Creating the sound for “A Nightmare on Elm Street”

Jake over at Designing Sound has an exclusive interview up with the sound team on “A Nightmare on Elm Street”:

DS: Transition stings seem like a lot fun to cut in horror films due to their startling nature. Do the sounds that comprise the sting have to be related to the shot? What makes a perfect transition sting?
AC: Stings are tough. To be effective they need to be shocking enough to jar your nerves. The problem with stings is that they are not a “satisfying” scare. If you have too many of them, the audience will become annoyed. There is a scene where Jesse shows up outside Kris’s window. Initially we had a more “traditional” sting here, but we all felt we were over staying our welcome with stings. So to mix things up, we used a LOUD window bang. This still jars the audience’s nerves, and gives us a shock, but because it is tied to a real world event, it doesn’t feel “stung.” So the elements can be real like the window example, or comprised of all sorts of goodness.

Read the full interview here.