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Watching Warfare makes you feel like you're in combat. It's thanks to this underrated element

Watching Warfare makes you feel like you're in combat. It's thanks to this underrated element

The Age02-05-2025

A platoon of American soldiers sits quietly in an Iraqi apartment. Birds tweet peacefully outside, a pen cap clicks, radios intermittently babble directives. Then, all of a sudden, the harsh crack of a grenade envelops the room.
This deafening sound sets everything off in Warfare, A24's hyperrealistic film set during the Iraq War. Developed from the memories of real-life navy SEALs, it depicts the visceral, concussive sound of war as much as the horrifying look of it – snapping bullets, booming IEDs, blood-curdling screams.
'You don't only hear sound. You feel it,' says Glenn Freemantle, Warfare 's Academy Award-winning sound designer. 'It completely transforms cinema. You can just listen to a film and get everything from it. Whereas, if you watch a film without sound, you miss a lot.'
In Warfare, Freemantle says, sound directs focus as much as the camera lens. Every sound, whether it's dust settling or a passing jet plane, is intentionally woven into each scene.
Working alongside co-director Ray Mendoza, who was one of the soldiers at the real-life mission depicted in the film, Freemantle recreated the sounds of combat as accurately as possible. This involved travelling to gun ranges in the Czech Republic to record the sound of live ammunition and sonic booms (when bullets travel faster than the speed of sound).
'We needed to make it as real as it could be,' he says. 'There's no music, no other source guiding your emotions other than these sounds. It's minutely detailed to the nth degree to create a sense at each moment – to make you uncomfortable, to make you scared.'
Sound has been imperative to many of the films Freemantle has worked on, including Civil War, which also depicts the sounds of combat, Slumdog Millionaire, with its bustling Mumbai streets, and all the Paddington films, which required sonically grounding the animated bear in our reality.
But despite how vital sound is in film, Freemantle says cinemas are increasingly failing to play movies at the correct volume.
'I took my granddaughter to see Wonka, which I worked on, and was so upset. I knew it was more vibrant than what they heard. It was just too quiet ... Give it the right sound, and everyone will love it.'
Warfare joins a long list of titles famous for their innovative use of sound. Here are just a few.
Star Wars: Episode IV – A New Hope (1977)
Sound designer Ben Burtt revolutionised sci-fi sound design by incorporating 'found sounds' (natural sounds recorded in the real world).
For example, the blasters were developed from the twang of a radio tower guy wire, and the light sabres were a combination of a film projector and broken television that were re-recorded by a swinging microphone. Meanwhile, Darth Vader's breathing was a result of a microphone inside a scuba regulator.
Instead of sounding electronic and artificial, A New Hope seemed real and organic, thus arguably creating the most immersive sci-fi film of its time.
Apocalypse Now (1979)
Walter Murch is largely credited with establishing the official role of 'sound designer' in film. His work on the war epic was the first to fully use stereo surround sound, which ultimately paved the way for future 5.1 surround-sound systems.
The most impressive element of Murch's work, however, was his use of sound to represent the lead character's deteriorating mental state, blending mundane objects like a ceiling fan with the thumping sounds of helicopters.
Gravity (2013)
Mimicking the sound of space is no easy feat, but Freemantle captured it so effectively in Gravity that he won an Academy Award for it in 2014. There's total silence in space because sound can't travel through the air. Freemantle therefore decided to rely on vibrations and touch as the primary source of sound transmission. Using hydrophones and contact microphones with everyday objects like guitar strings, he recorded sounds that were then manipulated to create a sense of the characters' surroundings.
Ex Machina (2014)
This sci-fi thriller was another one of Freemantle's masterpieces. Instead of using actual mechanical objects to create the sounds of the android, he used gyros and other non-mechanical devices, including crystal bowls wobbling on piano keys.
Contact microphones and hydrophones were also used to record under oil and water, producing tracks that eventually overlaid the android's movements. This sounded more believable and subtle compared with cliché robotic twangs.
Dunkirk (2017)
The relentless ticking clock in Christopher Nolan's Dunkirk, which was overseen by sound editor Richard King, created a physical sense of foreboding throughout the film.
Elsewhere, its repeated use of the Shepard tone – an auditory illusion that makes a sound seem to ascend or descend in pitch indefinitely – has also become known as one of the most effective ways of depicting desperation and increasing anxiety on-screen.

