Creating the sound for “A Nightmare on Elm Street”

August 2, 2010

Jake over at Designing Sound has an exclusive interview up with the sound team on “A Nightmare on Elm Street”:

DS: Transition stings seem like a lot fun to cut in horror films due to their startling nature. Do the sounds that comprise the sting have to be related to the shot? What makes a perfect transition sting?
AC: Stings are tough. To be effective they need to be shocking enough to jar your nerves. The problem with stings is that they are not a “satisfying” scare. If you have too many of them, the audience will become annoyed. There is a scene where Jesse shows up outside Kris’s window. Initially we had a more “traditional” sting here, but we all felt we were over staying our welcome with stings. So to mix things up, we used a LOUD window bang. This still jars the audience’s nerves, and gives us a shock, but because it is tied to a real world event, it doesn’t feel “stung.” So the elements can be real like the window example, or comprised of all sorts of goodness.

Read the full interview here.