Everything you hear on film is a lie

Sound design is built on deception -- when you watch a movie or TV show, nearly all of the sounds you hear are fake. In this audio-rich talk, Tasos Frantzolas explores the role of sound in storytelling and demonstrates just how easily our brains are fooled by what we hear.

I want to start by doing an experiment.

I'm going to play three videos
of a rainy day.

But I've replaced the audio
of one of the videos,

and instead of the sound of rain,

I've added the sound of bacon frying.

So I want you think carefully
which one the clip with the bacon is.

(Rain falls)

(Rain falls)

(Rain falls)

All right.

Actually, I lied.

They're all bacon.

(Bacon sizzles)

(Applause)

My point here isn't really
to make you hungry

every time you see a rainy scene,

but it's to show that our brains
are conditioned to embrace the lies.

We're not looking for accuracy.

So on the subject of deception,

I wanted to quote one
of my favorite authors.

In "The Decay of Lying,"
Oscar Wilde establishes the idea

that all bad art comes from copying
nature and being realistic;

and all great art comes
from lying and deceiving,

and telling beautiful, untrue things.

So when you're watching a movie

and a phone rings,

it's not actually ringing.

It's been added later
in postproduction in a studio.

All of the sounds you hear are fake.

Everything, apart from the dialogue,

is fake.

When you watch a movie and you see
a bird flapping its wings --

(Wings flap)

They haven't really recorded the bird.

It sounds a lot more realistic
if you record a sheet

or shaking kitchen gloves.

(Flaps)

The burning of a cigarette up close --

(Cigarette burns)

It actually sounds a lot more authentic

if you take a small Saran Wrap ball

and release it.

(A Saran Warp ball being released)

Punches?

(Punch)

Oops, let me play that again.

(Punch)

That's often done by sticking
a knife in vegetables,

usually cabbage.

(Cabbage stabbed with a knife)

The next one -- it's breaking bones.

(Bones break)

Well, no one was really harmed.

It's actually ...

breaking celery or frozen lettuce.

(Breaking frozen lettuce or celery)

(Laughter)

Making the right sounds
is not always as easy

as a trip to the supermarket

and going to the vegetable section.

But it's often a lot more
complicated than that.

So let's reverse-engineer together

the creation of a sound effect.

One of my favorite stories
comes from Frank Serafine.

He's a contributor to our library,

and a great sound designer for "Tron"
and "Star Trek" and others.

He was part of the Paramount team
that won the Oscar for best sound

for "The Hunt for Red October."

In this Cold War classic, in the '90s,

they were asked to produce the sound
of the propeller of the submarine.

So they had a small problem:

they couldn't really find
a submarine in West Hollywood.

So basically, what they did is,

they went to a friend's swimming pool,

and Frank performed
a cannonball, or bomba.

They placed an underwater mic

and an overhead mic
outside the swimming pool.

So here's what the underwater
mic sounds like.

(Underwater plunge)

Adding the overhead mic,

it sounded a bit like this:

(Water splashes)

So now they took the sound
and pitched it one octave down,

sort of like slowing down a record.

(Water splashes at lower octave)

And then they removed
a lot of the high frequencies.

(Water splashes)

And pitched it down another octave.

(Water splashes at lower octave)

And then they added
a little bit of the splash

from the overhead microphone.

(Water splashes)

And by looping and repeating that sound,

they got this:

(Propeller churns)

So, creativity and technology put together
in order to create the illusion

that we're inside the submarine.

But once you've created your sounds

and you've synced them to the image,

you want those sounds to live
in the world of the story.

And one the best ways to do
that is to add reverb.

So this is the first audio tool
I want to talk about.

Reverberation, or reverb,
is the persistence of the sound

after the original sound has ended.

So it's sort of like the --

all the reflections from the materials,

the objects and the walls
around the sound.

Take, for example, the sound of a gunshot.

The original sound is less
than half a second long.

(Gunshot)

By adding reverb,

we can make it sound like
it was recorded inside a bathroom.

(Gunshot reverbs in bathroom)

Or like it was recorded
inside a chapel or a church.

(Gunshot reverbs church)

Or in a canyon.

(Gunshot reverbs in canyon)

So reverb gives us a lot of information

about the space between the listener
and the original sound source.

If the sound is the taste,

then reverb is sort of like
the smell of the sound.

But reverb can do a lot more.

Listening to a sound
with a lot less reverberation

than the on-screen action

is going to immediately signify to us

that we're listening to a commentator,

to an objective narrator that's not
participating in the on-screen action.

Also, emotionally intimate
moments in cinema

are often heard with zero reverb,

because that's how it would sound
if someone was speaking inside our ear.

On the completely other side,

adding a lot of reverb to a voice

is going to make us think
that we're listening to a flashback,

or perhaps that we're inside
the head of a character

or that we're listening
to the voice of God.

Or, even more powerful in film,

Morgan Freeman.

(Laughter)

So --

(Applause)

But what are some other tools or hacks

that sound designers use?

Well, here's a really big one.

It's silence.

