys in the world. You really got to see the art form of sound
design at the highest level. “Alright. Ethan, take one.” “Hi, I’m Ethan Van der Ryn.” “My name is Erik Aadahl. I’m one of the supervising sound editor-… (together)
…sound designers on ‘A Quiet Place.’" Through my friend, Michael Coleman over at
SoundWorks Collection, I actually had a chance to visit the Warner
Brothers lot and sit down with Ethan and Erik to discuss
the sound design process. So today, I’ll be asking for their input as we look at the ways sound can be used to
affect the emotion of a story… Why thinking about sound during the screenwriting
stage is so important... And how contrast and dynamics can make or
break a film. Let’s take a listen to “A Quiet Place.” In his book, “Screenplay,” Syd Field says
of writing sound into a script... ...almost nothing. He all but dismisses it as something that
will be added after the movie is finished. In fact, most screenwriting material has very
little to say on the subject of sound. So when Scott Beck and Bryan Woods set out
to start writing “A Quiet Place,” they knew they had a challenging and unusual
task ahead of them. In a blog the duo wrote for Indiewire, they
said of the process: “Writing a silent movie isn’t easy. You can’t use dialogue as a crutch. And you can’t bore the reader with blocks
of description… This process forced us to take an unorthodox
approach to screenwriting, in which we threw formatting styles to the
wind.” In a normal screenplay, sound is often just
written plainly in the action lines, or sometimes it may be in all caps. But one glance at the original script for
“A Quiet Place” immediately shows how far Beck and Woods took their experimental
formatting, which includes handwritten words, pictures
of props, and even charts and facts which may be fun
for the reader but are pretty useless to a filmmaker. This screenplay breaks almost all the formatting
rules, but I will admit that the stylized nature
is particularly effective in its representation of sound. Looking at the first two pages, certain words are underlined to draw focus
to the silence of the environment. These underlined words stand out and give
us a clear sense that silence plays an important role in this
family’s life. Similarly, Beck and Woods play with caps,
font size, and word placement to communicate silence, tension, and pacing. In an especially tense moment, as the monster
stands between the father and his family, the script goes so far as to limit each page
to a few words. With each page the font size increases, highlighting
the tension and need for absolute silence. Ethan: “I love it when there’s sound directions
written into the script. I think that it's so important for screenwriters
when they're when they're writing to actually be thinking about what is happening
sonically in the world, because it’s a big part of the storytelling.” In many ways sound is one of the most under-appreciated and under-utilized storytelling tools. Erik: “We experience movies with two senses:
our sight and our hearing. I believe strongly that the hearing part
of it is half of the experience.” We tend not to notice how important sound
is until it’s absent, and it’s precisely because it affects us
in this unconscious way that it is so powerful. Erik: “Walter Murch had this great saying,
he said: ‘Images come in through the front door but
sound comes in through the back door.’ So you can be a lot sneakier with manipulation." (creature sound) Erik: "You can dig into that reptilian part of the human senses and in a way with sound become kind of in
a puppet master of emotions.” When writing, one of the most important goals is to make the audience empathize with your
characters, and the same is true of the the sound design
process. Ethan: “Within every storytelling process
there's going to be moments where we want to experience what the characters
are experiencing in a visceral way and I think sound is really one of the key
tools that we have as filmmakers to help create that experience.” An example of this is found in the original
screenplay for “A Quiet Place.” There is a moment that is written in such
a way that the reader perceives the action from
a single characters perspective because the sound. “Exterior: woods. Path, afternoon. April gets very still. She turns up the volume on her hearing aid. Just faintly, through the high frequency static,
we hear the baby crying in the distance. April stifles her breathing. The sound of something else continues breathing
behind her. Out of focus, just ten feet away, we see it
move slowly towards the sounds.” Writing the moment this way makes the audience
experience the story events through the point of view of the character, and this technique was utilized several times
in the final film. (heartbeat) Erik: “There's a number of different sonic
points of view in the film from the creatures and the family members…” (monster’s perspective of clock ticking) Erik: “One of the central ones for us, design-wise,
was for the daughter Regan played by Millicent Simmonds, who, in real life she’s deaf. And in the film her character is deaf as well. So for a film that is so much about sound, we felt it was really important to right from the beginning sequence put the audience into her shoes and what it's
like to live with a cochlear implant.” (toy beeping) Erik: “So we get these shifts in the sound..." (toy beeping) (sound cuts out) "...that I think helped connect the audience to her character.” (silence) Experiencing the film from the sonic perspective of Regan helps the audience empathize with her character, but it's also the fact that these shifts are
