See With Your Ears: Spielberg And Sound Design

As Puschak says, “A key to the power of sound design is its invisibility. If dialogue sounds close, then you are close.” Because the images on screen are seen as realistic, we do not notice that the sound is (mis)directing our attention, i.e. showing us things that are far away and yet sound extremely close. In this sequence, Eric Bana and his team of assassins are waiting for a man’s family to leave so that they can detonate the bomb by getting the target to answer the phone (in effect, triggering the bomb).

 “A key to the power of sound design is its invisibility. If dialogue sounds close, then you are close.”

Spielberg and Burtt work by “building a bed of constant noisy city ambience, then singling out and stringing together…key noises.” The sounds that tell the story include the sound of the assassin’s car as it arrives, and then the dialogue of the man’s daughter and wife as they leave, followed by the signal that it’s safe to proceed. Out of nowhere, there is the roar of a truck, serving as an unexpected development that throws a wrench into their plans, blocking their view, and not allowing them to hear the car with the man’s daughter as it returns. The suspense builds as the sound becomes more impressionistic, culminating in a moment of silence just before the explosion.