'Try to see the world with your ears': Tips from Arrival's Oscar-winning sound designer

What does a mysterious and intelligent extraterrestrial with tentacles and its own language sound like? What do you hear when its gigantic floating ship lands? What noises does the cavernous ship make?

These are all questions that Montreal-based sound designer and sound editor Sylvain Bellemare had to answer when he created the sound environment for director Denis Villeneuve's 2016 sci-fi film, Arrival.

In fact, the work that Bellemare and his team produced for the film was so impressive that it earned him the Academy Award in Sound Editing. But before Villeneuve and Bellemare teamed up to make alien sound magic in Arrival, they worked on several noteworthy films together, including Villeneuve's award-winning Incendies, featured on the latest episode of CBC Arts' The Filmmakers.

To get inside the work, mind and ears of the lauded Canadian sound designer, The Filmmakers host Johanna Schneller met with him in Montreal to pick his brain. In this video, Bellemare breaks down how he created the sound environment for his favourite moment from Incendies and gives his essential tips for sound design — like "You suggest a world that we don't see but you feel it."

Watch The Filmmakers on Saturday nights at 9pm (9:30pm NT) on CBC Television or stream it online at cbc.ca/watch, with a classic Canadian film following at 9:30pm (10pm NT).