On Location peels back the curtain on some of your favorite films and shows. This time: The History of Sound.
“We all have soundtracks to our lives,” says director Oliver Hermanus. “We live our lives through sound, and music connects us to different memories and places and times.” The History of Sound is primarily a love story: Lionel (Paul Mescal) and David (Josh O’Connor) bond over music, forging a relationship that unfolds from Boston to Maine, Rome to Oxford, and through memory, discovery and grief. Below, Hermanus discusses creating the film and the challenges of shooting its many locations—from New Jersey’s plains and shores to the Lake District’s steep hills.
How did you decide where to shoot each location?
Locations are often determined by money—tax incentives differ by state. Some, like Georgia, are very film-friendly; New Jersey also has attractive tax incentives and a lot of variety in landscape, though you sometimes have to hunt for the right spots. For a story set in Kentucky, Maine, Italy, England and Boston, we ended up filming about 75 percent of it in New Jersey.
How did New Jersey stand in for so many places?
The first scouting trip took me to the real places (Boston, Maine, Malaga Island). Once you know the look you want, you can find or build similar spaces elsewhere. We shot the Maine sequences—the train stations, Boston scenes, and apartments—in New Jersey. Hoboken doubled for Boston streets and bars. For the farmhouse, production design built a ramshackle Kentucky-looking house on a plot flanked by a real farm; camera coverage hid a nearby highway. Another surprising find was a Tudor-style house in New Jersey: a hundred years ago, an industrialist had a stone English house shipped over and rebuilt here, complete with appropriate gardens and architecture—perfect for an Oxford parents’ house exterior. But some places can’t be faked—Lake District and Italy required going to those countries.
How did location scouts help?
Our scouts drove endlessly to find spots we could shape. For a sequence where Lionel returns home and sees neighbors singing on a porch, they found an abandoned resort’s wooden houses that already had a Kentucky feel. We restored and repainted one to match the film’s palette. That’s the production-magic side of location work.
Why include the Lake District?
Originally Ben Shattuck had written a sequence set in the Alps, but budget made that impractical. Both Ben and I had lived briefly in the Lake District, so it became the substitute. Our production designer used Google Earth to find a remote stone cottage high above a lake. Reaching it was grueling—crew and gear had to be ferried by 4x4s up a rough ravine—but the view made it essential. It was one day of intense shooting, but we finished the film there, with a memorable wrap party on a narrow jetty where, by accident, someone dropped a JBL speaker into the lake.
Where else in Europe did you shoot?
We spent a week in Tarquinia, a town just outside Rome. We essentially took over the square to shoot and recreate 1920s Italy with heavy set dressing. It felt like an Italian vacation—accessible and lovely. Josh had previously shot La Chimera there, so we were familiar with it; the same town served very different films.
Why include Malaga Island in the story?
When expanding the story I wanted their Maine trip to touch on influences from the American South—songs brought north by people escaping slavery. Ben knew the history of Malaga Island: a small multi-generational community that was displaced when the governor sold the land and uprooted its residents. That narrative fit the film thematically and resonated with my own background—South Africa’s forced removals and the land seizures my father experienced—so Malaga Island added personal and historical resonance.
How did you research the music for different locations?
These songs are stories, oral traditions that convey life lessons and memory. They’re not disposable pop; they carry narratives that shape the characters. Music anchors Lionel in memory; it positions us in time and place. Ben and I researched songs appropriate to each setting and layered them into the film’s emotional fabric.
What about other sounds—nature, rain, traffic, laughter?
I have an obsession with ASMR, especially Foley ASMR—the detailed recording of clothing rustle, footsteps, breathing. In post, we re-record movements to emphasize small sounds: a match strike can be mixed louder than it would be naturally to draw attention. Since the film is about sound, I didn’t want to overload viewers but to pick delicate, natural sounds—water, wind, fabric—that lift the rest of the audio. We crafted a soundspace where those subtle details feel significant.
How did you use sound to create a sense of time?
We did detailed research: which birds would have been in Kentucky and their seasonal calls, the historical weather, even house construction that produced particular wind whistles. These details help evoke period authenticity—old houses had gaps in slats that let the wind whistle, for example. In Italy, cicadas and the distant thud of people beating carpets over balconies were recorded and added to background layers, small elements most viewers may not consciously notice but which enrich place and era.
Why does music offer salvation in the film?
“We all have soundtracks to our lives.” Music links to memory, mood and identity. When Lionel says melody can make hardship lighter, he speaks to music’s ability to trigger deep nostalgia and longing, to carry personal and collective pasts. Recorded sound surrounds us now, but we often underestimate how much music shapes how we feel and remember.
The History of Sound is now streaming on Mubi.