Interview With Charly Bender

The Executive Producer-Editor Talks About Making the Film Noise

Jul 7, 2008

The Ally Sheedy thriller 'Noise" depicts how too much sound can turn a fabulous Manhattan apartment into a torture chamber.

In this 2004 drama, Joyce Chandler (Trish Goff), a young, recently divorced woman, grabs a secluded apartment to get over her grief and alcoholism. Her incessantly noisy upstairs neighbor (Ally Sheedy) interferes with Joyce’s sleeping schedule and before long her entire life is falling apart. Her neighbor’s erratic behavior eventually causes Joyce’s complete psychological breakdown.

Making his first psychological thriller wasn’t quite what Charly Bender expected when he signed on as executive producer and editor of the feature film Noise. The film was directed by Tony Spiridakis and written by Lance Doty, based on Diana Ramsay’s novel The Dark Descends.

“As far as editing goes, I paid lots of attention to sound,” Bender said during a telephone interview after the film had wrapped, won awards at film festivals around the United States, and been signed to a DVD distribution deal. “With psychological thrillers, the sound design is very important, and this was especially true with Noise. By adding or taking out certain sounds you can have a tremendous effect on a scene.”

Vastly experienced with short films, music videos, television shows, and commercials, Bender said creating a suspenseful movie for under $500,000 was a huge learning experience for him.

“I’m used to working on 30-second TV commercials with budgets of about $800,000. To do a whole feature for less than that is amazing, but it can be done.”

Shot in New York City during 20 days of summer 2003, Noise spent lots of time in the editing room.

“You get so close to the project in those few weeks of putting it together,” Bender said. “When I’m editing, I’m all alone in my dark room with my ashtray and my drink, and I sit there for a month straight. That’s my favorite part: being alone and structuring the thing. But that first screening – it’s the most painful experience for an editor.”

Like most good stories, there were many different ways to tell it. For example, in the original edit, the film began with the current ending.

“Because of the nature of the genre, it was difficult to find the right rhythm and the right assembly of it,” according to Bender. “The hardest part of doing long-form work is pacing and storytelling. It’s not easy keeping an audience engaged for an hour and a half.”

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