ROOM TONE The Centre for Creative Arts, Cultures and Engagement (CREATURE)

In this CREATURE Lab, Robb Horsley walked the participants through his film project, Room Tone. It explored ambient sound in cinema and music composition, referencing the pioneering works of Alan Splet (David Lynch’s sound designer) and Pauline Oliveros (Deep Listening). Through screen extracts from the film project, the Lab encouraged debate and feedback on how the project could be developed further.

Room Tone aimed to capture the subtle differences in ambient ‘silence’ across a variety of interior spaces. The project title referred to an industry term for the practice of recording silence on film sets. When shooting was completed at a location, crew were asked to remain quiet for a short time so the sound recordist could capture the room’s ambient tonal signature. In effect, they were recording silence—the absence of sound. However, no room was truly silent; each had a subtly different ambience. This was then used in sound editing to cover gaps between dialogue in a scene. By moving room tone from the background (where its role was to remain "invisible") to the foreground, Horsley aimed to create a sonic portrait of negative space.

In the purest sense, silence was defined as the complete absence of sound. Yet, just as we rarely encountered total darkness, we were even less likely to experience complete silence anywhere on earth. Unlike light, sound could travel around corners and through solid objects, with its echoes lingering long after the initial noise had ceased. When juxtaposed, the contrast between rooms became striking and revealing, making us aware of something we were not fully conscious of in reality. At times, the work came across more as a piece of music than a film.

Robb Horsley is a filmmaker with work held in public collections at Arts Council England, Film London, American Dance Foundation, Berlin Poetry Foundation, The British Council , BBC and IMZ Germany. His screen-based work spans a wide range of genres including documentary, artists' film and video, music videos and commercials. Robb is Course Leader for MA Documentary Film Production.