Film Theory: Why Musicians Will ALWAYS Survive A Quiet Place 

I'd heard people at my summer camp say that they could hear people having conversations across the lake if they were awake early enough, it's wild to find out 15 years later WHY

Fun fact: in the beginning of a quiet place 1, you can see that the chips aisle was completely full because people were too afraid to eat chips cuz they make sounds. Can't belive the directors went into such detail

Can you imagine being chased by a monster and fall to the ground before looking up to see a whole group of rock players as someone starts shredding an electric guitar and the lead singer starts singing a whistle note. Meanwhile the monsters start to writhe in pain and another person shoots it in the head

MatPat: “Sound travels faster and is louder at night” Me dropping a cup at night: “Yes”

As a music student,this one goes for all of my fellow musicians who had people saying that studying music is useless XD

matpat finally explains why opening the microwave at 3 am is a billion times louder than opening it at 3pm

The fact that in that movies canon no one including the military thought to set up a mine field with a wireless sound system broadcasting in the center or simple spike pit traps with a noise maker at the bottom after everyone realized the creatures react and hunt to sound is amazing to me

Fun fact death angels dont go after ambient noise (things that would theoretically always exist, or come as a defined pattern) such as birds singing or waterfalls. So if we apply this to the situation, you could set up areas of loud noises you would want to train the death angels into thinking is ambient noise, set up a big area with loud speakers that the angels cant break to play construction or distant conversation. It might take a couple of days per each angel but its gotta be better than having to do what they do. This might also work the other way, want a death angel hunting dog? Simple, train one that has had "ambient training" by playing the noise you want them to hunt; and when they attack the speaker turn it off giving the illusion that what they killed is dead.

I’m a clarinet player and I mastered being quiet. We’re not allowed to eat in class. I was able to open a bag of chip and eat it all. I’ve done this multiple occasions and nobody notices unless I throw away the bag in the recycle

Imagine a badass scene where the death angels are on the MC's trail, pursuing them as the survivors try to find a new place to bunker down. And then, just when the monster hears the smallest 'crack' from their footsteps, it comes running, only to be stopped by ol' Cotton Eye Joe stepping out from a barn with his squeaky violin. Joe plays so horribly the monster opens up its plating, where then Joe shoots it with a shotgun.

The weirdest "how to survive" ive seen about a quiet place was that the deaf would be the best equipped to survive because they're used to silence. Im deaf. It definitely doesnt work that way, if anything im noisier because i dont realise im making noise. I think whoever made that video was trying to go down the route of the psychological effects of living in silence and thought that the deaf try to be quiet all the time but it was just mind boggling.

Never expected to learn physics in a MatPat theory video but here I am learning the refraction of sounds during different times of the day.

Here's the thing though: They go after wildlife too. The racoons near the beginning get axed relatively quickly, and its established that the DAs aren't hunting for food. They just reflexively destroy anything that's too "loud" to them. I can imagine they 'tried' to stop things like waterfalls or thunderstorms, but since there's nothing they could do they just learned to avoid those places since it would make them "go blind," so to speak. The long and short is that while there is little they could do to deal with things like swarms of noisy bugs, Earth's ecosystem is about to go fubar regardless.

Huh, I didn't know that cold air/night affected sound. That explains why everything at night sounds incredibly loud...I thought it was just the knowledge that people were sleeping nearby that made it seem so loud

this helped me in science class, thanks for explaining sounds

Heyyy! Thanks for using our Distance Attenuation calculator at 5:08 :) We have a lot more calculators like that if others want to check it out :D

MatPat is just like that teacher who says: “We still got a minute” and then explains the lore of everything in said minute.

I love that he takes temperature into account to specify his answer to a single decibel, but forgets trees exist

I played viola in 8th grade, and in 10th grade I took a 9th grade band course and tested a tuba. The teacher said, and I quote, "That is the highest I've ever heard a tuba". For the record, it sounded like a trumpet.

I went to school in the desert, and we learned about how our sound is less loud on very hot days. Then I moved up north where it snows, and I caught on to just how loud my band sounded in winter. Not only does it affect pitch, but volume.

