Sound Slides PDF

SOUND The interplay of sound that includes the non-diegetic song “Axe Gang” with brass instruments reminiscent of chains rattling and hammers pounding anvils, silence, the rhythmic swoop of weapons slicing through the air, and weapons hitting bodies is key to the gruesome / goodness https://ww...

SOUND The interplay of sound that includes the non-diegetic song “Axe Gang” with brass instruments reminiscent of chains rattling and hammers pounding anvils, silence, the rhythmic swoop of weapons slicing through the air, and weapons hitting bodies is key to the gruesome / goodness https://www.reddit.com/r/shittymoviedetails/comments/egzqx4/ of the ax battle scene in Bong in_snowpiercer2013_chris_evans_character_wields/ Joon-ho’s Snowpiercer  Sound in film 1926, first feature film with a recorded synchronized musical score and sound effects but no dialogue: Don Juan 1927, first feature film with synchronized dialogue and singing: The Jazz Singer (both films used the Vitaphone sound-on-disc technology and were Warner Bros.)  Sound in silent films So-called silent films were surrounded by orchestral and other musical accompaniments and sound effects in the theatre. Not only do [silent] films sometimes have complex relationships between the images and the scores that accompanied them, but they also offer students rich analytical opportunities in exploring the creative ways that (1) Sound and silence can be implied or suggested and (2) intertitles adapt literary descriptions and dialogue to film (Timothy Corrigan 75) Screenshot Meshes of the Afternoon  how silent films used sound films were often shipped to theaters with a written score to be performed during the screening. screenings were accompanied by orchestras (for openings at larger theaters) or piano or organ music; local musicians were hired to play the music during a show and during the changing of the reels; sound effects were made by someone behind the screen or using a machine; audiences were noisy, talked back to the screen, sang along to songs http://ragpiano.com/sources6.shtml Impact of synchronized sound Synchronized sound had a significant impact on film production practices: noisy cameras had to be housed in a sound-proofed blimp that made them heavy and difficult to manipulate; scriptwriters had to master the art of writing dialogue; actors required voice coaching (or lost their jobs if their voice did not ‘work’); sound recordists struggled to find ways of capturing sound without restricting actors’ and directors’ creativity (for example, the boom microphone was developed at this time as a solution to the problem) Kuhn & Westwell Sound continuity / sound discontinuity In the 1930s, sound continuity methods consolidated the continuity editing system and classical Hollywood cinema [In contrast], outside Hollywood, in experiments by the Soviet filmmakers Vsevolod Pudovkin and Sergei Eisenstein, sound was also used contrapuntally to create a tension or discontinuity between what was seen and what was heard. While working in Britain in the 1930s, Brazilian filmmaker Alberto Cavalcanti also experimented with contrapuntal sound in documentary films such as Coalface (1935). (Kuhn and Westwell) contrapuntal: in music, independent yet harmonically interdependent; sounds that are different yet brought together  Sound Continuity “Sound continuity describes the scoring and mixing of sound to create a unified atmosphere or tone in a scene or sequence.” (Corrigan 75) The soundscape must match the cinematography to maintain continuity. This is created through the use of Establishing sounds Sound bridges – used to help transition from one shot to another by overlapping the sound of each shot. This can be done through a: J cut: the sound from the next scene is heard before the previous scene ends L cut: the sound from a preceding scene overlaps into the following scene 7  Sound Discontinuity use of asynchronous sounds that seem related to what we’re seeing on screen but are otherwise out of sync. These are sound tricks, intended to either directly contrast what we see on screen, or to provide just enough disorientation to set us on edge Example: “Sound montage composes different pieces of sound to create disjunctions and unexpected relations between those sounds.” (Corrigan 75) (see the 39 Steps J-cut clip in Sharman’s chapter on editing: “The woman opening the train compartment door discovers a dead body, but instead of hearing her scream, we hear the train whistle. In this case we get an asynchronous sound combined with a J-cut.”) Sound is central to the way in which a film establishes setting, shapes character (dialogue is a constituent part of any performance), signposts its narrative, directs the audience’s attention, and instils general emotional states (Kuhn and Westwell) provokes a viewer’s memories creates expectation creates emphasis by how it is selected, arranged, and enhanced (Barsam and Monahan)  Still from Baz Luhrmann’s The Great Gatsby, which mixes a 20th c Jazz Age setting with 21st c hip-hop and jazz. Jay-Z was executive http://www.fubiz.net/2013/06/28/the-great-gatsby-vfx/tgg3/ producer of the soundtrack album and the film’s score, the film’s executive music consultant, and the film’s executive producer.  