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  • If you were to boil film down to its fundamental parts, it's really a marriage between two

  • things; visuals, and sound.

  • David Fincher has always pushed the envelope when it comes to the visual aspect of his

  • films, and has been a strong advocate for the use of CGI; even all the way back in 1999

  • with "Fight Club".

  • Visuals stand out, they're often the first thing people notice when watching a film,

  • but sound is different, by design.

  • You're not meant to notice sound, because good sound design is meant to be paired so

  • perfectly with the visuals that they go unnoticed.

  • In most films, the only sound recorded on set on the day of shooting is dialogue, especially

  • if it's in a controlled environment like a closed set.

  • This ensures the purest quality of the actors voices, which makes mixing and EQing that

  • sound much easier than if there's a bunch of background noise to filter out.

  • Everything else you hear has been added in later, an effect done so seamlessly that most

  • people would never notice.

  • Like this scene in The Social Network, the loud club music, the faint sound of the rest

  • of the crowd cut underneath, but this is what it sounded like during filming.

  • As a sound designer, you're responsible for everything the audience will hear over the

  • course of the film, with exception to original music.

  • And while Fight Club hits the nail on the head

  • throughout, with scenes at the office, or at Lou's tavern, where it really shines for

  • me is in the fight scenes.

  • Just listen to that sound, there's a visceral realism to it, that frankly is missing in

  • most other film's fight scenes.

  • Take this scene in Die Hard, which is arguably one of the greatest action films of all time,

  • a film even I love.

  • But listen to that...

  • I don't even know what that sound is, but it doesn't sound like fists crunching into

  • a body to me.

  • Getting hit hurts, a lot, throwing a punch hurts, a lot, and I just don't feel that when

  • watching this scene, and sadly this is how I feel when watching fight scenes in most

  • movies, there's just no sense of realism, even when it's choreographed well, the sound

  • just isn't believable, and while realism isn't the goal of every film, it's still worth acknowledging

  • how effective the sounds are in the fight scenes in Fight Club.

  • Not only does Fincher not shy away from blood or bruising, but that sound effect just adds

  • a whole other layer to the power of these scenes.

  • Honestly, it seems like that has a lot to do with why the film was so controversial

  • upon release, outside of the support group scenes that rubbed some people the wrong way,

  • mostly it seemed to be the incredibly harsh nature of the fight scenes that sparked controversy.

  • And I can see why, let's see what happens when we change the sound effects to more of

  • your standard fare.

  • Without the proper sound effect to match the visuals, it just doesn't

  • carry the same weight in my opinion.

  • It completely ruins that immersive feeling that I get when watching the film, and I think

  • the sound designers, Ren Klyce, and Richard Hymns deserve a lot of credit for the effects

  • they created.

  • Sound designers or foley artists, are probably the most underrated jobs in all of cinema.

  • Because if they're doing their job right, you're not even supposed to notice.

  • When done well, you'd never know those sounds were created in a studio, and not captured

  • the day of shooting.

  • And it goes further than just creating an ambience to a scene, or something like a realistic

  • punch effect, but creating sounds that don't exist in our world, like this one.

  • Chances are you already know exactly what that sound comes from, but how?

  • It's just a combination of the idle sound of a projector and the hum of a TV recorded

  • from the right angle, but we all know that's the sound of a lightsaber.

  • A blaster is just a slinky stretched out and then struck.

  • That's the power of good sound design, making our ears believe a lie, it's how you can use

  • a soundbyte of bacon cooking, cut under footage of rain and no one can tell it's out of place.

  • Where a good film score will often be credited for part of what makes a film memorable, all

  • too often good sound design goes underappreciated and undiscussed, but it's an integral part

  • of what can make a film great, just try and imagine Star Wars without the sound of a lightsaber,

  • or Chewbacca's and Darth Vader's signature voices, and I don't think we need to revisit

  • what Fight Club would sound like with different sound effects.

  • Sound design can absolutely make or break a film, and while Fight Club has many things

  • going for it besides good sound design, I feel that the work of Ren Klyce and Richard

  • Hymns are every bit a part of what makes Fight Club so great.

If you were to boil film down to its fundamental parts, it's really a marriage between two

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