Bulldog: Before and After Sound Design

Impact Of Sound

We know that sound and music can have a dramatic impact on the way a film scene is perceived. What we don’t often hear is the difference in how a scene sounds before and after audio post.

To illustrate this, I have have chosen a brief scene from a short film I worked on in 2020: Bulldog. First we hear the sound as it was recorded on set. I then looped the scene and we hear another layer of sound each time it plays: backgrounds and spot effects, foley footsteps and finally the score.

Bulldog

Bulldog was made by the very talented folks at Block B Films of Manchester. It was written and directed by Kieran Stringfellow and produced by Tasha Williams.

In the film, a rough sleeper has a score to settle and the audience is kept guessing as to what this might involve. The opening scenes establish a tone of tension and uncertainty as the protagonist moves through a gritty urban environment.

One of these scenes shows him walking purposefully through the city streets. I will show how the sound design and score were used to heighten tension and drive the story forward.

Bulldog was inflenced by the work of filmmakers like Nicolas Winding Refn, Lynne Ramsay and the Safdie Brothers, so we used the sound of their fims as a reference point during the process.

Sound To Establish Location And Heighten Tension

In the first loop of the scene, we hear the sound as it was recorded on set. As is often the case with location sound, the backgrounds, footsteps and other sounds all merge into one. This means there’s no way to control the individual elements. Because the sound didn’t have the desired level of impact, my first job was to strip it all out.

I added traffic and other urban sounds to create a sense of place. I had recorded some of these in various locations around Manchester which lent it an extra sense of authenticity. One of the shop fronts in this walking scene is close to where I live, so by coincidence I had already made recordings in some of the very same places where the film was shot.

Next, I cut in what are known as spot effects. These include car horns, air vents and dogs barking, all of which add to the sense of cacophany and help to create a sense of unease in the audience.

Once the backgrounds and other sounds were in place, the footsteps were recreated with foley sound. I chose a suitably gritty surface sound to match the character and environment.

Pulsing Score

In the brief, Kieran and Tasha described how they felt the scene would benefit from a pulsing score. It had already been edited to a temp track, in which the beat cut with the edits to propel the action and lend a sense of intent to the character’s movements.

My goal was to create a score which would have a similar effect. The track needed to be minimal enough that it would let the background sounds shine through, but not so full as to be overpowering. A combination of insistent kick drum, driving bass and light percussive elements achieved this.

Once the track was in place, I added some sound design ‘impacts’ at the start of each beat which would further emphasise the cuts.

Conclusion

That’s it! I hope this has has given you an insight into the way we approached the scene and how the sound design and score can be used to help tell the story. For full impact, watch with a decent set of speakers and turn it up loud.