so stark that helps make them so powerful. Erik: “We wanted to do really nice, hard
cuts into it. So you could really feel the shift of contrast
between: 'here’s atmospheric sounds that the other
characters would be hearing, and woosh— now we go into her head and there’s this
sort of low tone going under it.’ ” This underscores the idea that whether you're designing the sound for
a film, or the plot of a film, it's important to remember the need for dynamics. When Beck and Woods began working on “A
Quiet Place,” it didn’t take them long to realize it couldn’t
just be a movie devoid of sound. Scott Beck said of the process, “You had to figure out the pacing, because you couldn’t constantly have silence
permeate the entire film. You had to envision where there might be sound
design moments." But why? Why was that such a crucial part of the development
of the story? Ethan: “Imagine a wavelength, of little
difference between the top amplitude and the lowest amplitude. Everything starts to flatten out, and what that does is it starts to flatten
the experience out for the audience. You start to disengage, and you push back
from the screen, and you push back from the experience.” If every sound in a movie was played at a
loud volume from beginning to end, not only would it be really annoying, it would prevent any particular loud moment
from being impactful. So in “A Quiet Place,” the sound is designed
to be dynamic. Sequences often begin at a low volume, and
increase over time. (yell) What's important to note is that this mirrors
the plot design of these sequences as well. As tension builds, the sound builds... ...until they both reach the climactic breaking
point... (screaming / explosions) But even then, neither the plot or sound stays
at 100% for long… (explosions trail off) as the volume drops low again as the tension
is reset. This dynamic flow can play out not only over
the course of an entire sequence, but within a few moments of a scene. Erik: “My favorite moment there is at the
very end of the film where the two kids are in this pickup truck. Regan's hearing aids starts ‘fritzing’
and she switches it off. Complete digital silence. She's looking at her brother, who's looking
past her, and his face just blossoms into this look
of sheer terror… (crash / snarling) …and that counterpoint—having this incredible
performance, this really intense situation, but just nothing supporting you, sound-wise
it's just… silence. To me, that's like the most terrifying thing
I've ever experienced. So that was really fun.” This is a good reminder that sometimes silence is the best way to create suspense, but after a long period of tension, it's good to give the audience some catharsis
before they're ready for more. (muffled hoot) Erik: “I think the best movies are scripted
with sound in mind. If you can build sound into the into the DNA of your script then you're just gonna have a better movie
every time.” Scott Beck and Bryan Woods’s unconventional
approach to screenwriting may not supplant the decades-old formatting
we’re used to, but it is a good example of what storytellers can do when they appreciate the importance of sound. It can connect us to a character in an emotional
way, making us immediately empathize with their
situation. And just like any element of filmmaking, sound is most effective when it’s utilized
in dynamic ways to create moments of contrast. (clanging) And it underscores the power of dynamics— reminding us that the plot of a film should flow between emotional states, and that the loudest sound can only come from a quiet place. When I sit down to watch a movie, it’s often hard to turn off the analytical
part of my brain and just enjoy it. But when I listen to a story, the emotion bypasses my conscious self and
is often a much more moving experience. Which is why I love listening to Audible. Audible has the largest selection of audiobooks
on the planet, and since I just released a video on No Country
for Old Men, I think its the perfect time to recommend
checking out the book. While the film is fantastic for many reasons, the amazing story all came from Cormac McCarthy’s
book. And you can get the audiobook for No Country
for Old Men for free when you start a thirty-day trial by going
to audible.com/lfts or texting “lfts” to 500500. Once again that’s audible.com/lfts or text
“lfts” to 500500 to start a thirty-day free trial. Thanks to Audible for sponsoring this video. Hey guys, hope you enjoyed the video. I want to say a big thank you to Ethan and
Erik for taking time out of their very busy schedules to talk about the importance of
sound. I also want to thank my friend Michael Coleman
for connecting me with Ethan and Erik. If you want to learn more about sound for
film, you should definitely check out his website, soundworkscollection.com. He has a ton of awesome blog articles, and
an audio podcast, and video profiles— all filled with great information about sound
for film. Thank you, as always to my patrons on Patreon
and supporters here on YouTube for making this channel possible. If you enjoyed the interviews consider supporting
the channel on Patreon so I can do more, and as extra content, I’ll be sharing the
full interview with Ethan and Erik with all my supporters and patrons. Thank you for watching, and I’ll see you
next time.
