While we spend a lot of time on this site talking about cinematography and the all-encompassing art of filmmaking itself, we admittedly don’t spend nearly enough time on audio and sound design as it deserves. This is an industry-wide trend that reflects a bias we likely all have against this important, but less noticeable, part of film production.For better or worse, when sound design is done well, it can hardly be noticed. In fact, some of the most technically marvelous sound design feats in filmmaking history are ones you might not even know of yourself.No film better exemplifies this conundrum than Cast Away, which, as you can see in this video essay below, is one of the most impressive sound design feats ever—and one you likely had no idea about.The Sound Design of Cast AwaySo, this is really just a very cool look into the “genius illusion” behind the sound of Cast Away, as the YouTube channel The Back Focus puts it in the title of the video. The main argument of the essay is simply that the film Cast Away is one of the film’s greatest hidden achievements. This is because every sound that our lead actor (Tom Hanks) makes on the island in the film, including his sparse dialogue, was created from scratch. As in, it wasn’t recorded on set or on location like you’d think it would have been using traditional audio recording techniques. In the video, the host breaks down how Oscar-winning sound designer Robert Thom...
Published By: NoFilmSchool - Yesterday