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The jury found Weinstein not guilty of a charge stemming from his alleged assault of Kaja Sokola in 2002 when she was a 16-year-old aspiring actress. The jury has not yet reached a verdict on the third count, which charges him with raping aspiring actress Jessica Mann in 2013. They will resume deliberations on that count on Thursday. Regardless of their eventual verdict on the rape charge, Weinstein faces up to 25 years in prison when he is sentenced. He has separately been sentenced to 16 years in prison following a rape conviction in California. Jurors in the New York case reached their partial verdict on the fifth day of sometimes fractious deliberations. Before the jury announced their verdict on Wednesday, Justice Curtis Farber met privately with one person on the 12-member jury referred to as Juror One. The judge then stated in open court that there had been "fighting" in the jury room. 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A jury had in February 2020 found Weinstein guilty of raping Mann and sexually assaulting Haley. Sokola's allegation was not part of that case. The conviction was a milestone for the MeToo movement, which encouraged women to come forward with allegations of sexual misconduct by powerful men. But the New York Court of Appeals, the state's highest court, threw out that conviction in April 2024. It said the trial judge erred by letting women testify that Weinstein had assaulted them, although their accusations were not the basis of the criminal charges. Although the 2020 conviction was thrown out, Weinstein has remained behind bars because of his 2022 rape conviction in California, which resulted in a 16-year prison sentence. He is appealing that verdict. More than 100 women, including famous actresses, have accused Weinstein of misconduct. The retrial was handled by prosecutors with the office of Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg. They portrayed Weinstein as a serial predator who promised career advancement in Hollywood to women, only to then coax them into private settings where he attacked them. The defence rejected that characterisation, saying Weinstein engaged in "mutually beneficial" relationships with his accusers, who ended up with auditions and other show business opportunities. Weinstein co-founded the Miramax studio, whose hit movies included Shakespeare in Love and Pulp Fiction. His own eponymous film studio filed for bankruptcy in March 2018, five months after sexual misconduct accusations against him became widely publicised. A Manhattan jury has found Harvey Weinstein guilty on a sex crimes charge although the jury has not yet reached a verdict on all counts the former movie mogul faces in deliberations that have been marred by infighting and threats. Weinstein, once one of the most powerful figures in Hollywood, is facing a retrial after a state appeals court last year overturned his 2020 conviction. He was accused by prosecutors in the case of raping an aspiring actress and assaulting two other women. Weinstein, 73, pleaded not guilty and has denied assaulting anyone or having non-consensual sex. The jury found Weinstein guilty on one of the three counts he faced, which stemmed from his alleged assault of former production assistant Miriam Haley in 2006. The jury found Weinstein not guilty of a charge stemming from his alleged assault of Kaja Sokola in 2002 when she was a 16-year-old aspiring actress. The jury has not yet reached a verdict on the third count, which charges him with raping aspiring actress Jessica Mann in 2013. They will resume deliberations on that count on Thursday. Regardless of their eventual verdict on the rape charge, Weinstein faces up to 25 years in prison when he is sentenced. He has separately been sentenced to 16 years in prison following a rape conviction in California. Jurors in the New York case reached their partial verdict on the fifth day of sometimes fractious deliberations. Before the jury announced their verdict on Wednesday, Justice Curtis Farber met privately with one person on the 12-member jury referred to as Juror One. The judge then stated in open court that there had been "fighting" in the jury room. "Juror One has made it very clear that he is not going to change his position," Farber said, adding that Juror One did not tell him what his position was. "He indicated that at least one other juror made comments to the juror that 'I'll meet you outside one day,' and there's yelling and screaming." Weinstein's lawyer Arthur Aidala asked for a mistrial. As Farber was preparing to dismiss jurors for the day to give them a chance to "cool off," the jury sent a note indicating it had reached a verdict on some counts. The retrial began on April 23. Weinstein has had a litany of health problems and attended the retrial in a wheelchair. In closing arguments on June 3, the prosecution told the 12 jurors that the evidence showed how Weinstein used his power and influence to trap and abuse women. The defence countered that the accusers lied on the witness stand out of spite after their consensual sexual encounters with the Oscar-winning producer failed to result in Hollywood stardom. A jury had in February 2020 found Weinstein guilty of raping Mann and sexually assaulting Haley. Sokola's allegation was not part of that case. The conviction was a milestone for the MeToo movement, which encouraged women to come forward with allegations of sexual misconduct by powerful men. But the New York Court of Appeals, the state's highest court, threw out that conviction in April 2024. It said the trial judge erred by letting women testify that Weinstein had assaulted them, although their accusations were not the basis of the criminal charges. Although the 2020 conviction was thrown out, Weinstein has remained behind bars because of his 2022 rape conviction in California, which resulted in a 16-year prison sentence. He is appealing that verdict. More than 100 women, including famous actresses, have accused Weinstein of misconduct. The retrial was handled by prosecutors with the office of Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg. They portrayed Weinstein as a serial predator who promised career advancement in Hollywood to women, only to then coax them into private settings where he attacked them. The defence rejected that characterisation, saying Weinstein engaged in "mutually beneficial" relationships with his accusers, who ended up with auditions and other show business opportunities. Weinstein co-founded the Miramax studio, whose hit movies included Shakespeare in Love and Pulp Fiction. His own eponymous film studio filed for bankruptcy in March 2018, five months after sexual misconduct accusations against him became widely publicised.

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