The Sounds of Silence - A Tale of Noiseless Movie Props

Have you ever thought about how quiet the world of television and movies can be? If two characters are eating at a restaurant or working in an office, we don't have to worry about trying to hear them over the sound of clinking glasses or crinkling paper, or anyone else who might be making too much noise in the background. Cinematic sound tells us just as much of the story as the images, and unless they're part of the story, footsteps and rustling clothes aren't usually something we want to hear coming from the speakers. Movies are filmed in the same noisy, unpredictable world we all live in, though, and life doesn't come with a mute button, though it'd be nice if it did. So how do they do it? The right microphone, soundproofing, and studio environment all go a long way, of course, and a talented sound editor, such as my own editor Humberto Franco, can work wonders in post-production. But there's only so much that can be cleaned up or kept away from the microphone: everything we do makes some kind of sound. That’s why prop masters also use something called "silent props," or "noiseless props," to take the everyday noise that we can't get rid of completely and turn it into a different, more soothing kind of sound. One prop master whose TikTok videos earlier this year helped bring the idea of silent props to the public eye is Scott Reeder, who’s been working in Hollywood for over three decades. For recording a conversation during a game of pool in the show Friday Night Lights, without having the actors pausing for each shot, he came up with the idea of repainting soft plastic racquetballs to look like pool balls. When the camera needed to show one of the shots, he swapped the prop balls with the real thing and then switched them back. If you’d like to check out Scott’s mixture of movie-making insights and punny dad jokes, you can find the link to his recent video on creating silent horseshoes here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yhv6GfDP4ok (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yhv6GfDP4ok) When it comes to recordi