No Time To Die Director Explains How Video Game Sound Design Influences Movies

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Cary Joji Fukunaga, the filmmaker behind the latest 007 film, No Time to Die, has explained his belief that video game design influences cinema. The twenty-fifth James Bond entry marks only the fourth feature film for Fukunaga, but the Emmy-winning director has a strong track record that set many fans at ease when it was announced that he would replace Danny Boyle as No Time to Die’s director.

While the film still hasn’t been released in all markets, the reviews so far have been particularly encouraging. This will certainly come as a relief for Universal, Daniel Craig – who appears for the final time as Bond, and of course, Fukunaga. As one of the franchise’s youngest first-time directors, Fukunaga has helped to impart a new era upon Bond, a process that involved hiring Fleabag and Killing Eve creator, Phoebe Waller-Bridge, making her only the second female Bond screenwriter in the history of the franchise. The film’s production had plenty of setbacks, but many of these were outside of the control of Fukunaga and Universal. For his part, then, it looks as though Fukunaga’s strengths as a filmmaker as well as his fresh manner of looking at things has paid off in the latest entry.

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But as No Time to Die continues to perform well, it’s worth getting to know more about Fukunaga and his process. Naturally, every filmmaker has their own preferences with regard to style, but Fukunaga’s ability to incorporate the tiniest of details impacts his work in terms of authenticity and overall tone. Recently, while speaking with IGN, Fukunaga explained how sound design in video games has influenced filmmaking – a point that isn’t typically discussed or even acknowledged by most filmmakers today. Read what he said below:

“You know, as much as video games have been a part of my life, what’s very interesting about the sound design in video games is like, you know, how much sound design from the games has now re-influenced cinema. Like if you think about even just the sounds of like, the mechanics of a machine gun, how like the Call of Duty, you know, metallic sort of clank has made its way into, like the effects sound work on the mix on movies. That goes back to Sin Nombre, I remember talking to my mixers on Sin Nombre, like No, this doesn’t sound like my games sound. You know? Which has a really specific effect. I know that a real gun sounds different in real life, but when you’re doing a movie you’re trying to influence your senses to make it appear like real life and sometimes the direct translation from real life doesn’t have the same effect. You know, if you think about like, Half Life or Biohazard or you know, The Last of Us, you know, when you’re moving through these worlds, sound design, darkness, you know moving through dark spaces, creating thrills, you know, that’s all, they all kind of –  they, it balances back and forth I think between television or film and video games and then back and forth again. So everything is kind of influencing each other there. The more you spend time playing games, the more you kind of spend time in a world where you can decide well I like the effect that this game is having on me. What are they doing? How do I, you know, reemploy that?”

Video games have long had a relationship with cinema, but unfortunately that relationship is more often known for being one that doesn’t take kindly to adaptations. What Fukunaga is talking about, however, is a relatively simple yet important influence on the part of video games in cinema. As gaming worlds become more complex, more engaging and more cinematic, it only stands to reason that this influence will be re-incorporated by films.

Hearing Fukunaga talk about the clear connection between gaming and films is further evidence that both mediums have become more entwined than ever before. While this is especially exciting for the inevitable impact on games, it takes a truly astute filmmaker to acknowledge how games have found little ways to recapture intrigue and tone that modern filmmaking has often forgotten about. It’s yet another indication that No Time to Die represents something new for the Bond series and possibly for action filmmaking in general.

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