Approach
Lena came to us with a 14-minute rough cut and one note: "It should feel like you can hear the empty seat next to her." We built the score around absence — long, slow harmonic shifts that imply movement rather than insist on it. Room tone, footstep and shutter were tuned into the harmonic field, blurring the line between sound and music.
Process
Field recordings were captured in apartments, churches and stairwells across Cologne using contact and ambisonic mics. Back at the studio, we layered them with prepared piano, modular synthesis and a single string quartet session — recorded live in our tracking room over two days.
Result
Premiered at Berlinale 2025. Nominated for Best Sound at the German Film Awards. The final mix was delivered in 5.1, stereo, and a binaural pass for festival streaming.
