Even when all is quiet, sound brings forth the emotions of World War I

In “All Quiet on the Western Front,” from director Edward Berger, soldier Paul Bäumer is found in a pile of rubble by his comrades having survived a night of enemy shelling. Lars Ginzel Sonically, the palette found its footing from “letters of soldiers writing back home to their family,” says sound designer and supervising sound editor Frank Kruse. The sounds of the “iron monsters” were created by combining recordings from production sound mixer Viktor Prášil with foley sessions of metal screeches and animal noises. Prášil also recorded a number of wild tracks on set from different perspectives, especially moments that “would be difficult to shoot again or not even possible.” With the help of additional on-set sound mixers, Prášil says, “we shot over 40 gigabytes of audio material in mono, stereo and five-channel that was sent to post.” The battle scenes were mixed so that each — as presented in Atmos, a three-dimensional sound design — came across differently, Ginzel says. It’s one of my favorite sound moments in the film.” Ginzel adds, “The quiet moments are what keep the whole film together.”