Cinematic sound design for horror and experimental film

IWhat sound design covers here

Designed sound built from recorded and played material rather than preset libraries: the parts of a film that are neither dialogue nor score, but carry the dread between them.

• 01

  Source and object recordings

  Metal, water, wood, breath, room tone and found material, recorded and shaped into instruments: bowed sheet metal, struck sculptures, waterphone, close-miked textures that behave like music.

• 02

  Designed atmospheres and beds

  Ambient dread that holds a scene without announcing itself — pressure beds, room breathing, quiet hums that make a cut feel wrong in the right way.

• 03

  Transitions, stingers and impacts

  The punctuation: risers that earn their release, cuts that land, impacts that do not sound like every other trailer.

• 04

  Voice and signal processing

  Processed voice, reversed material, tape and analogue colour, and treatments that keep a character's sound world consistent across a film.

IIWhere it fits in a production

1. Early, beside the score. Best case: sound design is spotted with the music so both share a palette and neither fights the other in the mix.
2. After a locked cut. Where the picture is already cut around library sound, design can replace the temporary elements cue by cue without re-cutting the film.
3. As the whole sound world. On shorts and experimental work, design can carry the piece with little or no score — atmosphere as the score.

Either way it is delivered as stems, so your re-recording mixer keeps control of the balance rather than receiving a finished two-track they cannot unpick.

IIIDeliverables

• Designed stems — atmosphere, impacts, transitions, treated material — labelled and timecode-aligned to picture.
• Source-sound variants at full length plus shortened passes for trailer and social cutdowns.
• Mix-ready levels with headroom for dialogue and score, delivered as high-bit-depth WAV.
• Cue-sheet-ready metadata where the design sits in a music cue and needs filing with the production. Cue sheets and performing rights.
• Session notes describing what each layer is for, so future edits stay inside the same world.

IVDesign and score together

When both are commissioned together the score and the design are built from one palette, which is the difference between a film that sounds designed and a film that sounds assembled. If the production already has a composer, design can be delivered as a separate, compatible layer — and if the production already has a sound team, the score can be written to leave them space.

Commission both from the same hand: hire a composer for scores, design and delivery under one agreement.

VProof and palette

• 01

  Sound design on released work

  Nine productions scored, with sound design credited on the studio's own short-form work.

• 02

  Sound libraries in the catalogue

  Released sound libraries and tools under the studio's own name — the same palette, sold as objects rather than commissioned per film.

• 03

  Hear the atmosphere first

  Thirty-two cues of dread, texture and pressure: the closest thing to a palette sheet before the brief arrives.

VIQuestions

Can I commission sound design without a score?

Yes. Design can be the whole sound world of a piece, or replace temporary library sound on a cut that is already locked.

Do you deliver stems?

Always. Designed layers arrive as separated stems at production bit depth so your mixer keeps the balance.

We already have a sound team. Does that work?

Yes — delivery is designed to slot into an existing pipeline, with notes describing what each layer is for.

VIIStart an inquiry

Send the format, the runtime, the feeling you are trying to build, and the deadline. Design commissions are quoted the same way as scores: from the project's funding outwards.

Open a scoring inquiry →

Commissioning a score as well? Hire a composer for both under one agreement · See rates