The old adage “silence speaks volumes” can be grating when heard enough. However, it is the deliberate use of silence in films that speaks loudly.
Silence has long been used effectively in film, with examples including “Star Wars: The Last Jedi,” where a spaceship rams into another ship at lightspeed.
Current films tend to feature a lot of forgettable orchestral scores that only mildly induce tension, but the success of “A Quiet Place,” which revolves around its lead characters living in near-complete silence in a world overrun by monsters with acute hearing, showed audiences that silence can be used well to achieve different tones.
Modern films are generally fast-paced, so taking some quiet time to let characters breathe allows the viewer to realistically gain newfound interest.
Immersion can be created by doing this, but the distinction in the sound of a movie or other storytelling medium is the use of non-diegetic and diegetic sound.
An example of diegetic sound would be the sound of a gun being fired by a character. Conversely, non-diegetic sounds are played outside of the universe of the film, such as the film’s score playing to highlight the scene.
Perhaps the aforementioned scene in “The Last Jedi” is only seen as impactful because of all the previous movies before it and in the sci-fi genre continuing to use the same tropes.
Having diegetic sound take the forefront instead of the soundtrack can create a level of atmosphere that causes the viewer to take note of other aspects of filmmaking.
One case is in shows like “Star Trek: The Next Generation,” which uses the quiet thrum of the “Enterprise” spaceship’s technology to make it feel lived in, similar to a ship on the sea crashing against the waves.
Another case of atmosphere is in animated movies like “Coraline,” which has great amounts of surreal imagery that manages to blend with otherworldly sounds. Animation itself has a hard time blending into reality, but in order to sell the feeling an object gives, sound is one of the two senses that film can convey in the real world.
One of the key ways animators give immersion to their worlds is through sound, and if not for it, cartoons would be bereft of squeaky floorboards, thunderous storms and crashing slapstick.
Sound, and the absence of it, has to be balanced in order to keep the immersion of the viewer.