What is Sound? wave vibrations that move through the air, water, and solids that are audible to the human ear is a texture, a sensory experience, an intensifier of senses operates on physical, emotional, psychological and subconscious levels Opens the “synchronization of senses.” ~ Sergei Eisenstein Spike Lee on Da 5 Blood’s sound composer Terrence Blanchard: “Terence is a great jazz musician and band player…He brings that wealth of understanding of what music does with colors, shapes and feeling.” (Tancay) 1 1 Sound design sound has become co-expressive with cinematography, that is, it shapes how we see what’s on screen, just as the images we see influence how we perceive the sounds. [Because] sound recording and reproduction has increased in sophistication and technical complexity ….when we talk about the use of sound in cinema we talk about it in terms of sound design, a detailed plan for the immersive effects of a motion picture’s soundscape that begins in pre-production before a single frame is shot and extends to the very end of post- production, often the final element in the entire process. (Sharman) Example of sound as a dramatic function Director Alfred Hitchcock was known for making detailed notes on the screenplay itself about his ideas about how sound was to be used in a scene. Example: When we reach the night sequence, exaggerate passing car noises when headlights show in her eyes. Make sure that the passing car noise is fairly loud, so that we get the contrast of silence when she is found by the roadside in the morning…. Just before the rain starts there should be rumble thunder, not too violent, but enough to herald the coming rain. Once the rain starts, there should be a progression of falling rain sound and slow range of the sound of passing trucks…..Naturally, wind-shield wipers should be heard all through the moments she turns them on…. The rain sounds must be very strong, so that when the rain stops, we should be strongly aware of silence and odd dripping noises that follow. Excerpt from Stephen Rebello’s book Alfred Hitchcock and the Making of Psycho 1999 on filmsound.org  Sound: basic properties Pitch (level; high or low) (high-pitched violins shrieking in Psycho) Loudness (volume or intensity; loud or soft) (Ofelia’s soft voice in Pan’s Labyrinth when she’s talking to her brother in utero; Audrey yelling at Arthur in Pariah) Timbre (also called quality, texture, or colour): the characteristics that lead us to distinguish sounds that have the same pitch and loudness)(the sound of the fedayeen marching in When I Saw You) Rhythm (the use of sound to produce patterns)(see the next slide) Fidelity (the relationship between the sound and the source from which it emanates; can be faithful or nonfaithful, i.e. doesn’t match the action) (e.g. faithful fidelity: the metal garbage can clattering when Kit kicks it over in Badlands) Space (source, distance, and direction of sound)[garbage truck’s sound gets louder as it comes to the foreground in Badlands 1 4  Rhythm: the use of sound to create patterns Rhythm encompasses the universe; part of cyclical natural phenomena Rhythm is felt, embodied, sensory Involves a beat, a tempo or pace, and a pattern of accents Speech/speaking has a rhythm; hence, a function of acting and the dialogue/lines/script (e.g. the smooth rhythm of Arthur’s voice in Pariah) sound effects have a rhythm (e.g. the sound of the rain and wipers of Marion’s car in Psycho) Sound can add rhythm by accompanying movement on the screen or when juxtaposed against movement Rhythm can rise and fall, drawing attention to its pattern A sound montage creates a sound tapestry (sound as texture) 15 How sound is recorded during production The production sound department is made up of several specialists dedicated to recording clean sound on set as the camera rolls. They include: the on-set location sound recordist or location sound mixer, who oversees the recording of on-set sound and mixes the various sources in real-time during production, boom operators, who hold microphones on long poles to pick up dialogue as close to actors as possible without being seen on camera (it helps if they are very tall, and relatively strong, those poles get heavy after a while), and assistant sound technicians, responsible for organizing the equipment and generally assisting the sound mixer. (Sharman) sound most cinema uses dual-system recording: recording sound separate from image during production. The slate (clapper) has two purposes: 1. to visually mark the beginning of each take with the key details of the production as well as the scene, shot, and take number. This comes in handy for the editor as they are combing through all of the footage in post- production. 