The Tonebenders Podcast #300 republished an interview that was originally on the Silver Screen Social Podcast. It is with the team that worked on sound design for Dune Part 2 and they had a great discussion on their process and approach.

The following statement by Richard King stood out to me:

Sound is not a technical process. It’s a creative – completely creative process.

And the technical aspects of it are quickly learned and are not complicated, honestly.

Once you get past that learning curve, it’s just playing, and it’s imagining. I imagine myself in the world of the characters.

And I think the best soundtracks we hear out there are created by people who look at sound in that way, in that creative, non technical, not slavishly adhering to what’s on the screen necessarily, but adhering to what’s emotionally being presented in the story and on the screen and creating a soundtrack that mirrors and enhances the drama.

This was followed up by another editor commenting about the “other image.”

It’s interesting, sound is referred to as ‘the other image.’ The amount of information you get from sound for story, narrative, and emotion is enormous. And it’s intuitive and subconscious.

I appreciate how much impact sound has in what we think of as visual mediums. In so many contexts, sound affects the audience viscerally and leaves a lingering feeling and impact, but in the moment is often hidden by the glaring presence of the image.

Also, in case you’re struggling with “Sound is not a technical process” – yes, of course it’s technical process, but the creative approach to sound design is more than that. And I think this can widely be a way to think about most creative fields. Yes, there are technical elements, but what happens when we take a step back awayfrom, past, or through the technical side. What do we see? What is the context, the emotion? Why does this matter, and where is the nuance of storytelling? How do we imagine what could be?