ABSTRACT
McTiernan in particular had a string of commercial and critical successes in the genre in the 1980s and 1990s, and three of his films Predator, Die Hard, and The Hunt for Red October—exhibit sound designs infused with a musicality that deepened and expanded the potential for the genre as a whole. This chapter examines the intricate sound designs of these three films, drawing on interviews with the sound designers as well as on the author's own personal involvement as lead Foley artist on two of these films. The sound design of the windows shattering is a combination of both edited sound effects and Foley. The typical solution to a sound editing challenge would have been to turn to library effects. Helicopters and other vehicles are fairly pedestrian in most action films, and chases often seem obligatory. The tendency to overlook sound design as extraneous in any film exists writ large across much of film studies.
