The Importance of Sound Design

A comparison between Gosford Park (Dir. Robert Altman) and In My Father's Den (Dir. Brad McGann) sheds light on the importance of sound design in feature film making. Gosford Park is bigger in scope than the independent New Zealand film In My Father's Den except the latter can only be described as a 'silent' picture. A scene is played out in In My Father's Den inside a classroom, yet all sounds associated with the school are absent. The sound design has been reduced to a clean recording of the character's dialogue and that only. In Gosford Park, the sound design makes scenes come alive. Whenever a character talks it is undercut or undermined by the dialogue of another character bringing us closer to the text just so we don't miss what all the characters are saying.