By Christian Agadibe
Composer cum sound designer, Shiloh Godson, deserves his flowers.
Indeed, for the boss of Hush Sounds, a pat on the back would go a long way in cheering his efforts. Either way, Godson continues to step up his games to breathe life into movies and create effects of gripping emotions.
“To be fair to the audience, it’s the actors they see. That is why everyone talks about the actors. Even the producers that make the movies, hire the directors and pay the actors are mostly unknown. It’s like Google. Everyone knows Google, the product, but a very small percentage knows that Google is owned by a company known as Alphabet Inc. The actors are the products of a movie, so they have to be recognizable, otherwise people won’t watch it,” he explained.
Just like Godson, sound designers can manipulate sounds to create certain emotions. “I think everyone with an ability to hear has almost certainly heard a door open in a movie. But in certain movies, most people have felt a bit of trepidation when their favourite actor tries opening the door of a haunted or scary house; like the creaking of doors in a horror film makes people feel a bit scared, or the hissing of snakes in films,” the sound guru said.
Recently, Godson walked journalists through one of the movies he had worked on. “I remember in the trailer of Troublous Weekend, we got some kids to say ‘I’m sorry’. Then we tweaked the sound and it felt like demons or spirits speaking. These are examples of what a sound designer can do in a film.”
As a sound designer, Godson’s job is to map out the blueprint of how a film will sound, but he is unfazed to concede that sound design is pretty broad. Hear him: “The goal is simply to ensure the viewer is fully immersed into the story they are watching, and hearing.”
The music enthusiast, who dabbled into the film industry to spice up the movie life, highlighted his unflinching love for making good music. “I remember a couple of weeks ago while writing the music for the movie, Bigger Fish, we wrote over two hours of music. Quite a number of them were discarded, not because they were bad, but because they either didn’t fit the story or we decided silence was better,” he stated.
The Hush Sounds’ boss is currently writing the music for a captivating movie. “It’s about Africans adapting to life in the US, and it’s shot in the US. It’s a relevant story, because I’ve had friends having the issues that were highlighted in the movie,” Godson said.