Sound technique · used in 15 films
Mixing battle sound the way a soldier would hear it, with chaotic, physical noise coming from every direction. Nothing is tidied up for your comfort, so you feel inside the fight.
Examples
Wolfgang Petersen · 1981
In the depth charge sequences you hear the distant boom, the delay, then the blast that shakes the hull. The sound tracks the explosions getting closer. Your body reacts to the sound before your mind can work out what is happening.
Where to see it: The first depth charge attack. The crew is still and silent. The sound arrives from far away and then shatters up close, and the hull groans under the pressure.
Elem Klimov · 1985
After the German air attack on the forest, Flyora's hearing is damaged. The film's sound follows what he hears. Dialogue goes muffled, background sound distorts and the soundtrack imitates tinnitus, a constant ringing in the ears. You live through the aftermath of the bombing with him, because the film has damaged your hearing too.
Where to see it: The air attack in the forest. The sound drops to a high-pitched ringing as Flyora's hearing fails. The scene gets distorted for you in the same way.
James Cameron · 1986
Cameron and sound designer Don Sharpe build the Marines' combat audio as a complete world of sound. You hear the pulse rifle bursts, the motion tracker's ping and the noises the aliens make. You feel the physical pressure of the fight before any image gets it across.
Where to see it: The motion tracker sequence in the operations center. The audio turns the alien advance into a series of pings, and you learn to read them as distance. The sound design makes a simple gadget terrifying.
Michael Mann · 1995
The downtown bank robbery shootout was shot with blanks and recorded live on location, and the sound was not replaced afterward. It came out so accurate that the US Army has used parts of the film to train new soldiers. The echo off downtown Los Angeles's buildings is specific and real, because the gunfire is bouncing off actual architecture. No film before it had made gunfire sound this real.
Where to see it: The downtown shootout. The M16 fire echoes off concrete buildings. The sound helps you follow where the fight is happening, and it is physically overwhelming at the same time.
Steven Spielberg · 1998
Sound designer Gary Rydstrom recorded actual weapons and designed the audio so you can tell where each sound comes from and feel it physically. Bullets come from specific places. Explosions muffle your hearing. Several times, the sequence goes nearly silent as characters go through the shock of a blast, so your own hearing is being used to tell the story.
Where to see it: The underwater sequence after the Higgins boat ramp drops. The sound is muffled and chaotic, and you hear only what the men hear.
Ridley Scott · 2001
The sound design by supervising sound editors Per Hallberg and Karen Baker Landers turns the Mogadishu battle into something you feel physically. The RPG impacts, the helicopter blades, the rifle fire and the radio traffic all pile on top of each other. Eventually, you get the sensory overload of long, sustained combat in a city.
Where to see it: The first helicopter crash. The impact, the rotors and the explosion all reach you before the image finishes. You experience the crash through sound before your eyes have caught up.
Alfonso Cuarón · 2013
Space is a vacuum, and Cuarón and sound designer Glenn Freemantle build the film's sound around that. Impacts outside are silent, while sounds from inside are turned up. The result feels claustrophobic and vast at once.
Where to see it: The debris strike. What you see is a catastrophe, but in space it is silent. Missing the sound you expect makes the destruction more terrifying.
Alejandro G. Iñárritu · 2015
The Arikara raid and the bear attack surround you with sound. You hear gunfire at close range, the bear's breathing and weight and the particular sound of cold weather and frozen ground. Sound designer Martin Hernandez builds a sound world so precise that your body reacts to what you hear before the image catches up.
Where to see it: The opening Arikara raid. The sound design places arrows, gunfire and water all around you in 3D space. Your body finds its bearings by sound, the way Glass has to find his in the attack.
Denis Villeneuve · 2015
Jóhann Jóhannsson's score works as physical pressure, with low bass tones that you feel in your body. In the border crossing and tunnel sequences, the sound is designed to make your body feel dread before any image confirms there is something to fear.
Where to see it: The tunnel sequence. The music drops out entirely. In its place, you hear the physical sounds of the underground, mostly the team's breathing and movement. The sound of the darkness ends up as claustrophobic as the space itself.
Mel Gibson · 2016
Budget limits led the sound team to use archival recordings of World War II weapons. Gunfire, shells and shouting come from every side. You hear battle as the soldiers would, with no tidy mix.
Where to see it: Japanese counterattack: The Americans are forced off the ridge. Smitty is killed and Howell and others are wounded.
Christopher Nolan · 2017
Hans Zimmer and sound designer Richard King build the film's sound from a ticking watch, Spitfire engines and Stuka sirens. You can't tell the music apart from the weapons it describes.
Where to see it: The Stuka dive-bombing sequence. The siren and the score are the same sound, so the terror and the music become one thing.
Sam Mendes · 2019
Thomas Newman's score and the sound design work together to make the Western Front a place you hear all around you. The mud, the wire, the distant artillery and the silence all become one continuous feeling of threat.
Where to see it: The German trench sequence. You hear distant gunfire, dripping water and a German soldier moaning, and it makes you feel completely exposed.
Edward Berger · 2022
The sound design was built to copy what an artillery bombardment does to the body. You get the thudding bass of shells, the ringing that follows and the silence before another wave. Your body reacts before your mind can process it. I feel like the sound makes the film's case most directly, because your body already knows what your mind is being told.
Where to see it: The artillery bombardment sequences. The sound is designed at frequencies that make the audience react physically, so you experience the front through your nervous system.
Alex Garland · 2024
Garland uses sound to disorient you as much as to inform you. Shots come from off-screen, there is silence before a sniper fires and close gunfire has a physical crack. Your body reacts before your understanding catches up.
Where to see it: The sniper standoff at an abandoned Winter Wonderland display. It is the film's longest sound design showpiece. Silence and violence alternate, with no music to support them.
Alex Garland, Ray Mendoza · 2025
Sound designer Glenn Freemantle builds the battle out of real-feeling noise from every direction. After the IED blast, the sound goes dull and muffled, like your ears are full of water. You hear the fight the way the stunned soldiers do.
Where to see it: The IED blast. A bomb goes off as the platoon runs for the armored vehicle, and the sound drops into a deafened ringing while wounded men lie in the street.
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