Reflection About Sound Design in Film

Have you ever watch a movie by making mute to the sound? If so, I am so sure that how you see on this movie will definitely change like you are watching a film by closing your eyes. Yes, of course sound design in a film is very important. In some cases, the movie comes alive just because of the sound design.

I would like to share a short thriller film named "The open door" which was directed by Dan Allen.

This is one of the awesome short films with great sound design. Firstly, the establishing shot is quite simple as a girl is walking toward the camera. This scene can't give any moody feeling to the audience without sound design because everything is normal except that she is alone in it. However, some thriller sound effects on the background by supporting her foot steps's voice make it a scary moody scene.

And then, the beat around 0:56 is really telling that something scary will be happened for sure. After that the scene she walk in her compound look scary by supporting the sound effects of wind blowing behind.

Another scene what I want to mention is after she came in to her house, she push back the door to close. But the door was not closed completely and the common thriller sound effect give scary feeling to the audience and raise up the curiosity of the audience what is happening next. (check around 1:23)

One more thing what I want to talk about is starting 2:45 and end at around 2:50. It's the climate of this short film. She tried to wake up as soon as she realized that the persona next is not J-me( according to her speaking out a named before this scene). Kinda like a girl's soft scream coming out the time she tried to wake up and then a beat of sound appears and black out everything for a second while the beat disappears slowly. Then reveals that it is just a dream by showing she just waking up from a nightmare. At the same time, a thunder bolt sound came in and shows flash lighting on her face All of these continuous scenes, sound effects are the keys to get such a great climate of this short. End of these shots, you can only hear the breathing voice of the girl. So, what I have learned is that when you make such kind of film, you just follow on nature for the sounds by adding some supportive sound effects which can give a certain feeling to the audience. (For example: by using wind blowing, knife chopping, breathing, door opening voices, etc. while some certain sound effects are in and out depends on story requirements.)

Overall, the main key what made this short a thriller film is sound design for this short film.