Almost 20 years after its release, Fight Club remains an exceptionally fascinating film from David Fincher, who has gone on to create Oscar-nominated films like The Social Network, Gone Girl, and The Curious Case of Benjamin Button. A new video essay dives deep into the Brad Pitt-starring film, focusing primarily on the film’s sound editing and the lengths to which the sound designers went to get a unique sound.
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Many sequences in the film showcase the peak of CGI effects and how it can heighten storytelling, from a scene in which the camera lens starts inside of a trash bin and slowly pulls back, showing each product held inside, until the camera is in the center of the room, to allowing a character to walk through their apartment and have the price and catalog details of every item seen displayed on screen.
Despite the filmmaking techniques being cutting edge, one of the more subtle elements of the film was its sound design.
Throughout the history of cinema, action films have used heightened sound effects in an attempt to demonstrate the severity of every blow. The result is something entertaining, but far from believable, as every hit sounds like it could shatter bones.
Film Radar compiled a video essay using footage from the film, footage from other films, and sound bites from sound designers Ren Klyce and Richard Hymns about how they accomplished the many dull hits and hollow thuds to emulate the actual sounds of combat.
The designers started with traditional methods, which often involved celery being smashed, before toning things down. They replaced the celery with raw chickens, in hopes of capturing the sharper snaps of flesh hitting flesh. With that sound not as satisfying, they then added walnuts to the chicken carcass to add grinding and rattling sounds.
The duo even resorted to punching each other in the chest to truly perfect the sounds heard in the film, ensuring for brutal sequences. Although it’s far from being the goriest film, many consider the subtle and realistic depiction of fights is what made those sequences so disturbing, and it’s all thanks to chickens stuffed with walnuts.
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[H/T The A.V. Club]
