In the January 2007 issue of Post Magazine online, Director Tom Tykwer (Run Lola Run, Cloud Atlus) discusses his approach to sound and music for his movies. There's more of his conversation in the print issue. Here are some of the bits paraphrased:
The musical aspect of film in general is of course something that relates much more to the abstract relationship leading us to emotional perception. We were trying to establish a movie that somehow, not only through the sound but through the way that sound and image are intertwined, gives us a certain feeling: it's how the person the film is describing actually experiences the world.
For us, the music has to start first. I'm already starting to compose while I'm working on the script. We start composing alongside the script, so we find the sound in terms of the music of the film while we're in the writing process. When we arrive on set, we already have a substantial part of the music composed, and we've hired a small orchestra to play it for us, so we can really play it to the actors and get it 'into the scenery' of the actual shooting, as it were. So people could already explore the atmosphere and the acoustic world of the film while they were acting in it.
Sound design is often appreciated in films that create a lot of noise, but I'm a big admirer of the quiet movies. I know how difficult it is to mix a convincingly quiet film, because quietness has so many levels. It's much easier to produce a very loud, effects-driven and music-overloaded movie. I remain a fan of films that were made in the very early days of sound design and that can still deliver interesting results. The Exorcist, for example, has an amazing soundtrack, and in more modern times, what David Fincher does is really impressive. The entire suspense of his film Seven is really built through the soundtrack, with music and sound so well intertwined.
The musical aspect of film in general is of course something that relates much more to the abstract relationship leading us to emotional perception. We were trying to establish a movie that somehow, not only through the sound but through the way that sound and image are intertwined, gives us a certain feeling: it's how the person the film is describing actually experiences the world.
For us, the music has to start first. I'm already starting to compose while I'm working on the script. We start composing alongside the script, so we find the sound in terms of the music of the film while we're in the writing process. When we arrive on set, we already have a substantial part of the music composed, and we've hired a small orchestra to play it for us, so we can really play it to the actors and get it 'into the scenery' of the actual shooting, as it were. So people could already explore the atmosphere and the acoustic world of the film while they were acting in it.
Sound design is often appreciated in films that create a lot of noise, but I'm a big admirer of the quiet movies. I know how difficult it is to mix a convincingly quiet film, because quietness has so many levels. It's much easier to produce a very loud, effects-driven and music-overloaded movie. I remain a fan of films that were made in the very early days of sound design and that can still deliver interesting results. The Exorcist, for example, has an amazing soundtrack, and in more modern times, what David Fincher does is really impressive. The entire suspense of his film Seven is really built through the soundtrack, with music and sound so well intertwined.
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