postPerspective Update

Skywalker's Brandon Proctor on Sound
and Silence in A Quiet Place Part II

By Patrick Birk

With our 2022 Oscars coverage now behind us, we took the opportunity to look back at the film A Quiet Place Part II and the line the sound team had to walk to ramp up the horror. Director John Krasinski's follow-up to 2018's A Quiet Place was nominated for a BAFTA this year in the Sound category. It features Evelyn, Regan, Marcus and Beau Abbott on their quest for safety after an alien invasion all but destroys civilization. As the four traverse dense woods looking for a settlement, they must do whatever they can to remain silent... and weaponize whatever they can to defeat lurking extraterrestrials.

What is the role of sound design in a film where silence plays such an important role? Beyond that, how can sound design allow the viewer to enter the perspective of Regan, a deaf teenage girl? Skywalker Sound re-recording mixer Brandon Proctor sat with postPerspective to explain the process.

Tension and release play a big role in the sound design for horror. Here the characters have to be quiet to stay safe. How did you play this up?
My goal was to see how far I could take it in adding to the viewer's expectation or enjoyment of the film. And we do take the soundtrack to absolute digital silence. We go from degrees of quiet moments and soft levels all the way to being as loud as we can get away with. So it's binding with the story points themselves, like Regan's point of view, for example. John Krasinski would call them "sound envelopes." Basically, we'd go into her sonic perspective — like the sound of blood rushing through her body and then, when she takes her cochlear implant out, complete silence.

Then we have to figure out how far we can go with that technique before bringing the viewer back in. We don't want to take the audience out of the film, so it has to serve the story the best it can without distraction. There was a little trial and error in the process. We could only judge some of the moments of silence if we watched the whole film down. Then later in the film, we would break those rules to help push the story along in a different direction.