A Quiet Place 65

[Lucrecio Houle]

AQuiet Place is a 2018 American post-apocalyptic horror film directed by John Krasinski. The screenplay was written by Scott Beck and Bryan Woods from a story they conceived, with contributions by Krasinski after he joined the project. The plot revolves around a mother (Emily Blunt) and father (Krasinski) who struggle to survive and raise their children (Millicent Simmonds and Noah Jupe) in a post-apocalyptic world inhabited by blind extraterrestrial creatures with an acute sense of hearing.

Beck and Woods developed the concept for the story while in college, and began writing the screenplay in January 2016. They told Platinum Dunes producers that they wanted Blunt for the role of the mother. In July 2016, Krasinski read their script for the role of the father. He spoke with Blunt about his ideas for the story, and she suggested he direct the film. Blunt initially did not take the role, but later felt connected to the story after reading the script. The two collaborated on ideas for the film during pre-production. Krasinski was announced as director, co-writer, and co-star with Blunt in March 2017. Filming took place in upstate New York from May to November 2017.

A Quiet Place premiered at South by Southwest on March 9, 2018, and was released in the United States on April 6, 2018, by Paramount Pictures. It grossed more than $340 million worldwide and received critical acclaim. The film was chosen by the National Board of Review and American Film Institute as one of the top ten films of 2018. It was nominated for the Golden Globe Award for Best Original Score, Academy Award for Best Sound Editing, Writers Guild of America Award for Best Original Screenplay, and Blunt won the Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Supporting Role. The sequel A Quiet Place Part II was released in 2021. It is the second film in the A Quiet Place universe.

When the family goes into the nearby town for supplies, Beau finds a toy space shuttle, but Lee makes him leave it behind due to the noise it would make if powered on. As they are getting ready to leave, Regan secretly gives him back the toy, but without its batteries. When they leave, Beau takes back the batteries without anyone noticing. While walking back home, Beau turns on the space shuttle, which starts making noise. Almost immediately, Beau is killed by a nearby creature before Lee can reach him. Regan suffers terrible guilt thereafter, which she hides from her parents, although Marcus is aware of it.

Over a year after Beau's death, the family has seemingly gone back to normal, with Evelyn several months pregnant. Marcus reluctantly goes fishing with Lee while Regan, upset that she cannot go, visits Beau's grave. While the rest of the family is gone, Evelyn goes into labor. While heading to the basement, she accidentally steps on an upright nail and drops a photo frame, alerting a nearby creature which enters the house. Struggling to stay silent amidst the pain, Evelyn flips a switch in the basement, turning the surrounding lights around the house red. The creature enters the basement soon after, but Evelyn distracts it with the loud clicks of an egg timer and escapes upstairs. Upon returning to the farm and seeing the red lights, Marcus and Lee lure the creature out of the house by lighting off fireworks, allowing Evelyn to safely give birth to her baby.

Regan, seeing the fireworks, runs back to the house. Lee enters the house armed with a shotgun[4] and finds the baby and Evelyn, then brings them into a hiding spot under the floor in the barn outside. The baby cries, alerting a creature into the barn. The creature fails to find the source, but breaks some water pipes. Evelyn wakes up in the flooded hideout with the creature still inside and hides behind the falling water to mask her and the baby's sound.

Marcus and Regan climb to the top of a corn silo and light a signal fire to other distant farms, but Marcus falls into the silo and almost becomes sucked into the corn. Hearing this, the creature which is hunting for Evelyn runs towards the silo and attacks Regan and Marcus. The creature's disruptive effect on electronics causes Regan's cochlear implant to emit a high-pitched noise, which causes the creature to reel in pain and retreat, breaking a hole in the silo which frees the children. Lee finds Regan and Marcus, directing them to his truck,[5] and is wounded when a creature attacks him. Marcus cannot stifle a scream, and the monster attacks the truck. Lee signs to Regan that he has always loved her and proceeds to yell to draw the creature's attention, sacrificing himself to the creature in order to allow Marcus and Regan to coast the truck back to the house safely.

