Blade Runner is rightly heralded for its layered visuals and visionary design. Yet, when I revisited it recently I was struck by it’s sounds and how they connect to themes from the source novel and the distance between characters.
Honestly, technology peaked around 1995 when electronic skip protection and the overdue release of the soundtrack album on CD made it possible to listen to Vangelis’ Blade Runner score while ice skating. I have spent many hours listening to this score, not only while ice skating, and the included lines of dialogue are etched into my brain. Not only the words, but the sound of them. Yet, when rewatching the film for the first time in a few years, I was still surprised that the striking amount of reverb and the use of the entire width of the stereo spectrum in the dialogue was not just a feature of the soundtrack mix, but also present in the Bluray 5.1 mix of the final cut version of the film.
And so I began the exploration of the sounds of spaces in Blade Runner that, at least for now, has resulted in this video essay.
Facts
- Bud Alper is credited as “sound mixer” for the original release of Blade Runner with IMDb listing Jim Sheridan as uncredited sound designer.
- Peter Pennell, Bud Alper, Graham Hartstone and Gerry Humphreys received a BAFTA nomination for the sound on Blade Runner in 1983.
Film
- Blade Runner (Ridley Scot 1982).
Litterature
Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? (Philip K. Dick 1968).