I always thought that it being louder at night was just because there's less ambient noise to drown it out, but, no, it was because it was actually literally just simply actually louder...

fun fact: Cellos would trigger the death angel's weakness, not normally, but heres how 1: find the high pitch string 2: go to the same string, but under the bridge 3: take the bow and use the side 4: trigger not only the death angels, but also your friend's instant death (dear god I hate that noise)

Me if the Angels of Death, Weeping Angels, and the invisible ghosts come to Earth: ok bro, we're actually screwed this time.

We're all gonna miss your narration, Matpat. Thank you for all of the amazing memories

They are attracted by noise... Hurricanes, earthquakes, tornadoes and thunder storms all create a lot of noise and with 3 of those being destructive, not all of the noise is exactly natural. Can the monster survive the torture mother nature throws at us on a regular basis?

as a musician, I can say this: grab two mics and two amps, plugging one mic into each, then take a dog whistle or helmsman's whistle, piccolo etc. and play it into one of the mics, quickly making sure they are picking up everything from each other's amp. This will literally create a theoretically infinite loop of gradually louder volume and pitch if the amps have... well, amplifiers in them. So no average speaker would be okay, you must have an amp. Theoretically, because at a certain point your ears just wouldn't hear it or would be too damaged to hear it. Bring ear mufflers probably.

We will miss you Mat Pat. We love you

Just for jits and giggles, I made a quiet place survival kit: -One of those canteens that looks like a bag (idk what it’s called, but I’ll use it bc it won’t be as loud as a metal canteen if I drop it) -Dog whistle - soft, non-perishable foods - clothes (pack them so they act like a cushion between your backpack and the contents inside to muffle the sound if you drop your bag) - beanies, jackets, gloves, scarves, blankets, etc. - firearm + amo and silencer (I don’t know anything about firearms, so I don’t know if silencers only work with certain ones) - paperback book/other form of entertainment that isn’t noisy

The biggest problem with the whole movie is that you have an enemy that hunts by sound. Yet the military didn't immediately try to use some type of sound against it? It's like have a nocturnal predator and no one figuring out that if you have bright lights, you can disable it. I still liked the movie but thought it was weak that it took an accidental discovery for what would have likely been found in the first day or two of fighting.

What's crazy about this video, is how MatPat virtually figured out how to beat the Death Angels just by using RU-vid videos that play at 1400-1900 Hz. The most dangerous weapon is a smart mind.

4:24 Bro Matpat is a mathematical genuis

I knew a lot of that, very interesting. I feel for the monsters. I have hyperacusis, essentially a condition which makes your sense of hearing become SO GOOD that you hear better than others even with earplugs in (I have them in all of the time usually). I was 19 when I first noticed. My stepdad, who butted heads with me those first years, said some pretty mean stuff about me when he was in his room with mom. I was at the front door which was at the opposite end of the house. I heard him "yell" the mean threats. I was a really dumb kid, so I ran to the room and put my hand through the door, looked through the hole while my arm was bleeding & gave him a threat of my own. Yes, STUPID teen lol They looked at me, then he accused me of eavesdropping... I sad "you were yelling!" Mom, who was on my side since he'd threatened me (the threat of violence he made which was what I'd heard). Mom calmed him down, then asked if I'd been eavesdropping, to which I said no. She turned to him and said "see? He wasn't." She knew I never lie. Later, I learned of the condition, and I HATE it. Imagine having extremely powerful hearing, with fire alarms, fireworks, TV, people yelling, hearing everything your neighbors say, etc... It has helped me, but I'd rather have normal hearing... It keeps me up. Years later we became friends. Good thing... He died 13 Years later (cancer, just like my biological dad who'd died when I was 16, stepdad died when I was 32).

That sound refraction is actually kinda scary. In Washington DC, where I live, there was a concert a couple weeks ago on an overcast day. The sound refraction pretty much made it a city wide block party where residents could hear the music up to 4 miles away. It only got louder as night fell. So imagine my surprise when I hear that the neighbor I thought was having a party was halfway across the city.

