Chapter 9 - Sound

4 phases of sound production

design; recording; editing; mixing

Design

- Preproduction: what characters hear is potentially as significant as what they see.
- Production: Sound designers supervise the implementation of the sound design.
- Postproduction: Editing of the sound after the soundtrack has been cut along with the i

Sound design

the art of creating the sound for a film.

Elements describing film sound

Pitch; Loudness; amplitude; frequency; quality;

Sources of film sound

Diegetic or nondiegetic; on-screen or offscreen; internal or external

Diegetic sounds

within the film's world, heard by the audience & characters in the movie. sounds heard by both the movie's audience and characters.

Nondiegetic sounds

outside the film's world, heard only by the audience.

On-screen

emanates from a source that we can see

Off-screen

a source that we cannot see

Internal

whenever we hear thoughts of a character

External

within the world of the story. we assume that it is heard by the characters in that world.

Dialogue

is the speech of characters who are either visible on-screen or speaking off-screen

Ambient sound

sound from the setting or environment being filmed

Sound effects

artificially created sounds

Foley sounds

sounds created in sync with the screen

Apocalypse Now

- helicopter/ ceiling fan
- patriotic music in the end

Music in film

Can be written specifically for a film.

Diegetic Music

original score composed for the movie

Nondiegetic Music

recorded at the very end of the editing process so that it can accurately match the images

Irony in Music

Irony often results from the juxtaposition of music & image because the associations we bring when we hear a piece of music, greatly affects our interpretation of a scene.

Dario Marianelli

- Atonement
- Jane Eyre

Rachel Portman

- Emma
- European classical music
- Drama film but could also be a romance

Silence

frustrates our normal perceptions. can make a scene seem profound or even prophetic.

Audience Awareness

can define sections of the screen, guide our attention to or between them, and influence our interpretation.

Audience Expectations

sound signals an action and when used repeatedly, it plays on our expectations

Emphasis

creates emphasis in any scene. can function as a punctuation mark when it accentuates and strengthens the visual image.

Citizen Kane

deep-focus sound; frantic & loud.fulfills our expectations of how a party like this might sound like. diegetic; external on-screen. was recorded during both production and postproduction.