This depends on you as a film maker, however sound is almost 50% of a production but you can make films without film and just sound and you can make films with just film and no sound. It's all down to the film maker.
Films that use sound WITHOUT moving pictures:
- Derek Jerman's 'Blue' (voices over blue screen)
- Chris Marker's 'La Jetee' (voices over still photographs)
Even 'silent' cinema used live musical accompaniments and sound effects
Function of sound
- Aural narrative (dialogue, voiceover)
- Sound ambience (mood, atmosphere, sound effects)
- Emotional or intellectual resonance or dissonance (music)
Key elements of film sound
- Speech (dialogue or narration)
- Ambient or natural sound
- Sound effects
- Musical score or soundtrack
Use of sound effects
- Heighten drama - abstract or enhanced effects deigned to affect audience perception or emotional state (e.g. audible heartbeats in horror films)
- Simulate reality - ambient background that underscores and reinforces unity of Mise En Scene and editing (e.g. traffic noise, chatter, room tone)
Aesthetic uses of sound
- Impressionistic - harmonious sound that evokes a mood, atmosphere or tone
- Expressionistic - Discordant sound that evokes abstract or dark psychological states
- Asynchronous - sound and visuals are mismatched for dramatic effect
- Diegetic and non-diegetic
Diegetic vs non-diegetic sound
- Diegetic - any sound that is intrinsic to the film space or implied by action (e.g. character speech, music performance)
- Non-diegetic - any sound that is external to the film space (e.g. voiceover, soundtrack, music/soundtrack
We went on to watch 2 clips from different films, both using Diegetic and Non-diegetic sounds. The first you could clearly tell which sounds where diegetic and non diegetic. However, the second there is a questionable sound of birds which you would say is diegetic but you don't see any birds or even trees so this could be non-diegetic. This is where we see the importance of context.
David Lynch - "Films are 50 percent visual and 50 percent sound. Sometimes sound even overplays the visual"
Sound and Emotion
Music and narrative device
- music underscores or accentuates visual narrative, emotion o r drama
- can create emotional or intellectual resonance or dissonance
- Use of leitmotifs: a short, recurring musical phrase associated with a particular person, place or idea (e.g. jaws theme, Darth Vader's march in Star Wars)
- Lord of the Rings uses motifs with locations such as 'The Shire'
- Pop songs as commentary/dramatic device: "When words fail, music speaks" - Hans Christian Andersen
- Dennis Potter's BAFTA-Winning BBC drama series, set in the 1930s, used popular songs from the period to allow his character to step out of the narrative to comment on the action
- This 'alienation' technique provides a contrast between the grim reality of the characters real lives and their romantic aspirations as expressed in music dance
- In its use of narrative-breaking devices, period nostalgia and musical homage, Pennies From Heaven displays several traits of post-midernisim
Modernism vs Postmodernism
- Modernism - an aesthetic and cultural reaction to classicism, relying on innovations in form, material and techniques to create new modes of rational and progressive expression and representation
- Broadly ideologically utopian (e.g. Soviet montage)
- Postmodernism - reaction to failure of modernism's objective rationalism. playfully deconstructs form, fusing disparate elements of high and low culture (usually through homage or pastiche) and meta-reference (intertextually and self-referentiality)
- Broadly ideologically disruptive (e.g. The Simpsons, Pulp Fiction)
Use of narration
- First person subjective (monologue or contributors voice: e.g. Jarman's Blue)
- 'Voice of god' objective commentary (expository narrative: e.g. classic documentary)
- Conventions of male vs female voices (dominant vs empathetic); RP vs Regional (authoritative vs authentic)
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