[Gustav Möller, WRITER/DIRECTOR OF THE GUILTY]: 


-It may be cliche, but what you don’t see is always more vivid in film—Jaws for example. That shark is so terrifying until the moment you see the shark. This is like us not trying to show the shark for the whole film. 


-The idea actually came when I stumbled across a YouTube clip, which was a sound recording of a real 911 call coming from a kidnapped woman, calling an operator, sitting next to her abductor. She had to speak in codes not to get caught basically. I was caught by the suspense of this, but the big thing for me was this feeling of seeing this woman and seeing the car she was in even though I was only listening to the sound. And I realize everyone, you and I listening, would’ve seen a different woman.


That was a super exciting premise to make a film—a suspenseful thriller done in a unique way. It’s a film that will play out for a different way for everyone, since half of the film is playing out in your head hopefully.


-We wanted to make a film where sound design and things that aren’t dialogue could play a big factor on the other end of the line: footsteps, rain on the windshield… you’re trying to figure out what’s going on with only sound on the other end. The more the main character gets on the case, the more the sound spreads out and gets more subjective. In the cinema, we really wanted it to feel like you’re in two places at once: you’re both at the dispatch center but also engaged and surrounded by the places on the other end of the line, whether it’s a car chase on a rainy highway or an abandoned house.


-The most difficult thing was the abductor’s car or van he’s driving, because the sound has to be so specific. If you’re in an abandoned house, the sound of the door opening determines how you think the whole house looks. This car is such an important vehicle saying so much—it has to be real, frightening, all these things—so that took the longest time to figure out. How does this engine sound? How does the back sound? How does the windshield sound? 


One sound designer rode around in bunch of different cars to collect sounds together, mixing it with synthesizers. With the police chase, one of the sound designers knew a cop in Denmark, and he borrowed a recorder and went really fast on the highway with the sirens. It was a very playful area, making the sound for this.