A family struggles to survive in a post-apocalyptic world overrun by blind creatures that hunt entirely by sound. They communicate only in sign language. The mother is unexpectedly pregnant, and a birth that looks impossible to survive gets closer every day. John Krasinski's film uses sound design to carry its story from start to finish.
A Quiet Place is a 2018 horror, science fiction and drama film directed by John Krasinski. This breakdown covers 4 techniques (2 sound and 2 narrative), each with the scene where you can see it. If you like how it is made, Uncut Gems uses several of the same techniques.
Using sounds the characters themselves can hear, like footsteps, radios or traffic, to build tension or show how someone feels. The sound does more than make the scene realistic.
How this film uses it
Every sound in the film matters to the plot: a corn kernel dropping, a nail on a stair, breathing too loud. Krasinski makes sound the main way the film tells its story. You end up as alert to noise as the family is.
Where to see it
The opening pharmacy sequence. The family communicates in sign language and plans every footstep. The first accidental noise arrives as a catastrophe.
Removing music, background sound or dialogue from a moment where most films would fill it. The quiet forces you to sit with what is on screen.
How this film uses it
Marco Beltrami's score is used very sparingly, which leaves most of the film in near-silence. The quiet itself is a constant threat. You hold your breath alongside the characters.
Where to see it
The birth sequence. The mother is in the bathtub and the creature is in the house, so every splash and gasp could get her killed. I feel like the silence between the sounds is more terrifying than any score.
Building the story around a clear deadline the hero must beat. The time pressure and the obstacles grow with each scene until the climax.
How this film uses it
The coming birth is the film's central ticking clock. It is a biological countdown that cannot be silenced, in a world where any sound means death. The 2 are on a collision course.
Where to see it
The mother's water breaking. It is the film's most concentrated moment of dread, because labor and the creatures arrive at the same time.
Limiting the film to what one character can see and know. The camera never goes where they couldn't be, so you share their blind spots and their vulnerability.
How this film uses it
The film limits you entirely to what the family knows about the creatures and what they can do. Nobody explains the backstory and there are no authority figures. All you get are the rules the family has learned by surviving so far.
Where to see it
Lee's whiteboard in the basement. Everything he has learned about the creatures is written in marker. It is your only briefing on how this world now works.
Questions
A Quiet Place: quick answers
What filmmaking techniques does A Quiet Place use?
CineCode breaks down 4 techniques in A Quiet Place (2018): Diegetic Sound Design, Strategic Silence, Ticking Clock Structure and Single POV Restriction.
Who directed A Quiet Place?
John Krasinski directed A Quiet Place, released in 2018. CineCode also covers A Quiet Place Part II (2021).
What films are similar to A Quiet Place?
Films that share techniques with A Quiet Place include Uncut Gems (2019), Lost in Translation (2003), The Conversation (1974), Sound of Metal (2019).
