Intro to Cinema 2%2F20%2F18 PDF

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Aural Components of Soundtracks 1) Verbal ● Dialogue ● Off-screen-voice - Narrator: “I Narrator” = see who was narrating, then follow them throughout the rest of the film, first person narration - Authoritative voice = goes through entire movie, authoritative voice is not objectified, third person narration ● Singing 2) Music = 2 types of music: - Scoring/underscoring = A convention, a score in the movies. Privileges the audience. The characters don’t hear it. - Source music = you see the source of the music on the screen, the characters also hear the source. Ex: radio, band. 3) Sound effects 4) Silence The most telling moments happen in a picture when there is silence, just silence. The spatial, temporal space we have built is given sound. A film is designed in terms of sound - uses sound to create meanings. Other arts that use sound as part of the experience: - Music, dance, literature - Poetry Study of sound has been neglected in sound. Film is a visual medium. Oral, not just verbal. Silent era - film reached a level of artistry and poetry. Many people thought film was an art form. They felt dialogue would undermine film as an art. At first, everything talked. Art is selective. Visual is so engrossing - images replay in our mind. Rarely do we hear the movie. It is difficult to analyze the sound of a movie. No such thing as a silent film - even with no talking, there is a piano accompanying images on the screen or an orchestra High end houses = Allefax - knew when there would be a sound. Can reproduce up to 750 sounds. Music - original score? Composite? - Composite is made up of preexisting music. Is the music suitable for the characters? 3 Things to Ask About the Music:

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Type of music Life of music Place of the music

Sound Design 1979 - Francis Ford Coppola making a war film - Apocalypse Now. Wanted to design a soundtrack to go along with it. Element of Production: Sound Design 1. Synchronous sound = sound relates to the image. 2. Asynchronous sound = image and sound don’t match. Why would you not sync the sound and the image? Creates a disturbing effect, or a metaphor. Soundtracks could lie - creating tension through metaphors or ironies. Ex: Two for the Road: telling her he misses her while he follows a different girl. Montage = put images together to make a scene or sequence. Two types of montage: 1. Sound to sound montage - one sound follows or is put over another sound. A moment in the movie when the audience is introduced and they are taken from here to here - a mini symphony. Ex: Sound of Music - silent is the first sound. Then you hear wind. Then church steeples - church bells. Then birds chirping. Orchestra. Etc etc. 3 types of sound to sound montages: - Sound over another sound to build a symphony. - Sound to another sound that parallels it. One sound reinforces the other. - Sound contrasts with another sound. Ironic. 2. Sound to image montage - across the frame 2 types of sound to image montages: - Analogical - made a sound analogous to an image. Ex: Jaws - sound when shark approaching. - A diametrical sound. Parallel montage or perpendicular montage - two contrasting sounds/images. Ex: Rosemary. How many sounds do you hear at once in a image in a normal film? 9 sounds Problem - hierarchy of sounds Which is the loudest and which is the faintest? And why? Only 3 sounds you hear: dialogue in conversation, sound effects, music. Loudest sound = people are thinking about that. Have to pay attention to the volume of the sound. What is loudest and what is faintest. You select an order.

Images come in sizes - 3 sizes that images come in: - Sound long shot = loudest. Also, medium and softest. Softer = farther away. - Time and space are correlative. Sound and space are correlative. Images have various angles: - Low angle - High angle Sounds can have angles too: - Pitch - High, low, medium Sounds have colors, just like images: - Images move, so do sounds - Go where the origins of the sound go Transitions between images: - Fade in fade out = loud to soft sound or vice versa - Dissolve = overlap - Cut = right after one go to next one - Superimposition = same time Slow motion, fast motion - Should match soundtrack Cut - Cut on any element of soundtrack Thematic meanings of sound: - Can’t hear every sound - Select an order - Sound intensifies an image. - Sounds interpret an image. - Sound directs our attention in a frame. - Sound can tell us what the characters are thinking or their mood Why does an author use motifs? - To show the theme - Creates continuity - ties it together. Ex: In Two for the Road, “married people don’t talk to each other.” Music makes time stop....