A few moments of silence
is going to make us pay attention.

And in the Western world,

we're not really used to verbal silences.

They're considered awkward or rude.

So silence preceding verbal communication

can create a lot of tension.

But imagine a really big Hollywood movie,

where it's full of explosions
and automatic guns.

Loud stops being loud
anymore, after a while.

So in a yin-yang way,

silence needs loudness
and loudness needs silence

for either of them to have any effect.

But what does silence mean?

Well, it depends how
it's used in each film.

Silence can place us inside
the head of a character

or provoke thought.

We often relate silences with ...

contemplation,

meditation,

being deep in thought.

But apart from having one meaning,

silence becomes a blank canvas

upon which the viewer is invited
to the paint their own thoughts.

But I want to make it clear:
there is no such thing as silence.

And I know this sounds like the most
pretentious TED Talk statement ever.

But even if you were to enter
a room with zero reverberation

and zero external sounds,

you would still be able to hear
the pumping of your own blood.

And in cinema, traditionally,
there was never a silent moment

because of the sound of the projector.

And even in today's Dolby world,

there's not really any moment of silence
if you listen around you.

There's always some sort of noise.

Now, since there's no such
thing as silence,

what do filmmakers
and sound designers use?

Well, as a synonym,
they often use ambiences.

Ambiences are the unique background sounds

that are specific to each location.

Each location has a unique sound,

and each room has a unique sound,

which is called room tone.

So here's a recording
of a market in Morocco.

(Voices, music)

And here's a recording
of Times Square in New York.

(Traffic sounds, car horns, voices)

Room tone is the addition of all
the noises inside the room:

the ventilation, the heating, the fridge.

Here's a recording
of my apartment in Brooklyn.

(You can hear the ventilation, the boiler,
the fridge and street traffic)

Ambiences work in a most primal way.

They can speak directly
to our brain subconsciously.

So, birds chirping outside your window
may indicate normality,

perhaps because, as a species,

we've been used to that sound
every morning for millions of years.

(Birds chirp)

On the other hand, industrial sounds
have been introduced to us

a little more recently.

Even though I really like
them personally --

they've been used by one
of my heroes, David Lynch,

and his sound designer, Alan Splet --

industrial sounds often carry
negative connotations.

(Machine noises)

Now, sound effects can tap
into our emotional memory.

Occasionally, they can be so significant

that they become a character in a movie.

The sound of thunder may indicate
divine intervention or anger.

(Thunder)

Church bells can remind us
of the passing of time,

or perhaps our own mortality.

(Bells ring)

And breaking of glass can
indicate the end of a relationship

or a friendship.

(Glass breaks)

Scientists believe that dissonant sounds,

for example, brass or wind
instruments played very loud,

may remind us of animal howls in nature

and therefore create a sense
of irritation or fear.

(Brass and wind instruments play)

So now we've spoken
about on-screen sounds.

But occasionally, the source
of a sound cannot be seen.

That's what we call offscreen sounds,

or "acousmatic."

Acousmatic sounds --

well, the term "acousmatic" comes
from Pythagoras in ancient Greece,

who used to teach behind
a veil or curtain for years,

not revealing himself to his disciples.

I think the mathematician
and philosopher thought that,

in that way,

his students might focus
more on the voice,

and his words and its meaning,

rather than the visual of him speaking.

So sort of like the Wizard of Oz,

or "1984's" Big Brother,

separating the voice from its source,

separating cause and effect

sort of creates a sense
of ubiquity or panopticism,

and therefore, authority.

There's a strong tradition
of acousmatic sound.

Nuns in monasteries in Rome and Venice
used to sing in rooms

up in galleries close to the ceiling,

creating the illusion that we're listening
to angels up in the sky.

Richard Wagner famously
created the hidden orchestra

that was placed in a pit
between the stage and the audience.

And one of my heroes, Aphex Twin,
famously hid in dark corners of clubs.

I think what all these masters knew
is that by hiding the source,

you create a sense of mystery.

This has been seen
in cinema over and over,

with Hitchcock,
and Ridley Scott in "Alien."

Hearing a sound without knowing its source

is going to create some sort of tension.

Also, it can minimize certain visual
restrictions that directors have

and can show something
that wasn't there during filming.

And if all this sounds
a little theoretical,

I wanted to play a little video.

(Toy squeaks)

(Typewriter)

(Drums)

(Ping-pong)

(Knives being sharpened)

(Record scratches)

(Saw cuts)

(Woman screams)

What I'm sort of trying
to demonstrate with these tools

is that sound is a language.

It can trick us by transporting
us geographically;

it can change the mood;

it can set the pace;

it can make us laugh
or it can make us scared.

On a personal level, I fell
in love with that language

a few years ago,

and somehow managed to make it
into some sort of profession.

And I think with our work
through the sound library,

we're trying to kind of expand
the vocabulary of that language.

And in that way, we want
to offer the right tools

to sound designers,

filmmakers,

and video game and app designers,

to keep telling even better stories

and creating even more beautiful lies.

So thanks for listening.

(Applause)