IR Magazine -- Musical Notes: Sound Design, An Interview with David Sonnenschein

sound effects, backgrounds, and music.
Now the music is normally taken care of by
the composer, but the Sound Designer and
Supervising Sound Editor are also in charge
of actually inserting that into the film
appropriately. Here in Hollywood, we have
different union positions for the Dialogue
Editor, Effects Editor, Music Editor, etc. and
then ultimately for the re-recording mixer or
mixing stage.

The process [of sound design] can, and in
my opinion, should begin early in the
production. If you begin with an analysis of
the script, you can actually help the filming in
terms of what kinds of shots will help the
sound and what kind of sounds will help
motivate the images that you want to shoot
before you wrap the set. For example, in a
horror film, when you want the sounds of
shutters clacking on the haunted house, if
you just have a “BANG BANG BANG” without
showing the shutters, people might not know
what that is… But if you can identify that with
an accompanying image at least once, from
there on in the film you can use that sound
much more subjectively as an off-screen
sound.

The other reason would be to help
economize on an expensive scene where the
sound might be able to carry the story and
you can eliminate some fancy, expensive
crashes or explosions. In that case, you can
insert something that might be as impactful
or emotional as a visual image but only on
the soundtrack. Then going into the post-
production phase, you’re going to want to talk
with the director and picture editor about how
the sound can help the scenes in their
construction. You might use more or less
image, speeding them up or slowing them
down depending on how the sound is going
to come in. So it’s really very useful to have

the sounds are very different than western
music and that brought me into the
recognition of how the different cultures and
how the different ways of creating sounds
can really be exciting, intriguing, and
potentially supportive of storytelling.
Nowadays, I continue to compose and
perform music, mostly on wind instruments
but also now using the computer as a great
ally in the music that I am creating for many
different forms, including therapeutic use.

Another thread is filmmaking and film
directing… At an early stage I was very
strong in the visual arts – photography,
sculpting, painting, dancing. When I started
to do my creative work it became obvious that
those areas of sound and image would
come together as a filmmaker. Putting all
that together, I’ve combined it with my third
area of interest which is neurobiology, which
I have a degree in. For my first film, I was
hired as a director by UC San Diego to make
an educational film for the biology
department. It was a wonderful initiation to
my career. The neurobiology continues to
fascinate me – I worked for many years in the
sleep laboratory studying brain waves and
the mind-body interface, and so when I
began to integrate that into my filmmaking I
recognized how impactful sound can be on a
psychoacoustic and neurological level, and
that’s been the basis of my teachings. Along
the way I’ve produced and directed 8 feature
films, most of them in Brazil where I lived for
15 years – all of them influenced greatly by
the sounds and music of Brazil.

For those of us who may not be too familiar
with what a sound designer does, outside
of the obvious, can you start off by giving us
a brief description or definition of what a
sound designer is and where they come
into the process of filmmaking.

Sonnenschein: The term sound designer
has really only been used since about the
1970’s or so when Walter Murch created the
sound for Apocalypse Now, and he actually
designed the whole surround system and
the storytelling use of sound. Traditionally
the person in charge of the sound outside of
the music is called the Supervising Sound
Editor and those two terms – Supervising
Sound Editor and Sound Designer are
sometimes synonymous. Sound Designers
have also been referred to as the person
who might be creating new effects, like for
sci-fi -- sounds that have never existed before
and they’re doing a lot of interesting things –
collecting sounds, processing them,
sculpting them. Regardless of the label, the
tasks of the Sound Designer are to be able to
tell the story with sound using dialogue,

Since the dawn of time, mankind has

been captivated with the power of
storytelling. Prehistoric men would dance
around their fires, weaving intricate tales of
their exploits and bravery in battle. The
courage of knights and warriors would be
regaled by bards in poem and song in later
years. Legends and folktales grew out of
these recitations, and would be passed
down from generation to generation.

Much closer to home in the modern

era, the greatest vehicle for storytelling has
been that of the moving picture. This was the
birth of the modern film, when the likes of
Chaplin, Marlowe and Keaton would grace
the screen. These films were renowned for
their “silent” quality – a term which defined
the lack of dialogue on the screen. The truth
is most “silent films” weren’t as taciturn as it
indicates. Most of them had some form of
orchestral music, or rudimentary sound
effects created by the massive theater
organs known as “mighty Wurlitzers”. What
became very apparent to filmmakers of that
time was that music and sound effects were
pivotal to the magic of film, evoking emotional
responses from the audience and drawing
them into the story.

The moving images of the cinema

have always held a special appeal to the
general public. The many elements of a film
are brought together to charm us – whether it
be the action, drama, love, special effects...
While all of them contribute to the story, there
is one element that most often is missed on
a subconscious level that plays a significant
role in movies – the sound design.

An incredible resource for exploring

this field is a book entitled Sound Design, by
David Sonnenschein. After reading the book
and interviewing Mr. Sonnenschein, I
became acutely aware of the significant role
that sound plays in the movies, and the
challenging, yet exciting career of a Sound
Designer.

David, thank you for talking to us today.
Why don’t we start by learning a little bit
more about you, both as an author and as a
filmmaker, and what sort of background
that you were able to bring to this book….

Sonnenschein: Sure. I come with three
different threads of expertise and training.
The earliest in this area was as a musician,
training classically. I played in the symphony
orchestra for many years as a clarinetist, and
then developed my abilities in
improvisational jazz and ultimately world
music. I trained in several countries where