2. to set a mark for sound synchronization. A crew member, usually the second camera assistant, holds the slate in front of the camera and near a microphone and verbally counts off the scene, shot and take number, then SLAPS the slate closed. In post-production, the editors, usually an assistant editor…can line up the exact frame where the slate closes with the exact moment the SLAP is recorded on the microphone. After that, the rest of the shot is synchronized. (Sharman) Sound recording On-set recording: mostly clean (isolated from other sounds) dialogue Everything else – ambient sounds (birds, crickets, wind), footsteps, music playing, sounds of props – added postproduction room tone recorded for about 1 minute. Every space, interior or exterior, has its own unique, underlying ambient sound (aka the sound floor). Room tone recordings can be used to fill in … gaps [moments of dead air] and match the sound floor of the recorded dialogue. Sometimes, because of distracting ambient sounds or a poorly placed microphone, an actor’s dialogue for that perfect take is unusable. In that case, sound editors bring in the actors to perform ADR, short for Automated Dialogue Replacement (sometimes also referred to as Additional Dialogue Recording, or “looping”).  Diegetic Sound (one of the sources of sound) Diegesis (Gr. ‘telling’) refers to the world of the film’s story Originates from a source within the film’s story world Includes internal (e.g. thoughts in a character’s head) or external (heard by other characters) / onscreen or offscreen as well as recorded during production or constructed during postproduction 19  Internal vs. External Internal sound occurs whenever we hear what we assume are the thoughts of a character within a scene e.g. Psycho: Marion’s self-talk while she sits in her car, driving off with the stolen money External sound, in the story world; heard by other characters (e.g. When I Saw You: the song the fedayee Zain sings at the campfire, which others then join in) 20 Narrative cueing (sound cue) “is the use of sound or a piece of music to support a moment or motif in the story, such as a romantic violin motif when two characters meet. When these cues are sudden and especially dramatic, they are sometimes called stingers.” (Corrigan 76) stinger example: shrieking violins when Norman kills Marion and again when he tries to kill Lila (Psycho) https:// www.youtube.com/ watch? v=7nlusJjoNN8&ab_cha nnel=bradfrey Offscreen Sound May be either diegetic or nondiegetic Diegetic offscreen sound – effects, music, or vocals that emanate from the world of the story (e.g. in Psycho, Marion looks out the motel window at the Bates’ house and hears Mrs. Bates talking, berating Norman, but we don’t see Mother) Nondiegetic offscreen sound – musical score or narration by someone who is not a character in the story (e.g. a voiceover in a documentary by a person who narrates but is otherwise not seen in the film) 23 4 Types of Film Sound 1. Vocal sounds (dialogue and narration) 2. Environmental sounds (ambient sound, sound effects, and Foley sounds) 3. Music 4. Silence (Barsam and Monahan) 24  Types of Film Sound: 1. vocal: Dialogue and Narration Dialogue the speech of characters visible on-screen or speaking off-screen Is a function of plot as it develops out of situations, conflict, and character development dialogue is the only type of film sound typically recorded during production one of the principal means of telling a story depends on actors’ voices, facial expressions and gestures and is thus also a product of acting Narration: commentary spoken by onscreen or offscreen voices; may emanate from omniscient, all-seeing, detached narrator (3rd person) or from a character (first-person voiceover) 25 Example of dialogue plus narration through voiceover: The Great Gatsby Nick - diegetic dialogue (in the story world), e.g. he talks to Gatsby, Daisy, Jordan, and other characters; plus diegetic off- screen narration, his voiceover (it is not heard by characters in the story, only by the viewers); his voiceover is a first-person limited narration; he is reading aloud from what he’s https://www.themarysue.com/the-great-gatsby- getting-nick-centric-prequel/ voiceover A piece of spoken narration in a film that is not accompanied by an image of the speaker. In documentary films, third-person commentator that orientates the viewer to what they are seeing; “voice-of-God” In fiction films: the use of voice over is varied, ranging from voices that are objective, nondiegetic, and third-person to subjective, first-person voices that interact in potentially complex ways with the story world of the film In the crime film genre, adds an ironic counterpoint The animation genre relies on considerable voice-over work, with a large number of voice artists used to bring characters to life (Kuhn and Westwell) A convention of earlier films, especially certain genres such as American film-noir Often used with flashbacks The narration can be unreliable and misleading [e.g. how reliable is Holly (Badlands) as a narrator?]  