In the May 2013 issue of Post Magazine, Director Danny Boyle comments on the importance of sound and music for his latest film, Trance:
"POST: As usual, the sound and music are also key elements in this film.
BOYLE: “They’re hugely important to me as a filmmaker. I actually believe — and we don’t realize this as an audience — that it’s at least 70 percent of a film, if not more. If you have bad sound, any movie is unwatchable, and if you turn the sound off on any film, most are also unwatchable. They just don’t work. It’s extraordinary, and sound recordists often get treated so badly on sets, even though the audio is so vital. But if you have a film with bad visual quality, you can get away with it. In fact, your eye adapts quite quickly. 28 Days Later, for instance, was a very rough-looking film deliberately, and it didn’t faze anyone. But there’s no way around bad sound. If you can’t hear dialogue and so on, it’s a disaster. The opposite side is just how effective a film can become when you have really good use of sound..."
"POST: As usual, the sound and music are also key elements in this film.
BOYLE: “They’re hugely important to me as a filmmaker. I actually believe — and we don’t realize this as an audience — that it’s at least 70 percent of a film, if not more. If you have bad sound, any movie is unwatchable, and if you turn the sound off on any film, most are also unwatchable. They just don’t work. It’s extraordinary, and sound recordists often get treated so badly on sets, even though the audio is so vital. But if you have a film with bad visual quality, you can get away with it. In fact, your eye adapts quite quickly. 28 Days Later, for instance, was a very rough-looking film deliberately, and it didn’t faze anyone. But there’s no way around bad sound. If you can’t hear dialogue and so on, it’s a disaster. The opposite side is just how effective a film can become when you have really good use of sound..."
