Sound

Sound

Sound and Film go hand in hand, not as Film's minion as many people initially believe. Sound deals with a different sensory organ after all. Even before sound came out in 1926, silent films were narrated with mostly orchestras playing to the film. Dubbing can change words and thus meanings and it goes without saying that the mood is changed all because of sound.

Sound can be one of the hardest techniques to study though. This is because we take in our surroundings with our vision. Sound accompanies sight as a background, so maybe it's time to get blindfolded and go around London. One person deaf and one blind would be cool. One problem with film is that we cannot screen capture sound, we can slow it down but that's it. Sound can achieve strong effects though of course yet be quite unnoticeable. Just the absence of sound can be very powerful when it is expected.

Eisenstein was the first to make a "synchronization of the senses" that made a single rhythm or image and sound. In hi film "Ivan the Terrible," Eisenstein emphasizes the loudness of the singer by cutting closer and closer to the singers mouth. This technique is also used in "The Victors" title sequence. Here, Soul Bass cuts closer to Hitler's mouth as his shouting gets louder.

"Film sound can direct our attention quite specifically within the image."

An example is "A Letter from Siberia" where the image is played thrice with different narration over the top. It goes from really upbeat to extremely negative.

Offscreen Sound

Say we hear a door creak in the diegesis, our expectation would be to see door in action in the next shot. If the door is closed in the next shot, that may be confusing. Perhaps horror movies would make good use out of offscreen sound yes? Well in every case, the soundtrack will correspond to the image on screen.

Now silence is no longer around in films, directors can use it to dramatic effect, like Film Noir using b&w when colour was available. in the context of sound, silence now takes on a new form of expression. As well as editing, sound has a huge infinite amount of possibilities. 

Sound elements

• Dynamics
• Pitch
• Texture/timbre
• Rhythm
• Instrumentation
• Harmony
• Orchestration

The three types of sound are

1. Music
2. Speech
3. Noise / Sound effects

Unlike our senses, microphones and lenses are non-selective. It is up to the director/artist/cinematographer to make sure the audience are drawn to what they want them to see. Sound can draw out attention, if there were two different scene going on at the same time and there was sound for only one, our attention would naturally be drawn more towards that action. It's not always the case though, it can be quite comic when a news reporter is reporting on something in the background that starts behaving very unusually, that's good because you cannot hear it. An example in film is in "Forest Gump" we hear the ping-pong ball before we see it, it then draws in our attention rather than what is happening in the background.

Combining Sounds

A really good example of multi-layered sound is in "The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers" at the battle of Helm's Deep. Here there are 8 layers including the music. There is a separate sound layer for the rain, about three for scuffling, dialogue, cries, etc (that's probably all.)

"The Seven Samurai" uses the soundtrack as a musical score, but very well. Most of the time the noise is made out of rain and wind sounds. There are also swords clashing, screaming wounded, battle cries and hooves. Everything slowly fades out towards the end.

But is a scream a noise, or speech? Alfred Hitchcock has exploited this in his film "Psycho" in the shower sequence (god it's like everything revolves around this one sequence bloody hell, what else happens in that film anyway?) The Violas and Violins also aid this scream to real make you wince. 

Some Musical Examples out the 100,000,000 examples

In "The Good, the Bad and the Ugly" Ennio Morricone uses a "Ahh ahh ahhh" motif. This comes from the very beginning where we hear a coyote bark. Sergio Leone not only got Morricone to score the music after the film, he also filmed around Morricone's music he had already composed thus reversing the filming process that music is always post-production.

In "Master and Commander" Peter Weir (director of also "The Truman Show" composed a sequence of filming around Vaughn William's "Fantasia of Thomas Tallis" as the music is very despairing because of its use of the phrygian mode. Another example of composing film around music in the middle of a film.

Character's personalities are frequently reflected in the soundtrack. A good example is in Spike Lee's "Do the Right Thing," Radio Raheem is eventually deprived of his music causing a huge fight and eventually death. But throughout the whole film, Radio Raheem stood for the one track that he listened to expressing oppression in Blacks. Black music commonly represents black characters in films. Ice Cube, LL Cool J (not in Deep Blue Sea) and 50 cent all come into their films with their music. What kind of hypothetical character do you think Jimmy Hendrix, Beethoven, ZZ Top, James Taylor or Blur would represent?

Noise can have rhythm as well as editing. Pistols and machine guns have different rhythms as does a dying person's voice compared to a race track commentator. Ever heard of "Mickey Mousing"? You have now, a really good example of this is in "E.T" where E.T is walking around drunk in the kitchen, here the bassoons and lower brass play along with E.T's footsteps. This is matching the action within the screen. In the same scene where we are crosscutting between Elliot and E.T, Elliot is "Mickey Moused" as he is falling asleep, this is matched in the soundtrack with the highly pitched violins giving a portamento between two notes and glissading over a long period of time.

"Clockwork Orange" has a rape scene with Beethoven's fifth Symphony accompanying the footage. It is a miss match of music to footage. The editing also compliments the music by keeping its cuts to a minimum.

"Alexander Nevsky," the shots are slow and co-incisive up until the battle commences. Here everything becomes fiery and quick.

"Love Me Tonight," a rhythm is created by diegetic sounds such as brooms, carpet beaters, walking etc. This also happens in Steven Speilburg's "War of the Worlds" when the country is being attacked. In the car we constantly pan and tilt to different angles experiencing rhythms of brush passing objects and other cars. It all adds to the action even though it's just sound man!!