Sound has been a vital thing part of film since 1927, and Ardmore Sound has been a vital part of the Irish film industry since 1995. The Film Ireland team travelled to Ardmore Sound's premises in Bray to learn a little more about the importance of post-production sound. Words and photos by Nerea Aymerich.

There is a general tendency to interpret film as a chiefly visual experience, relegating sound to a second plane. Sound is always the place where producers take the money out; if they overspend on the shoot they don't give sound enough time. What should be seen prevails against what should be heard; generally the shots are orientated to squeeze the maximum from the film's visual potential, leaving the sound crew to the deal with all the difficulties emerging from this state of affairs. But the degree to which sound is able to compliment and enhance the story is decisive; it builds up depth, suggests a mood, draws the attention of the audience, describes characters and spaces, dramatizes or adds realism, and evokes feelings. When both the visual and the aural elements work well together it is nearly impossible to separate one from the other, whereas a poor sound will make the film simply unwatchable, regardless of the quality of the photography.

Sounds of science
If the filmmaker is aware of the creative influence that sound can add, the first person from the sound department he should deal with is the sound designer: the sound effects specialist responsible for achieving the desired artistic effects in the soundtrack as required by the director/producer/editor/creative team. 'It's mainly an abstract work' says John Fitzgerald, 'it focuses on atmosphere, mood… in broad terms, anything that gets across the vibe of the scene – not usually literal sounds, but sounds that fall between literal dialogue and music.' John continues 'It works well for ominous things, gets an idea across without hammering the audience over the head. It brings the audience into the film's space in a more abstract way.' It's helpful when the director knows in his head how he wants it to sound like, what's not always that easy is to come across the right words to explain it to the sound designer. It engenders a whole new conceptual language with the most offbeat requests!

In Ardmore Sound's dubbing theatre, a studio of 80' x 40' in which the soundtracks for films are mixed, we met film mixer Tom Johnson, winner of two Oscars for Best Sound. Tom is responsible for the aesthetic and technical aspects of the film sound track during the mixing process with the director. 'The thing I like about film sound is the cooperation, it's never about one person. I have fun, you can do so many things with sound that people won't notice, but you do notice them at an emotional level and that's how it's meant to be. There are people who think "well sound, that's all it is, a door closing and footsteps", there are so many directors that believe that too, the emotion for them is just the music.'

The full article is printed in Film Ireland 111.