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Approaches to Sound Design: Murch and Burtt

Article · September 2018

DOI: 10.3366/sound.2018.0129

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Gustavo Costantini
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GUSTAVO COSTANTINI

Approaches to Sound
Design: Murch and Burtt
Over the last forty years, we have become familiar with the terms
‘sound design’ and ‘sound designer’. We know that the credit was coined
by Francis Ford Coppola for Apocalypse Now (1979), acknowledging Walter
Murch’s contribution to the pioneering soundtrack. Since then, we under-
stand that a person – with varying responsibilities – is responsible for a
film’s sound like the Director of Photography is for the image.
Nevertheless, we could say that sound design was there from even
before the ‘official’ birth of Cinema in December 1895, in Café de la Paix in
Paris, when the Lumière brothers projected their ‘views’. Around the time of
the 100th birthday of Cinema, scholars and researchers all over the world
were rediscovering the origins of this art by developing a true archeology
of the medium. There was a fascination with the ways the kinetoscope, the
cinematograph – and other means of reproducing moving images – started
it all. This produced unexpected consequences in the study of early cinema,
and one of the most interesting aspects was rethinking the role of sound.
A leading figure in this area is Rick Altman, whose extraordinary research
(see Silent Film Sound, Altman 2004) made us rethink most of the notions
we had about the use of sound in the first days of film.
Sometime during 1894, inventor William Dickson experimented with
Edison’s kinetoscope and phonograph, creating a few seconds of film known
as ‘Dickson Experimental Sound Film’. Edison wanted to develop a medium
capable of recording and reproducing moving images with sound. Since he
was the inventor of both the kinetoscope and the phonograph, this film was

The New Soundtrack 8.2 (2018): 169–174

DOI: 10.3366/sound.2018.0129
© Edinburgh University Press and Gustavo Costantini
www.euppublishing.com/sound
170
1. We refer to the film and
VHS version, not to the
one available on DVD. The
latter is based on a
restoration that deleted
some shots, like the
images on the opening
credits, and erased many
sounds that were not able
to be restored. Therefore,
the supposedly improved
version lacks many of the
sound wonders that we
appreciate in the VHS
version, if the reader still
kept one copy and a VHS
player.
2. We developed a theory on
the use of leitmotif in
cinema in our article
Leitmotif revisited
(Costantini 2001).
Gustavo Costantini
an early attempt at this connection. We see Dickson playing the violin in
front of a primitive sound-capturing device – a large cone that transmits the
sound waves to the needle that produces the mechanical transduction – and
a couple of assistants dancing by his side. This experiment was lost for
decades until 1998, when preservationist Rick Schmidlin and Walter Murch
created a new restoration of the film. Murch digitised the cylinder and found
the correct synchronisation of the picture and sound. Now we were able to
watch and listen to a sound film that was conceived a year before the birth
of Lumière’s Cinema! Not only is this film interesting for its technical
achievements, but also because it is the first location sound recording, and
the first recording of a recording. Instead of framing only the violinist – the
protagonist of the scene – they wanted to capture the whole scene of
the sound being recorded, including a parallel action of the dancers on the
side. This extraordinary experiment reveals that sound was there from
the pre-history of moving images. And it was, possibly, the first example of
a ‘making-of’ film. Of course, we cannot talk of self-reference or even
self-awareness of the medium in philosophical terms here, but neither can we
be ignorant of the potential implications of what is depicted onscreen – and
through the loudspeakers.
The lesson we can learn from Dickson and Edison – and other pioneers
who worked with sound during the ‘silent’ years such as Alice Guy
Blaché – is that sound was implicit in the action even if there was no sound
reproduction or sound illustration. In that regard, Michel Chion is correct
in saying that instead of being mute or silent, cinema was ‘deaf’.
If we jump to the early days of optical sound and the different ways of
capturing sound-on-film in the late 20’s and early 30’s, we discover some
sound design ideas that go beyond mere music or dialogue. In Fritz Lang’s M
(1931)1 – a film that has become a key example for the study of film
sound – we experience the process of sound design, probably due to the
director’s own thinking and not from a colleague in charge of sound ideas.
The opening sequence is an outstanding demonstration of the ability of
sound to contribute to the production of meaning. The initial credits show a
wanted poster for the murderer M – like the ones we see later offering a
reward for information about the killer – accompanied by Eduard Grieg’s In
the Hall of the Mountain King ([1875] 1983), from Peer Gynt. Later in the
sequence we will listen to M whistling that tune – without seeing his
face – and in this way will recognise him as the killer. This might be the first
instance in sound cinema that a musical gesture or sound acted as a type of
leitmotif2. Lang makes us remember the melodic line and connect that with
the poster in the opening credits. This is an extremely clever way of using
music, creating a situation where we have to discover M by hearing, not by
watching.
Later on in the same sequence, we encounter a sound raccord – a
continuity established by means of sound – between the sound of a cuckoo
clock and the bells ringing in the street. Two contiguous scenes connected by
sounds, and in this case, overlapping the sound of the first ring of the bell on
top of the last moment of the shot of the cuckoo clock. It is likely that this is
the first time this technique was performed in a sound film. Finally, in the
 Murch and Burtt 171

last part of the sequence – when we assume little Elsie was murdered by 3. Interestingly enough, Louis
and Bebe Barron’s
M – we see a series of shots of Elsie Beckmann’s mother alone in the house, creation is credited as
waiting for her daughter. The mother calls Elsie from inside her apartment ‘Electronic Tonalities’.