Reuniting with a grieving Evelyn and hearing the sounds of a nearby creature, they make their way back into the house and enter the basement, into which the creature follows them. Regan, remembering the reaction the creature had to the high-pitched noise from her implant, places the implant on a microphone which amplifies the noise. The creature screeches in pain and exposes the vulnerable tissue beneath the armor plating on its head, allowing Evelyn to kill it with Lee's shotgun. Armed with a new weapon, the family prepares to defend themselves from an approaching group of creatures that heard the shot.

Scott Beck and Bryan Woods began writing A Quiet Place in January 2016 based on a concept they conceived in college.[9][10] When they first spoke with Platinum Dunes about the project, the two said they wanted Blunt for the role of the mother.[11] Platinum Dunes' Michael Bay had a first-look deal with Paramount Pictures and showed their script to the studio.[9] During the writing stage, Beck and Woods spoke to a Paramount executive, who suggested that the film could be a crossover with the Cloverfield franchise. When they took their final script to Paramount, the studio embraced it as a distinct, stand-alone story.[10] Paramount bought the script from the duo.[12][9] Platinum Dunes producers Andrew Form and Brad Fuller sent the script to Krasinski to play the role of the father,[13][14] which he read in July.[15] The concept of parents protecting their children appealed to him, especially as his second child with Blunt had recently been born.[6][14]

Beck and Woods said that Krasinski taking over the film as director "wasn't about reshaping it in any massive way" and that he "really protected our vision of the script".[10] Krasinski said that their script differed from his "in a bunch of little ways, but the heart was all theirs. They really had this thing that I wanted to be a part of."[14] He focused on the idea of family being the core of the story, "so every scare has to be because you love this family, every detail has to become a detail that says something about this family not just to be cool, not just to be scary."[16] His contributions to the screenplay included the use of sign language, sand paths, the lights, and the walk to the forest and the pharmacy.[16][14] Krasinski was initially anxious about having very little dialogue to work with, as he was concerned with how to "keep people interested". He then realized that minimal dialogue became the film's "superpower".[17] The use of sign language came about when, prior to filming, Simmonds showed Krasinski the American Sign Language translation for a scene's dialogue, and he found her gestures to be "so much more cinematic than saying the words would've been".[17] Blunt contributed to the pre-production stage of the film.[6][16] Most of the directing Krasinski did with her role was off-screen from the moment she accepted the project. The two worked through the script and discussed the shots for the film before it went into production, and by the time they got on set they had "done all the collaborating ... all the hard work."[16] Blunt "offered up the greatest ideas" for the film, he stated, crediting her for "raising the game" for him as a filmmaker.[16][6][17]

In March 2017, Krasinski was announced as director and co-writer of the film, co-starring with Blunt. The film is his third directorial credit and his first for a major studio.[18] The film was produced on a budget of $17 million.[19]

The film was shot in 36 days.[17] Production took place from May to November 2017 in Dutchess and Ulster counties in upstate New York. Filmmakers spent their budget locally, including a purchase of 20 tons of corn, which they hired local farmers to grow. Some filming took place on a soundstage in the town of Pawling in Dutchess County, as well as on-location in the county's city of Beacon.[20] Filming also took place on the Wallkill Valley Rail Trail in New Paltz of Ulster County, using the Springtown Truss Bridge.[21] Outside Dutchess and Ulster counties, filming took place on Main Street in Little Falls in Herkimer County, New York.[22]

During filming, the crew avoided making noise so diegetic synchronized sounds (e.g., the sound of rolling dice on a game board) could be recorded; the sounds were amplified in post-production.[23] A musical score was added, which Krasinski justified in wanting audiences to have a cinematic experience and some familiarity with a traditional film component, instead of feeling like they're part of a "silence experiment." Some music was cut from the film, which Krasinski found more impactful than having the score dominate scenes.[23]

Supervising sound editors Erik Aadahl and Ethan Van der Ryn worked on A Quiet Place. For scenes from the perspective of the deaf daughter, sound was removed to put greater focus on the visual. They also advised on organizing shots to reflect the creatures' perspective, like showing them noticing a sound, then showing what was causing the sound. Composer Marco Beltrami provided the sound editors music to work with in a way that would not interfere with the sound design throughout the film.[24]

In the film, creatures are blind and communicate through clicking sounds. Aadahl and Van der Ryn said they were inspired by animal echolocation, such as that employed by bats. The sound of feedback, normally avoided by sound editors, was woven into the story at a loudness level that would not bother audiences too much.[25]

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