on Bandcamp Friday it's nice to treat myself to a good soundtrack. Today it's Mark Jenkin's mesmerising drone score to his own film BAIT. One of the most interesting filmmakers working the UK for absolutely years, bold and creative and doing their own thing. @invadarecords.bsky.social

Even before the horror-magic of the pivotal sounds (the shout, the scraping of bone, the close-up voice) we are in a pitch perfect audio world of heavy warmth, cricket, threatening thunder, woodpigeons, cows mooing, voices murmuring. Gorgeously rich voices - Alan Bates, Tim Curry, Robert Stephens.

Resolutely dreamlike in tone and plot, it rewards the viewer with wonderful unresolved feelings. Sound is used & edited with utmost care from the uncanny opening sequence onwards, surely one of the most effective evocations of an onscreen nightmare. It’s UK sound team was second-to-none.

Delighted to get this new book for my birthday… by the legendary Walter Murch, the ‘godfather of sound design’, and director of RETURN TO OZ! Great mix of studio specifics and general film thought. 📽️🎞️🎬 #filmsound #cinema #waltermurch

Antonioni used a large sound dept for the time. 9 people, some of whom worked on other sonically masterful films such as 2001, THE MAN WHO FELL TO EARTH, LA DOLCE VITA, & THE ELEPHANT MAN. And not forgetting THAT soundtrack, by the one & only Herbert (sic) Hancock. (BLOW UP 5/5) #filmsound 📽️

London has rarely felt so real on film, yet so different to how it actually is. In this incredible, outsider’s evocation the city isn’t as noisy as it truly is, and we hear & see more detail than usual. It’s a London that doesn’t roar, rendered mysterious & audible. (BLOW UP 4/5) #filmsound 📽️

Then there’s the park, the heart of the mystery. Field recordists will recognise sounds blanketing these scenes: constant rustle, white noise of trees in light wind, swooshing, with occasional birdsong. When Hemmings blows up photos he’s taken there, the sounds return. ( BLOW UP 3/5) #filmsound 📽️

It's all about the details. What is seen & scrutinised, but also heard. Records & radios. Trickling water in a darkroom during long developing sessions. Accentuated camera shutter clicks with each photo taken. Tennis balls gently thwacked, sound carrying across a deserted park. (2/5) #filmsound 📽️

For a film so invested in the visual it’s interesting how important sound is in BLOW UP (Antonioni, 1966). As in Antonioni’s preceding & following work, dialogue is not the driver. People talk, but it never flows, or communicates effectively, or renders the right information. (1/5) #filmsound 📽️

Before David Attenborough and Blue Planet, before even Jacques Cousteau, there was Jean Painlevé. Making extraordinary films about sea life, with extraordinary soundtracks. He made 2 shorts about sea urchins, in 1929 & 1954, but the second OURSINS was scored with what he called “organised noise”📽️1/4

‘The wind up at the palace blows 7 days a week’. There’s a lot I could say about BLACK NARCISSUS (Powell & Pressburger, 1947), but on this hot day I’m thinking how effectively it conveys feelings of climate entirely through sound & image, despite being filmed at Pinewood Studios, UK. 📽️ #cinema

Sound effects come to the fore in Tati’s films from the start. The narrative is loose, barely there. The dialogue drifts in and out of intelligibility, often not even translated by the subtitles, but staying just as sound. Tati's world is a slow cartoon of audiovisual jokes, curious & unique. (1/3 )

I'll begin with a silent joke from 1929. The seminal Surrealist Un Chien Andalou (Buñuel & Dalí) lampooned standard silent film conventions of ‘silent sound’. A doorbell rings, a cocktail shaker sounds. The visual montage makes us ‘hear’ the unexpected imaginary audio.

The Film in the Other Room is an account I’ve set up to share some of my thoughts & knowledge about screen sound, a subject I’m passionate about. Regular postings soon.