In the movie “A Quiet Place”, sound is used very strategically and is a crucial part to the telling of the story. The plot, which revolves around a family forced to live in complete silence to survive in a post-apocalyptic world full of monsters with highly sensitive hearing, captures the audience in unexpected ways. This is primarily done through sound, or rather the lack of sound in the movie. Many of the movie’s scenes use sounds very sparingly, while some are completely quiet. This creates great discomfort among the audience who is often used to as much as sound as possible in the movies they watch.
The sound design throughout the movie was very innovative, and anxiety and suspense were created through the smallest sounds. Some of the most impactful scenes in the movie have little to no sound and for this reason quiet on set was often crucial when it came to filming since many of the sounds had to be created in the moment and could not be edited in later on.
The following clip captures one of these intense moments of silence that creates a fearful discomfort amongst the audience.
Another interesting feature throughout the film is the use of sound envelopes which put the audience in a character’s shoes through what they are hearing. This is specifically accomplished through Regan, the couple’s deaf daughter who wears a cochlear implant to assist with her hearing. Scenes from her perspective are portrayed through the lens of an anechoic chamber where all the audience hears is a low muffled sound and a faint heartbeat.
Above we get various examples of what things sound like in Regan’s sound envelope. For the implant scene a special microphone was used in order to replicate the sounds of the cochlear implant – a Neumann KU 100- its recordings provide sound as if they were in your head.