The technical crafts of sound in classical Hollywood cinema have until recently remained
largely 'unsung' by histories of the studio era. Yet film sound - voice music and sound
effects - is a crucial aspect of film style and has been key to engaging and holding audiences
since the transition to sound by Hollywood's major studios in 1929. This innovative new text
restores sound technicians to Hollywood's creative history. Exploring a range of films from the
early sound period (1931) through to the late studio period (1948) and drawing on a wide range
of archival sources the book reveals how Hollywood's sound designers worked and why they
worked in the ways that they did. The book demonstrates how sound technicians developed
conventions designed to tell stories through sound placing them within the production cultures
of studio era filmmaking and uncovering a history of collective and collaborative creativity.
In doing so it traces the emergence of a body of highly skilled sound personnel able to apply
expert technical knowledge in the science of sound to the creation of cinematic soundscapes
that are alive with mood and sensation.
