The Power of Sound Design in Film: A Conversation with Benjamin Kapit
“If you have a screen that goes very bright white or if you have a screen that goes very dark, people can deal. Their eyes will adjust, or they’ll just accept that. But if you have bad sound, people will leave. They’ll turn off the movie. If they have to be adjusting the volume, if they have to adjust the volume of a video more than like two times, they’re very likely to leave. If the sound is just, like, bad audio and they can’t understand it, they won’t follow what’s going on. They’ll leave. So even from that most basic perspective, just passable good audio is more important than passable good visuals, because people can forgive bad visuals. But they cannot and will not forgive bad sound, because bad sound hurts.” – Benjamin Kapit
This episode’s guest in “The Power Sound Design in Film” is a filmmaker, composer, and sound designer who started his production company at the age of fifteen. He’s currently in post-production for multiple short films and web shows, and he’s working on his fifth vocal album. His name is Benjamin Kapit, and our two-part conversation covers a wide range of sound-related issues when it comes to creativity. Stay tuned for more insights into, among other things, what it was like starting his sound career at such a young age, the balancing act of creating sound-based art and film in the age of AI, and his approach to movie soundtracks.
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(0:00:00) – Exploring Sound, Film & Autism
As our discussion begins, Benjamin shares his early memories of sounds and how his older brother’s musical talent inspired his own career path. “We had an upright piano,” he recalls, “and eventually got a baby grand, and my house growing up was constantly filled with music, and I look up to my brother so much because he’s the one that got me into piano.” He talks about his autism diagnosis and how being on the spectrum can be a double-edged sword when it comes to filmmaking. “I see a lot of the work that I do as a puzzle,” he explains, “and so, you know, despite the shortcomings of it, I’m able to utilize whatever’s going on in my brain to actually end up helping the work that I do.”
(0:11:30) – Creativity in Sound Design and Film
The topic turns to cinematic audio and the challenge of inventing whole new sounds that have no counterpart in the real world. “How do you approach making a sound for, you know, shooting magic out of their wand,” he says, “because that’s not a real thing. So what do you do for it? Do you go for the more realistic element, or do you head towards, like, complete synthesis?” We discuss film scores and their role in shaping not only the narrative but also the performances. “One of my shortcomings is communication,” Benjamin tells us, “and if I can’t get an idea or the feeling of a scene out verbally to an actor, I bet I can do it with music. So I’ll write pieces before I even get on set that I can hand to the actor and say, ‘This is how this scene should feel.’ Then we’ll be able to discuss it further.”
(0:26:16) – On-Set Audio Challenges and Solutions
Benjamin and I talk about how easy it is to overlook sound in movie making, and the perils of doing so. “If you have bad sound,” he notes, “people will leave, they’ll turn off the movie. If they have to be adjusting the volume, if they have to adjust the volume of a video more than, like, two times, they’re very likely to leave.” He tells us about the practical challenges of recording both on and off the set, such as a conversation aboard a speedboat. “We have a scene that was entirely eighty yards on a boat,” he recalls, “a speedboat that was going thirty miles an hour, and so you could barely even hear them on set with a boom microphone. So they had to do [ADR] mostly to, like, their mouths moving.”
Episode Summary
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Benjamin’s early sonic influences and his journey as a young filmmaker.
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How cinematic soundscapes bring fantasy to life, and the narrative power of music.
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Benjamin’s techniques for capturing quality audio, even on a speedboat.
Tune in for next week’s episode as Benjamin shares how background static can play a surprising role in sound design, the crucial difference between generative AI and discriminative artificial intelligence, and his thoughts on whether AI artwork and sound effects can replace creativity.
Connect with the Guest
Website: https://benjaminkapit.com/
Follow Benjamin Kapit on TikTok: https://tiktok.com/@benjaminkapit/
Subscribe to Benjamin Kapit on Instagram: http://instagram.com/benjaminkapitofficial
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This interview episode was very skillfully made to sound beautiful by the talented Humberto Franco.
** Transcript available upon request