making her voice heard in different spaces around the building – on the
stairs, in the courtyard, etc. ‘Elsie!’ she calls again and again, vainly. As the
camera moves further from her, the mother’s voice is heard with less intensity
and with more presence of the ambience. But the last time we hear her voice
it is superimposed on the images of the crime scene: we see an empty place in
a park and Elsie’s ball enters from the right of frame. Following that, the last
image of the sequence is of Elsie’s balloon – the one that we saw M buy from
a blind balloon seller – trapped in the overhead electric wires. It has the
shape of a child, resembling the body of the girl rising to heaven, or just into
the empty air. As we see these shots we hear for one last time the voice of the
mother, this time with heavy reverb and less intensity. It is a powerful and
poignant moment when this sound, coming from a distant, inaccessible,
off-screen space, symbolises the invisible (to the audience) – Elsie’s corpse.
The sound of the voice suggests a different kind of distance, a distance not
related to the physical locations but to life and death.
What is surprising is the maturity of these sound ideas, keeping in mind
that this was created at the beginning of sound film, and there are none of the
technical resources that eventually will make contemporary sound design
possible. These strategies are beyond the scope of the sound crew, and
become part of a true sound creation, of a sound strategy for the narrative
dimension, nevertheless involving technical expertise to successfully realise
the intent.

MURCH AND BURTT

If we follow the history of cinema, tracing sound’s technical achievements
as well as sound that influences the narrative, we could say that there are
two main approaches to sound design. On the one hand, we have the
sounds becoming part of the production of meaning, sounds like the
reverberated voice of Elsie’s mother in M, that suggest a sound metaphor
for life and death. On the other, sounds that create an imagery, a world
‘depicted’ by sounds, as with the electronic sounds and music score3 of
Louis and Bebe Barron for Fred Wilcox’ Forbidden Planet (1956), or
the ‘flexible’ and modulated bird sounds in Alfred Hitchcock’s The Birds
(1963), constructed by Oskar Sala. While the first approach is more related
to intervening in the narrative, affecting the production of meaning – or even
creating meaning in itself – the latter is more oriented to the sounds
themselves.
Walter Murch and Ben Burtt are probably the first recognised sound
designers in the commercial film industry. Obviously, we maintain that
sound design was already there from the very beginning, but the emergence
of these figures brought the soundtrack to a different level of complexity.
Let’s remember the famous sequence from The Godfather (Coppola
1972), where Michael Corleone (Al Pacino) is about to kill Sollozo
(Al Lettieri) and McCluskey (Sterling Hayden). They are in a restaurant,
172 Gustavo Costantini

4. Refer to our analysis in conversing about Don Corleone’s situation regarding the other ‘families’.
Filmwaves magazine
(Costantini 2003). Michael asks permission to go to the toilet. Captain McCluskey frisks him in
order to see if he is hiding a gun. Michael is not carrying a gun but knows
that one has been hidden for him in the toilet. Once he uses that gun he will
become one of ‘them’, a killer, a member of the mafia. When he leaves
the table and goes to the toilet, Murch adds the quiet sound of a train,
establishing that from the restaurant you can hear sounds of elevated trains or
the underground. Since we don’t see either, the audience has to assume that
the sound is coming from one of these sources. It is not a question of being
true, but plausible, verisimilar. When Michael is in the toilet checking for the
gun, a second train sound is heard: now the sound is louder and with a more
metallic, aggressive quality. Finally, Michael comes back with the gun, sits
by the table, and waits for the right time to pull the trigger. We see a close-up
of Michael as if he is not participating in the conversation nor even listening
to what they say: he just waits for the moment to fulfill his mission. At that
instant, Murch adds the last train effect, and this time it is the loudest, the
most metallic, piercing, even painful of them all. It has clearly been recorded
from very close, maybe even too close, to the source.
While the first sound was just a reference – as if to say ‘trains can be
heard from this location’ – the last one is again a symbol, like the reverberant
voice in M, of the inner state of the character. The edgy situation, the nervous
state of mind, the violence that we are about to see, all are projected by that
sound. Here it is clear that the achievement is in the concept, not in the
recording. Really, anyone with basic recording skills could capture these
sounds, but the real challenge lies in the idea of applying those train sounds
to the actions, and not only adding them to the image, but with a logical
progression – which one is first, second or third. There is an ascension in
tension and this is reflected in the timbre of these three different trains.
Although Murch could work very hard in achieving complex sounds – as
with the helicopter sounds and fans in the Apocalypse Now overture4 – his
approach is more about making the sounds as narrative as possible.
Ben Burtt’s intention on the other hand, is clearly more about the creation
of a sonic landscape – or, as we said, a sonic imagery. This approach could
involve a veritable arsenal of sonic weapons, and the Star Wars saga is
probably the most remarkable example of this. Some sounds in the first
trilogy, even the those in the first instalment, are part of our cultural history:
R2D2’s ‘voice’ – created with an Arp 2600, Darth Vader’s respiration,
the roar of the Empire’s attacking spacecraft, the light saber, etc. These are
all iconic sounds that defined a particular era of filmmaking.
But beyond the technical wizardry, we might say that all these wonderful
sounds are not participating in the narrative in the same way as the ‘simple’
trains or the use of reverb as in The Godfather or M. They do create a world
out of their material qualities, they are unique and, in a way, they probably
attract too much attention – sometimes – per se, instead of projecting
a meaning. In Star Wars, the Indiana Jones films, or Wall-E – all sound
designed by Burtt – the creation of these sounds for the production
of meaning is not a significant factor. They are there to generate fascination.
In other words, if we had a different sound for the light saber, or Wall-E had
 Murch and Burtt 173

