Sound and music bring more than a fancy layer of necessary realism to the motion picture. They build the emotional architecture of a film. Swap a track, and comedy turns to tragedy. A subtle hum or melody can stretch minutes into hours — or collapse days into seconds.
It’s the ultimate mind bender in my toolkit, which can mess with your perception of the story at my will. Critics and regular audiences praise “track selection” and “original atmospherics,” unaware they’re hearing layered compositions of soundscapes and music that never existed in the original recording.
But they won’t endure pops, clicks, floating noise levels, or inaudible dialogue (yes, Tenet, I’m looking at you…) A paradox: try asking a non DP to compare gamma differences or color spaces — it’s all forgiven as looking the same. So beyond the manipulative aspect, I keep the levels at BBC’s -6 Db, painstakingly adjusting the curves without a limiter or an automated compressor.
Yes, in my work, sound design extends beyond hearing — into feeling that escapes conscious pinpointing by the audience. A craft of immense complexity, where layers of carefully recorded and constructed soundscapes intertwine to shape emotional realities. Every sound you hear in my films is deliberate: the reverberating nostalgia of subway PSAs, the squeal of old Soviet elevators’ struggling to close their doors, the weird hydraulics pumps revving up in an Airbus or a pitch of a TGV train. And yet, it feels effortless — an organic extension of the world the film inhabits and sings.
Music was thrust into my life early, in weird ways. First, as part of the French-Speaking Switzerland background of the radio playing not so Swiss American pop. Then as a whole world of classical music dissected by a Soviet music school layered on top of my regular education, when my parents moved to work in Moscow. The USSR had roaming “talent hunters” sieving the classes for talent, and I had the misfortune to have lots of different ones. Including a musical ear and near-perfect pitch (and perfect rhythm). My parents obliged to the Party demand for the cadre’s future excellence. I reluctantly delivered. 20 years later, I’m glad that education was surprisingly thorough for the age: we had robust lessons in music theory, composition, history, notation systems, instruments’ use. Someone called me “a visual mathematician” Music opened its math to me, which reconciled the visible with the audible.
I kept the obligatory piano technique in a workable form (for a re-arranger, not a performer), switching to my love in the 2000s — the strings. From cello to guitar to contrabass. So music and sound are more than mere power tools for my films. An acoustic guitar is next to my pillow when I need a break, and an electric one stays within hand’s reach from my editing work desk. I like to modify the guitars, change (and snap) the strings by overstressing to unconventional tunings, mixing up traditional or alternative finger picking (Mark Knopfler is a thumb hero) with a huge collection of picks strewn on the table to incorporate a bar-chord into my work. Of course, a full-sized keyboard is still there, only now it’s digital and more versatile. If not as reassuringly massive as the piano we had at our Moscow flat. And yes, I still sing — though my voice has dropped several octaves since the USSR choir soloist days.
I write my own lyrics, mostly in Russian, blending rhythm, emotion, and sound into poetry. The same precision and intuition I bring to film editing and sound design find their way into these words and melodies, tying all my creative disciplines into one continuous thread.
Music has always been central to my films. Many of them remain unrivaled “techno musicals,” minimal on dialogue, maximal on emotion, and designed to transcend language barriers (and increase sales).
For my first feature, Kvadrat, we digitized 302 vinyl records from a collection of 5 000, which became 48 hours of carefully curated tracks, mixed in Ableton Live. That film’s music and sound were so intertwined that traditional workflows couldn’t apply — I had to invent my own (even though I’m at home in Pro Tools or Logic). To this day, no one — critics or even the original composers — has noticed how I rearranged and manipulated pieces to compress or dilate time.
Sound begins on location. Whispers in a vast warehouse? Jet engines revving up? Or blasting nightclub chaos (without rupturing a costly Dolby system) — I adapt to the environment with the precision of an engineer. Microphone choice and placement remains a methodical trial-and-error; spectral repair, a science. I’ve mastered both, avoiding shortcuts like standard filter stacks and mix-downs in favor of real-time adjustments and meticulous post-production for each occasion.
I don’t “picture lock”. Nor do I lock sound. Music and visuals evolve together, influencing one another until the final delivery — Final Cut Pro X helps with its magnetic timeline and fluid back and forth tension between image and sound.
As a result, a lot of people “listen” to my films as much as they watch them, letting the soundscapes carry them through the narrative. Literally. In their cars and in their offices. As a “pick me up” boost or “flow state music”.
To me, sound design is as venerated as my visual exploration. Born in Geneva, the Swiss obsession with the smallest details is a habit, not a DSM deviance. The texture of ADRs, the presence of a Foley, the fading silence of a fridge’s compressor — all balance out in a rich, multitrack mix.
I calibrate my studios meticulously — thankfully, Genelec’s monitoring solutions have become really good. To which I always add through test listens on everything from high-end headphones to bargain-bin earbuds. Accessibility matters, but not at the cost of artistic intent.
And I won’t stop “once out of the office”. My iTunes library spans 142 days of continuous playback — melodic ideas from Chinese Guqin and Indian Sitar to Soviet punk, Vysotsky’s raucous critique of the regime, Brian Eno’s music for airports, Cocteau Twins mesmerizing vocal and guitar reverbs, with a touch of Stravinsky atonal “devil’s music” or Bach “A Phone Call to God” (BWV 639). Each piece contributes to a potential vector of a narrative.
I ended up coding my own DAM system for managing over 200 hours of aggregated audio recordings each feature requires. And, according to the reviews from people I have never met — this obsession isn’t just technical — they somehow dive into my emotional waters, over and over, as years go (while a usual film’s shelf life is measured in months, not in decades) — the music is often the main hero who carries the narrative forward.
Sound isn’t just something I design — it’s something I live. An acoustic guitar near my bed. An electric within arm’s reach. A world of rhythms and melodies shaping every scene.
Slip on headphones — good or bad. Listen. You’ll hear the juxtaposition of documentary and imagined sounds, layered textures, improbable remixes.
And if you’re curious how it’s done, get in touch to create something extraordinary together.
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