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• 1 2021-07-11T13:54:03-07:00 Filling up the Silence 15 What we've come to associate with the sound of nuclear detonation plain 2021-07-16T06:07:54-07:00 As we have seen, the bomb's record is largely silent, even as the proliferating images of nuclear tests burned into our brains over the decades. Where media makers lacked sonic information for the project of nuclear fear, propaganda, and warning, they simply invented their own. Perhaps the most infamous example of this is a campaign ad from the 1964 presidential election. President Johnson's campaign commissioned the "Daisy" television spot from Doyle Dane Bernbach (DDB), the firm that had already changed advertising through its influential "Think Small" campaign for Volkswagen. This ad by all reports rocked the nation, and probably sealed Johnson the win.
  
  
  Sound is everything in this ad. Diegetic sounds of nature bring us into this space with the girl, whose voice is recorded and mixed to the foreground for us to join. Not only the youth and character of her voice but the rise and fall of her intonation contrast with the monotone male voice of typical countdown sequences. The countdown's space and echo take us back to the test zone, conjuring all manner of technology off-screen, a threat in its very reverb and processing as well as the event it portends. The distinctive southern voice and accent of the countdown may in fact be President Johnson, reminding us of the terrifying fact that launch decisions for nuclear war lie in the hands of one man. 
  
  This impressive collage is the work of influential sound designer Tony Schwartz, a giant of 20th century radio and advertising. Here's Bill Moyers interviewing Schwartz on the ad much later in 1982:
  In another interview, Schwartz explains his approach to sound, recognition, and how he exploits our need to understand the unfamiliar through the familiar:
  The "Daisy" ad wasn't the last place Schwartz attempted to create a sonic screen on which to project our ideas and fears of the bomb. In 1968, during the height of nuclear proliferation debates at the United Nations, he used his regular platform as a radio host on WNYC to present a "sound symbol" for nuclear war:
  
  
  
  [A bit of explication here] 
  
  Schwartz's influential work on the sound of the bomb opens up the possibilities for not only innovative editing of sound over image, but for synthesis and simulation as a mode of filling in the void left by the bomb's silent record. If historical government films of nuclear tests largely borrowed sounds from other explosions for their films, contemporary cinematic depictions of the bomb rely almost wholly on synthesis, as in this YouTube video tutorial on creating compelling sound effects for video games: