Sound Canvas Crafts the Sound Design for Nick Parish’s Intimate Debut Feature Film

Sound Canvas was delighted to have the opportunity to work with Nick Parish, creating the sound design for his debut feature film, The Old Man and the Land. Nick is a London based filmmaker and co-director of Milkwood Productions who has an impressively wide ranging background in filmmaking and storytelling. This film started as a portrait of a stoic farmer and his relationship to the land. Filmed over a number of years, it has evolved into an intimate and poignant family drama told through images of working life on the farm and conversations between his two children.

About the process of working on the film, sound designer Damian Pace said, “We wanted to focus on realism, making the audience feel like they’re on the farm with the main character as the story unfolds. Using production audio as a starting point, we put a strong emphasis on ambiences to embellish each location and highlight the passage of time. We also placed the voicemail dialogue within the same world as the rest of the film. As the farmer doesn’t have any dialogue, it was important to highlight his side of the story using sound; the realism and documentary style of the film allowed us to use subtle changes in tone revealing details of his character.”

Starring Rory Kinnear and Emily Beecham, the film was selected for the Critic’s Pick award at the Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival where it had it’s World Premiere in November. It will also be screened as part of the Glasgow Film Festival in March 2024.

More information can be found here.