a different voice, the stories wouldn’t be affected, though our overall

perceptions of the characters and the narrated world would be.
Is it wrong to say that these two approaches are the ones that we find in
most sound designers today? Some sound designers such as Skip Lievsay,
working with the Coen Brothers, or director Jonathan Demme, seem
to favour the Murch perspective, probably not because of their interests or
skills, but because of the types of projects in which they are involved. Sound
designers such as Erik Aadahl, working in the Transformers saga, or films like
I Robot or Godzilla, follow Burtt’s model. Some others such as Randy Thom,
Ren Klyce or Gary Rydstrom, have demonstrated that they could follow
both approaches, but always based on the style and content of the film on
which they are working. That said, you can detect which approach is more
preeminent, which attitude to sound is practiced by a particular sound
designer. In a way, the fact that sound designers are credited with a variety
of titles – such as ‘supervising sound editor’ – could reveal their inclination
or preference.
The purpose of this short article is not to establish an academic
distinction between these approaches to sound design. Rather, what is
proposed is a way of thinking about the impact of sound on the production
of meaning – or not – or to what extent the sounds themselves are objects
of our appreciation, beyond the symbolic significance they may have. For
a future work, we could trace these ‘traditions’ through the development
of cinema, and create a history of sound design, not starting with Apocalypse
Now, but with the earliest manifestations of sound applied in any way
to images.

SOURCES
Altman, Rick (2004), Silent Film Sound, New York: Columbia University
Press.
Bay, Michael (2007), Transformers, film, USA: Dreamworks.
Coppola, Francis Ford (1972), The Godfather, film, USA: Paramount.
Coppola, Francis Ford (1979), Apocalypse Now, film, USA: Zoetrope.
Costantini, Gustavo (2003), ‘The Murch Touch’, Filmwaves 21, pp. 46–51.
Costantini, Gustavo (2004), ‘Leitmotif revisited’. Filmwaves 23, pp. 44–50.
Dickson, William (1894), Dickson Experimental Sound Film, film, USA:
Edison Productions.
Edwards, Gareth (2014), Godzilla, film, USA: Warner Bros.
Grieg, Eduard ([1875] 1983), Peer Gynt, CD, conducted by Herbert Von
Karajan, Germany: Deutsche Grammophone.
Hitchcock, Alfred (1963), The Birds, film, USA: Universal.
Lang, Fritz (1931), M, Eine Stadt sucht einen Mörder, film, Germany:
Nero film.
Lucas, George (1977), Star Wars, film, USA: Lucasfilm.
Proyas, Alex (2004), I Robot, film, USA: Twentieth Century Fox.
Spielberg, Steven (1981), Raiders of the Lost Ark, film, USA: Paramount.
Stanton, Andrew (2008), Wall-E, film, USA: Pixar.
Wilcox, Fred (1956), Forbidden Planet, film, USA: Metro-Goldwyn-Meyer.
 174 Gustavo Costantini

CONTRIBUTOR’S DETAILS
Gustavo Costantini is a Argentinean sound designer and musician. He is
Professor of Sound 1 and 2 at the Universidad de Buenos Aires, and
Audiovision at Universidad Nacional de las Artes (Argentina) and a Visiting
Professor at the London Film School, University of London-Royal
Holloway, University of London-Goldsmiths, University for Creative Arts,
the National Film and Television School (UK), International Film School
(Germany), University John Cabot (Italy), European Film College and
National Film School (Denmark), Universidad de La República and
Universidad ORT (Uruguay). He is a member of the Editorial Board of
The New Soundtrack.
Contact: gcostantini@hotmail.com

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