I'm just shocked that The government couldn't figure out"Hey they are extremely Sensitive to sound, Even a leaf attracts them, Let's Abuse that and make the Loudest goddam sounds possible and overload their senses"

stop i’ve been going thru so much recently and that last part hit just as hard as it did before. i would LOVE for matpat to watch this channel again

When mentioned the fact that flute players would survive, my friend literally cackled and said "Take that trumpets, flutes ARE useful!" We're both flute players and for some reason our school's trumpet section seems to think that flutes are useless to the band because quote, "You can't hear them literally 96% of the time"

I am an audio engineer, I am impressed that they have that level of detail in the movie, because the natural noise floor is about 40 to 50 decibels... so they can't hear you below that because that is just idle sound in the air. The noise floor is when we can't crank sound any louder, because you start getting background noise. Also, feedback loops can be at multiple frequencies at once, normally it is just one though. Also, if you really wanted to get into it you could start talking about Comb frequencies, but I don't even fully understand those.

The Quiet Place + Bird Box + Weeping Angels + SCP-173 is possibly the worst sensory death combo. I am open to more suggestions

I absolutely LOVE that I've wondered if sound travels differently in different temperatures and I've learned that it does from my interests and preferences i.e. MatPat's Theory videos Thank you, @Film Theory for always having the answers to things that I should know like survival skills but also things that I don't need to know like the questions that randomly cross my mind 😂

Fun fact, metal gear solid fans probably already knew about the sound travels farther in cold weather thing, that's one of the things master miller says to snake in a codec call since MGS 1 takes place in Alaska

When I was a kid, sometimes I’d wake up on a cold morning and tell my family “It sounds cold outside” and they always thought I was making things up. Cool to know that cold air actually does affect sound, so little me probably could tell it was cold from how it sounded!

honestly just as terrified at the fact that attacks are triggered by the sounds over 50 db but - that means that when you're walking on the sand and playing monopoly and what not, they can technically still hear you

Mat is one of the best you tubers out there he keeps you watching with jokes, interesting topics and science for science lovers like me

Live inside abandoned music studios or theaters, or make your own as soon as such an invasion starts, just have sound insulation, so it'll be easier to live there and talk and make normal sounds.

The corn could simply be a noise to hide their own. A cornfield with wind going through it is a natural noise that would be great to cover your own noise.

I remember when I first saw a Quiet Place in theaters. You could practically hear a pin drop with how silent everyone was.

5:02 WHAT THE *insert f word here* IS A FOOT LONG?!

The great thing is that the Frequency isn't affected by volume so you could play those tones under 50db and they'd still work.

I'm always curious about the "live near a waterfall" line of thought, like: - Is the house already there. Unlikely. - Are you going to safely build a house/refugee. Unlikely. Just think about transporting materials. Or how loud is hammering vs the waterfall, but who knows. - Are you going to survive on tends alone? Unlikely. Just Imagine ziping open you tend just to find a Death Angel just wandering outside. Also temperature.

Honestly surprised that MatPat concluded that the reason they shook was because the sound matched the reasonant frequency of the armor. As a physics student, I've worked with reasonant frequencies a lot, and even when working with pipes and stuff (which are not attached to vibration absorbing flesh), you need a lot of energy to cause things to shake like they do in that scene. You would not see vibrations of that scale caused by the sound produced by the implant, it's simply not possible, there is too little energy involved. Ironically, the theory he brushed aside initially is much more plausible, that there is some neurological response to those frequencies (think nails on a chalkboard for humans).

i'll miss you matpat

*Sees Death Angel* *Pulls out a Violin*

I just imagined a group of people who go around killing the death angels using instruments as their weapons. Picture a band that uses low-pitched music (from a relatively safe place, such as somewhere elevated, etc) to lure death angels to that location, then increases the pitch drastically and starts shooting. They'd probably use bows and arrows rather than guns now that I think of it. They're quieter and easier to make ammunition for.

This is why I love this guy he does the most random stuff but it’s so fun

"Why musicians would survive": high instruments Me: a bass player

Ever since the end of the first movie i always wondered "if they hunt by sound since they cant see then isnt there a chance they would attack eachother too because they also make loud noises themselves" i just gotta know!- also fun fact, i can make the EXACT clicking noises the death angles make with my throat, i may or may not have actually been practicing that for years after this came out because i loved this movie/scenario

I grew up in a pretty toxic environment and I learned to be so quiet. I just wanted people to forget I was home. I would walk differently. (I would take slow steps and bend my knee when I planted my foot.) I would even breathe differently. (would sort of open my mouth halfway and flatten my tongue.) If I weren't so clumsy, I'd be so good at living in this hellscape!

