Directed by: John Krasinski
Composer: Marco Beltrami
Sound Design: Brandon Jones
Supervising Sound Editors: Erik Aadahl, Ethan Van der Ryn
The big part of ‘A Quiet place’ narration through the sound consisted from the foley recording and the score. Both very specifically executed in since the movie is based on groundbreaking lack of sound which of course doesn’t mean the complete absence of it.
Sound designers who participated in creation of sound design for the film are Erik Aadahl and Ethan Van der Ryn. They mentioned that the sound was actually written into the script and played very significant role int the whole story telling, which doesn’t seem to be the usual practice.
Aadahl and Van der Ryn admitted the difficulty of a challenge to work on a movie with this much absolute silence. With barely any spoken dialogue or loud sound effects therefore “the quiet becomes loud and the loud becomes ear-piercing” (Alkhulaifi, 2022). They are mentioning that very interesting part of the post production was really scaling back and be more minimalistic with the use of the sound.
The lack of sound in the movie tells the story in a way that any loud sound inherently means death. This is John Krasinski’s main premise in the building the constant underlying tension. Classical horror movies are often based on ‘jump scares’ which can be criticised that they aren’t in fact scary but only startling and the tension from the scene dissolves quickly since the physiological response of the body doesn’t recognise ‘jump scare’ as an actual threat. You will not find many jump scares in ‘A Quiet Place’. Any causally louder sound either happening suddenly or brought up slowly and building with tension creates different physiological response which can prolong the feeling of the thrill of even the fear because viewer sympathise with characters knowing that the mere existence of the sound means danger.
The story telling with the sound in ‘A Quiet Place doesn’t end only with the building a thrill and tension by utilising the silence. Focus on quiet sounds play big role in the narrative, too, for example checking the hearth beat of unborn child with a stethoscope or romantic moment of sharing the earphone from the walkman whilst mother and father of the family are dancing together or masking quieter sounds by louder by ones when father and son freely talking whilst they are hidden behind the waterfall.
One of the main characters, the daughter, is deaf and played by deaf actress Millicent Simmonds. Film has several scenes which are nearly quiet or totally soundless to highlight her point of view. ‘A Quiet Place’ has been praised for its representation of the Deaf community, its use of American Sign Language (ASL), and being one of the first films to showcase the cochlear implant (Mendoza, 2021). In spite of the positive aspects of featuring deaf community ‘A Quiet Place’ overcomes ableism in the film industry only until certain extend and received also critiques. I will talk about those more in the reflective writing.
https://www.vox.com/2018/5/26/17396174/a-quiet-place-sound-design-loud
https://digitalcommons.butler.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1419&context=the-mall
Mendoza, A. (2021). How a Quiet Place is Harmful to Those in Quiet Worlds. The Mall, [online] 5(1). Available at: https://digitalcommons.butler.edu/the-mall/vol5/iss1/11 [Accessed 22 Nov. 2023].
sites.northwestern.edu. (n.d.). Analysis of a Sound Design Piece — A Quiet Place 2018 – Mariam Alkhulaifi. [online] Available at: https://sites.northwestern.edu/mariamalkhulaifi/analysis-of-a-sound-design-piece-a-quiet-place-2018/