We are visual creatures. Gazing at the horizon at sunset, looking for hours at a picture of our loved one, noticing beautiful architectural details in a city that we are visiting are considered quite ordinary activities. But.. what does it happen when it comes to auditive information?

It is strange, for most of us sound is just something that surrounds us in our everyday life but we rarely, if ever, analyse it. Stop for a moment and wherever you are, out of pure enjoyment focus to the rhythmic sound of the hundreds of footsteps on a busy street or to the magic sound of the autumn leaves swirling in the wind and than to notice also all the other many subtle or loud sounds of that specific place where you are.

Well, in reality even though we rarely stop to listen to our surroundings we are quite good at perceiving sound. After all hearing is one of the first senses we grasp after we are born and it is tightly linked with identifying and processing emotions. If we think about it, especially when it comes to speech we are masters at noticing subtle changes of tone.

Dialogue is, in most films, the essential part of sound, but we must not forget that there are also other sounds that are quite important for the story, like the sounds of the ambience that gives us the information about the place and sometimes also about the general state of mind, the sound effects or foleys that are connected to some kind of action (like for example a door closing, walking in a quite but dangerous alley or shooting with a rifle) and yet again, they can be utilised to express much more, and last but not least, music that carries us into a specific mood or emotion. All these sounds are carefully constructed and blended together in postproduction. When making the sound of a film we tend to create or to reinforce an illusion: be it of an action, of a space, of the presence of people or of a specific feeling… and well, good sound has also the power to give rhythm and flow to a film. In fact it is commonly said that a film can get away with poor visuals but not with bad sound. It is almost like our brain becomes instantly alerted when something sounds off and it usually catapults us right out of that cinematic reality, in which we would otherwise be immersed into.  

Films tend to play with our perception and very often it is more effective or even required to drive the focus to a certain feeling or to construct a fantasy world rather than just mimic the reality. Sounds must sound real, even though we have to stress that sometimes realism in films is not desired at all. If we stop to analyse it, there are some interesting peculiarities: for example, apart from the fact that a lot of sounds in a film are somewhat exaggerated and the fact that in films, unlike in real life, we are not surprised at all to hear music while a beautiful girl is walking down the street, we should also know that the rules of physics in filmic realities are not quite the same as those in real life. In real life we hear a distant sound with some delay, whereas in a film total synchronicity of sound is almost a necessity or it quickly becomes too confusing for the spectator to detect the source of a specific sound.

So, if the idea of pursuing a career in sound for film attracts you, just know that it requires some technical skills, a lot of playfulness and creativity, some knowledge of acoustics and psychoacoustics and a sharp ear… but, you are right, it can be quite magic. And everybody has started simply by being a good listener.