And even some people in the profession have not put sound design in its proper place. The reality is different, the role of sound design in movies is very important, it can even "speak" for things that images have not done.
Hoang Thi Thu Thuy (Hoang Thuy, Thuy "sound") is a lecturer at the Faculty of Cinematic Arts, Hanoi University of Theater and Cinema, who has participated in sound design for many "famous" Vietnamese films such as: "Children in the Mist", "Trạng Quỳnh nhí: Legend of the Taurus", "Geological Path: Sunlight in the Dark" and most recently "Red Rain". Hoang Thuy won the Golden Lotus Award individually (film "Red Rain") and previously, the Golden Kite Award individually (film "Red Dawn") for sound design.
A. T Sound Studio is located on a street named after the famous painter To Ngoc Van (Hanoi) with a name that also has many meanings - A.T is an abbreviation of the names of two people: Partner Arnaud Soulier, sound engineer, French director) and Hoang Thuy; A.T is sound and evokes the word Art - Art.
Hoang Thuy openly shared about the "behind-the-scenes" of the sound design profession, and at the same time vividly illustrated with impressive sound processing scenes in the movie "Red Rain". She did not have war experience, but thanks to exchanging and discussing with the advisory council, director... and spending a lot of time pondering the movie, she had creative explorations in sound processing for the movie.
Sound design for the movie "Red Rain" is very complex, with more than 400 sound paths, with many layers. Sound movements require the sophistication and meticulousness of the sound designer, choosing which sound is the main one, and putting it in which place is appropriate. The character's dialogue is based on the sound of bombs and bullets echoing from afar, footsteps, insect sounds in the night, even as thin as the sound of sand flying through, and the gentle sound of wind to allow the audience to feel the atmosphere of heaven and earth, the atmosphere of war. And the death of each soldier has different sound silences, that only artistic sensitivity can "hear".
For Hoang Thuy, "sound plays a very important role when accompanied by images to clarify content, sometimes clarifying regions and story structures because sound is also a channel providing information like dialogue. Sound components coordinate to express content with each level of emotion. Sound designers must watch movies, analyze movies, and find ways to express them so that the development of character emotions has a clear roadmap.
Usually after drafting is completed, the producer and director invite sound designers and harmony artists to watch the film together, and together analyze to discuss whether the content is complete, whether there are surplus or missing dialogues to add, and then discuss methods to approach the audience. It is necessary to understand the film genre and audience audience to choose suitable sound materials.
Sound design must be discussed with the director to highlight the structure of the film, clarify the time, space and film story elements. Even the time in the film has different axes, sound must be clarified so as not to blur the time outside and inside the character.
Sound in the film is not just about realistically describing sounds in real life, but must build cinematic emotions. When filming and recording synchronously at the scene, the basic image part is completed, but the sound part recorded at the scene is only a part, the rest is the creativity of the sound designer on the editing table.
When asked, have you ever felt that sound is "sacrificed" because of progress, budget or because of image priority in Vietnamese film production? Hoang Thuy smiled sadly: Sound is often done in parallel with color adjustment, which are the final stages in post-production, so sound designers must "make the right choice" and if lucky, they will be able to do a worthy project.
Thuy, when doing processing for many foreign film projects, learned that their budgets are much higher, as a producer once said in an international conference: "The budget for producing Korean films is 10 times higher than the budget for producing Vietnamese films.
Being both a professional and a trainer, Hoang Thuy believes that young people learn very quickly but spend too much time practicing the profession to gain the trust of the creative team to be invited to participate in the crew as a co-creator, who can discuss the expression of content in the film. Speaking about Vietnam's film industry, Hoang Thuy emphasized that first of all, it is necessary to invest in infrastructure (currently, the post-production stages of cinema sound design belong to private units) and an interesting working environment so that workers can see the development roadmap, then they will be attached for a long time.
Previously, the State had a project to build the leading Asian film technical center, but over time it has not become a reality. Film studios doing post-production are scattered everywhere. "Like my studio, it's just a tiny business and I always have a headache thinking about where to get money to maintain it, giving up is easy but there is no place to work, create and... gossip with brothers and sisters," Hoang Thuy said.
And like many other art fields, sound design is a major item that requires investment in human resources, modern and advanced technology to optimize working hours and minimize technical risks.
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The story with a skilled and passionate person lasts endlessly. It is true that only living in the profession can fully empathize with the joys, sorrows, tears, and sweats of those silently behind the success of a film. The last question is how do you want the audience to "listen" to cinema to fully appreciate the value of sound in the film. Hoang Thuy slowly said: The audience has many different subjects, so that they can truly focus on feeling the film and fully feel the visual effects and sound effects, the screening environment is extremely important. The cinema must be standard with surround sound so that sound has the opportunity to speak its true voice.