As an ASL major props to the people making this movie. The ASL was fairly accurate to my understanding, (I think I’m not 100% sure) they used real Deaf actors (a huge Deal for the Deaf community) they clearly showed a respect for Deaf Culture, and they even addressed topics that most people wouldn’t pick up on like the lack of acceptance for the daughter being Deaf by refusing to believe the cochlear can’t be fixed. That being said he is also an amazing dad in the movie because of his willingness to sign even before the events that took place to force into asl, which sadly most hearing parents would rather sit and have their children never know what they are saying then learn to communicate with them in a language they prefer and can understand. Edit: Did not expect this to blow up! Thank y’all!

Imagine being someone who snores in "a quiet place"

I can’t believe after the quiet Place came out another movie called the silence came out and it’s literally an exact copy

Did Matt take into account the muffling that the sound of that toy would have undergone as it traveled through the forested area the Death Angel was in when it heard it? Because if not, their hearing could be even more sensitive.

Love a good quiet place theory. Matpat, you never fail to capture my attention.

the quiet place is legit me at night making sure not to wake up my mom.

I love the sound that your playing of the viola made

I think the reason why the corn was planted was for it to alert the family if the Death Angels were in the corn fields so the family can get to safety.

I wonder if the aliens could somehow shift and change their carapace structures somewhat in response to a resonant frequency being triggered. As a sound-based species, I don't think it's too wild of an adaptation to have evolved. If so, pure tones may not be effective in stopping the creatures, but rather the changing pitch of the feedback may have been exactly what was necessary to incapacitate them as the frequency happened to follow the shift in resonant frequency.

Imagine being chased, but then you get your handy instrument and play in a perfect frequency to make them go bye bye But as a tuba player that can play high notes, that’s a free win

im so happy me and my brother play violin, clarinet, and piano

See no evil (monsters from Birdbox) Speak no evil (Death angels) Now all we need is a monster that you can’t listen to. Movie makers, this is your calling to make a horror movie with sirens

These are the kind of theories I’ve missed here. Yeah I still like lore theories but learning science around or about a fictional world is just so entertaining and I’m sad we don’t get that very much in comparison.

6:21, literally cover it in a rag to make it quieter, one hand on corn and one hand on rag, not hard. The real issue isn't them being uncaught growing corn, it's growing the shown amount while doing it all by hand with just a few people; so there's still a point here

Correction! The image you showed at 11:03 and 12:04 was not a CI (Cochlear Implant) but a HEARING AID - these are very different in their use and function, so it’s important to know the difference (I am not Deaf, I just work at a Deaf school and learned about Deaf Culture in my ASL Certificate program)

Fun fact for resonant frequency, it's behind likely ALL ghost stories involving old haunted houses. Those old pipes vibrate at frequencies so low, humans can't hear it, but your pets are likely losing their collective shits and barking at the walls and corners. The vibrations also effect humans since we're like 70% water and specifically have an inner ear that's still sensitive to those vibrations despite not hearing them. It messes with our balance, can make us hear things and even see things and gives you the feeling you're being watched. Lots of paranoia... and where does it effect you the most? In the basement where the pipes are exposed. All you need at that point is a rat or raccoon to shift in the darkness and you have yourself a ghost/demon since your mind isn't functioning correctly. Newer homes have modern building materials that don't vibrate like that, so no ghost stories in newer houses.

I don't remember where I heard this but the "sound" the cochlear implant makes isn't canonically audible to the characters, the high pitch sound we hear is just for the audience to represent this frequency. My sign language teacher told me that cochlear implants don't have feed back in the same way a hearing aid does.

The Cheerwine appearance! So good! I need to have some shipped to me in NY

I haven't watched a theory video in so long, forgot just how much detail this man goes in to🤣

I think another pretty easy way to survive AND live "normally" would be living in a place like Singapore, where apartments that go as high as 40 levels, some even having sky gardens that you can harvest crop from. If you don't have a sky garden, ALL apartments have a storage room that can house at least a tiny garden. If that's not enough, transforming apartments at levels 10 - 15 should be sufficient as you'd want to live at level 25 - 40. Not too safe at 10 but not putting yourself into as much danger compared to going to ground floor. Almost all apartments have a corridor with two places a death angel can climb up the stairs(unless they learn how to use an elevator which the power would be out anyway) so putting sand on the stairs would be a pretty good call. I think the only issue would be trying to take a dump and water.

