A film’s soundtrack contains at least half of what an audience perceives in any scene but, for various reasons including budgets, schedules and technology, sound is often given the least consideration in the production process.

An enormous amount of information is conveyed through the soundtrack: the sound within a scene will give you clues as to character and place, the time of day, season, weather, location, whether the film space is big or small, crowded or empty. It will give clues as to a character’s size, sex, physical characteristics, mood and social standing. It helps us to understand where we are in the film’s environment and can even place you in relation to the screen, making you feel “inside” or “outside” the film.

Sound changes the image, it changes the way the audience perceives the space of your film’s world and it changes the way we respond to the characters. By combining different types of sounds and music in a specific relationship to the image it creates a stream of information and impressions that let us know what to believe and what to feel about the story unfolding on the screen.

Whatever the budget you must be able to manage the content, placement and combinations of sound in order to tell your story effectively – to ignore the role of sound and how it is produced is to prevent the audience from engaging with the world of your film.

This module will discuss

• How to include sound in pre-production planning to achieve the most creative and cost-effective soundtrack
• The various aspects of all three phases of film sound production – recording, editing and mixing – including descriptions of roles, budgeting, types of equipment used and scheduling of each process
• The relationship between sound, music and image

With huge thanks to Larry Sider (Director, School of Sound) for sharing his extensive knowledge and expertise on the various aspects of Sound and for writing this module.