Types of Film Sound: 2. Environmental Sounds Ambient sound – describes the background noises or music that surround the main action and dialogue (When I Saw You: the sounds of the desert when Tarek lies down at night) Sound effects – include all sounds artificially created for the soundtrack that have a function in telling the story (Rhymes for Young Ghouls: the sound of the taps and the feces coming out of the showerhead and hitting Popper) Foley sounds – performance and recording of unique sounds created from a variety of props and equipment to simulate everyday sounds. (Psycho: a knife slashing a melon was used for the sound of a knife slashing Marion’s flesh in the shower scene (on foley artists and the foley stage, see the 5m video How the Sound Effects in A Quiet Place Were Made in Sharman’s chapter) 28  Types of Film Sound: 3. Music Helps tell the story, whether it pertains to plot, action, character, or mood Can be written for the film or previously composed (The Great Gatsby includes both songs created specifically for it as well as recorded previously] Provides overall structural unity to a story; creates a convincing atmosphere of time and place (“Oh, Night, Don’t Leave,” the song Zain sings, is the theme song of When I Saw You and speaks of yearning for the land, for the Palestinian people; The Great Gatsby opens with high-pitched orchestral music that includes the whiny sound of the green light and suggests melancholy, ennui, loneliness, sadness] Can include music played by characters, coming from a radio, a person singing, etc. Large symphonic scores set moods or manipulate emotions [the orchestral music in the party scenes in The Great Gatsby create a sense of grandiose living, luxury, exuberance, hedonism, extravagance, and carelessness] 29  Types of film sound: music, cont’d Can be used for emphasis (a climax, a concluding scene, emotional high point, heighten action) [the axe battle scene in Snowpiercer draws emphasis early on to the inescapable violence on the train] Irony often results from the juxtaposition of music and image Musical themes are frequently associated with individual characters [Pariah: songs are used throughout the film to link to Alike/Lee’s self-actualization] Songs can inspire a movie [e.g. an Alicia Key song inspired Gina Prince-Bythewood to write Beyond the Lights] Music can be a motif [Mercedes’ hummed lullaby in Pan’s Labyrinth; Sparlha Swa’s song “Doing My Thing” in Pariah; in Psycho: the shrieking violins repeat when Norman-as-Mother kills Marion in the shower and when Norman tries to kill Lila in the basement]  Types of Film Sound: 4. Silence Silence is part of the soundtrack of a film (silence is experienced and interpreted) Creates meanings, influences interpretation Functions as a sound when the filmmaker deliberately suppresses the vocal, environmental, or musical sounds that we expect in a movie [e.g. in Snowpiercer, when the train explodes and derails, cars flying off into the deep snow, when it comes to a stop, there is dead silence; cut to a black screen then the two children] Can make a scene profound or prophetic as well as eerie or emotionally deep Evokes the psychological alienation of characters With careful interplay between silence and sound, a filmmaker can produce a rhythm for the film that calls attention to the characters’ perceptions Can lead viewers to listen more intently 31  Characterization Dialogue, sound effects, and music all contribute to characterization (e.g. all emphasize Anthony Perkins’ portrayal of Norman, leading to a riveting characterization of a mentally unstable, socially awkward man.) Music is frequently associated with characters’ thoughts and insights (e.g. the song that opens Pariah, “My Neck, My Back (Lick It)” by Khia, contrasts with Alike’s inability to be honest about her own sexuality) Musical themes help us understand the setting (e.g. In The Great Gatsby, the diversity of musical themes suggest partying, spectacle and hedonism but also heartbreak, violence, and the disillusionment of a broken American Dream) Musical themes often identify characters (Lana Del Ray’s song “Young and Beautiful” mirrors the young, rich Americans in The Great Gatsby) 32  "A Little Party Never Killed Nobody (All We Got)“ - Fergie, Q-Tip and GoonRock (screenshot) The contemporary song sung by Fergie is a bridge: it adds to the sense of decadent exuberance in 1920s America, suggesting a relationship between hedonism and party lifestyles then and now