Why are we afraid of silence?
This is a question comes up more and more in the majority of jobs that I do. As my "day" job is sound design work for advertising, the mind set is that everything needs to have a sound. Every, single, move, until the whole ad is wall-to-wall sound effects and nothing actually stand out. Yes, you guessed it, I do a lot of retail. The main problem is that silence is not thought of as a sound, so we don't think of using it. This is also the case in my film & TV work. Directors (and other creatives) who are unfamiliar with how sound design works, don’t understand the creative uses of silence. What is the problem with silence? Will your film suddenly explode if I don’t put the sound of that girls breathe covered in a wide shoot? Yes, Obviously. The fact is silence, in the right moments, will make your film better because it’ll give the project a chance to breathe. Any type of media that involves sound design, whether is be Films, TV Shows, Games, Theatre or even Adverts, all have the job of telling a story. The use of sound, and lack of sound, is a great way to tell and enhance that story. The trick is not to over use sound, doing the story a disserice.
So what is silence? The obvious answer would be, the complete absence of sound. But silence when we talking about sound design, doesn't have to mean a complete absence, but rather the choice not you use a sound at a particular moment. It wasn’t until the late 1920’s that sound was introduced into the main stream film world. Previously we would watch a story and create the sounds with our imagination. The introduction of sound in films was about emphasising the story that silence film was already telling. If we take a scene, and choose to use silence where we would normally put a sound, would our mind fill in the gaps? Yes and No. The more important questions when tracklaying is; Why am I putting this sound here? What if I choose to leave this in silence? Could silence here be more effective? Or will it feel out of place? The main question for anyone working in visual arts is – how does this help tell the story.
On my first day of film school, my lecture wrote 4 words on the board; Story, Story, Fucking Story! At the start of every project I keep this in the front of my mind. Storytelling with sound can be a very powerfully tool, and therefore the use of silence can be be just as powerful. If we deprive the viewer of sound, their attention will become more focused on the events on screen. By removing or mixing at low level all but the most necessary sounds, we can make the viewer feel a particular way. Recently I watched Spike Jonze's HER, which beautifully demonstrates this throughout the film. One particular scene is when Samantha is talking to Theodore on the stairway into the subway. This is a hard subject for Theodore to hear, and the mix is done so beautifully, where traditionally the location would call for a very busy and noisy environment, it's is mixed very subtly into the scene which really draws you into Theodore's emotions. Another popular way to use silence is shock the viewer or makes the sounds around the silence appear to be louder. You'll generally see this in the Horror and Action genre. There are heaps of ways to creatively use silence as a sound design tool. Below is a great video demonstrating Scorsese's fantastic uses of silence.
Let's bring it back to the topic at hand. Why are we afraid of silence? In today's world we are so bombarded with sounds. According to The World Health Organisation, noise is the second leading environmental cause of ill health. With all this sound constantly around us, it's no wondering people are are jarred by the very notion of silence. With film, we want to make people pay attention everything we are doing, and as soon as the sound is not screaming "Look at me! Look at me!" there is a fear that the viewer will look at their phones, or turn off the screen. But the key is confidence in your story. If the story isn't engaging enough, then that's the real problem. Sound, a long with most other departments, can't make a shit story great. But it can make a great story shine.