Saar Klein (SK):
In film, silence is as important as sound. The lack of sound is a powerful tool to dramatize, highlight and often to immerse the viewer into the eyes of a character to experience the world as they do. In my opinion, there’s an overuse of sound in recent Hollywood films. Both music and effects are pushed, creating audio fatigue for the viewer. For very practical purposes it is important to remove and simplify sound, so when you need to use it and you want it to “pop” you have the room to do so. To badly paraphrase Spinal Tap: your amp doesn’t need to be at 11. With After the Fall I tried to push these ideas to the next level. The intent was to place the viewer into the environment of the characters in order to create immersion.
It’s totally worth reading the whole article