Something that the waterfall scene always made me wonder is that if the aliens are capable of ignoring loud, continuous noises because they recognise them as being natural how long would I have to make a noise before they start ignoring it? For example if I set up a ton of stereos playing rock music at max volume and somehow managed to keep replacing them would the aliens eventually believe that they’re natural and ignore them?

Thanks for helping over here in hurricane Utah dude appreciated made some protypes similar to the “Death Angles” and wow its rough

My Violin finally came in clutch.

One thing to add to the considerations is, different materials and environments have different accoustic properties. Some matierials absorb and silence sounds very well while other materials transmit and even amplify sound. Sound has a different range in a concrete jungle to in a forest. Also, different frequencies have different fall-off speeds. I can neve remember which way round it is, but I believe lower frequencies travel farther but have a much faster fall off curve than high pitch sounds. Also, what about normal animals? like birds, hedgehogs, crickets? Are they attacked or do they count as "natural sounds".

yes, sound does travel faster at night. sound is just particles vibrating, and when a particle vibrates it usually bumps into nearby ones and causes it to vibrate as well. so during the day, when it is warm the particles in the air will be less dense and therefore farther away from each other which means that the particles will not bump into others as quickly as they would in cold air (cold air is more dense, the particles are closer together and has the opposite reaction to warmer air). idk if that makes any sense but I explained it best I could

We need you to do a video of the third instalment that is coming out this year.

ur vidoes cheer me up and teach me like when i have to stay home because of sunburn

8:46 so that’s why dropping a cup at 2 am is the same as fireing a gun

I had this idea a while ago but MatPat nailed the science of it and made my theory possible. You could survive these movies by becoming a traveling metal band(Mad Max Fury Road style) and hunt down the monsters

Bruuuuh I’ve always wondered whyyy the same volume during the day was lower than during night! This was super awesome info for a life long question lol

This was very interesting. I'm going to have to see, if I can find the movie now

he really had to say “MoM spoilers” and then said a single joke about it lol. i respect that, most people wouldn’t even bother.

Imma be honest, I was just excited to hear him mention viola. I've been asked so many times how many songs I can play on my "violin" since nobody outside of musicians seems to know what one is

Videos like this make the world better. I just learned a little about sound without trying to. Still miss the game theory sound intro.

Wait. You actually answered a question I've had since I was a kid. Walking outside during a cold day, I always hear a loud "hum" like the cars on the road are louder vs on a warm day. Now it makes so much sense.

Could you imagine being a survivor in this apocalypse and then out of no where you just here a peaceful violin. You slowly go towards it, taking cover as you know the monsters are coming but you get close enough to see it's 1 person playing a violin in the middle of a street. Suddenly, 3 monsters round a corner and after they get almost close enough to touch them, they start playing an extremely loud solo and all the monsters fall and die in a matter of seconds. That would be an amazing scene.

I never knew this was why sounds were easier to hear at night. I always thought it was just that there was less stuff making noise, so the sounds that did happen were clearer. It was pretty "cool" to find out it was about the temperature though.

A bit of clarification on how sound moves through the hot vs. cold air. Hot air is less dense so the sound isn't carried as effectively through it. Where cold air is more dense allowing sound waves to move farther and more prominently because of how the air particles interact with each other. And why there is no sound in space. Because there is no air for the sound waves to be carried by

the word theory gives me physical healing

ASL interpreter here. Another danger of night time is, it is difficult to communicate in sign language when it is dark. ASL has specific hand shapes, facial expressions, and movements that are hard to catch in the dark. That is why if you've ever seen an ASL interpreter, interpreting in a dark theater they also have a spotlight.

As a clarinet player we can go even higher when we squeak. Like if you go to the highest high note which I’m pretty sure is the number you showed in the frequency range, and you squeak with that note you can go a lot higher. I’ve tried it and it gave me a really bad headache for a day at least

Now it’s got me thinking what the best pet would be😅😅 … Probably be a mute cat.

That would actually be a great concept for a squeal. A nightclub has to keep playing this music 24/7 to keep the aliens away