Behind the scenes: A Quiet Place

It’s the goal of any suspense movie to have audiences on the edge of their seat but the breakout horror hit of last year is so tense it has literally achieved this.

The premise of A Quiet Place, directed, co-written and starring John Krasinski, is that any noise leads to certain death on-screen but the sound design is executed so expertly that audiences found themselves complicit in the conceit.

“It’s almost as if they’re afraid to breathe. They are certainly not rustling the popcorn,” observes Ethan Van der Ryn, supervising sound editor with Erik Aadahl. “What’s most pleasing is that this film forces people to change the way they perceive cinema. Many modern films, visual effects or action-dramas in particular, will tend to have a bombastic soundtrack which naturally pushes the audience to recline in their seats but what happens when you strip out the sound is that you remove this comfort blanket.

“If you can tie that silence to the jeopardy on screen, then people start to lean forward. They become aware of the sound they are making and hold their breath just like the characters. In a way, the audience becomes an active participant in the story.”

This psychoacoustic effect didn’t come about by accident. Van der Ryn and Aadhal are two of the most accomplished sound designers in Hollywood, teaming for the last decade on some of the biggest action, VFX and creature movies like Godzilla, Monsters vs Aliens, The Meg, Bumblebee and every Transformers movie. Before partnering with Aadhal, Van der Ryn had worked on The Godfather: Part III, Terminator 2: Judgement Day, Titanic, Saving Private Ryan, Pearl Harbor, The Lord of the Rings trilogy and King Kong, while Aadahl’s credits include I, Robot, Superman Returns, Argo and The Tree of Life.

“When John sent us the script we knew…