Lecture 5 - Music and the Mise-en-bande PDF

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Teacher: Alexis Bennett...

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Music in Film LECTURE 5 – Music and the mise-en-bande 

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Mis-en-bande comes from mise-en-scene o Describing the look/aesthetic of the film o Mise-en-scene translates as ‘to put on stage’ o ‘The contents of the frame and the way that they are organised’ o Lighting, costume, décor, properties, the actors themselves, framing, camera movement, the particular lens employed and other photographic decisions o Mis-en-scene encompasses both what the audience can see, and the way in which we are invited to see it o *John Gibbs, Mise-en-scene: Film Style and Interpretation 2002:5 There is no soundtrack? o ‘The sounds of a film, taken separately from the image, do not form an internally coherent entity on equal footing with the image track. Secondly, that each audio element enters into simultaneous vertical relationship with narrative elements contained in the image (characters, actions) and visual elements of texture and setting’ – Michael Chion, Audio Vision: Sound on Screen There is a soundtrack? o ‘Film sound – taken as a single complex unit rather than three or more separate components – cannot be understood without analysing relationships among soundtrack components’ – Rick Altman, Inventing the Cinema Soundtrack, 2000:339 Visuals take an authorative role over the audio elements Glenn Gould’s short films o Rebalancing between the role of visual and audio o Visuals are simple in comparison to the audio o Forces you to focus on the soundtrack rather than the visual film o Confusion on the diegesis – is it coming from the character’s head? Is it being played in the scene behind the camera? o Layering of voices/speech – equivalent to a fugue o Challenges the idea of the power relationship between sound and image How do we listen? Three modes of listening (Chion and Schaeffer): o Causal: What is causing the sound? Where is it coming from? o Semantic: What do these sounds mean? Do they represent something? o Reduced: What are the actual characteristic of the sound, regardless of cause or meaning? Audio-visual contract Voyeurism – characters of a film are unaware there are viewers Synesthetic – the mixing of senses o Colours are associated with specific feelings

Types of Film Sound

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Acousmatic – you cannot see the source of the sound o E.g.: radio ADR – automated dialogue replacement o Re-recording of script in studio after scene has been filmed o Allows you to hear conversation in a noisy setting e.g.: on street with traffic o Very common Theatrical speech – speech where you can clearly hear and understand the conversation Sync sound – sound recorded at the time of shooting o Common in sitcoms and soap operas Emanation speech – speech where you cannot hear or understand the conversation o Background conversations to set the scene POV – point of view o Seeing from the character’s viewpoint o Encourages you to become the character o Very common in video games o Similar to POA (point of audition) where you can hear what the character hears e.g.: the thoughts inside the character’s head used in the film “Enter the Void” Establishing sound – sound that establishes where we are/the location of the characters Foley sounds – imaginative ways to get small-scale sounds o E.g.: hitting a melon with a bat to make it sound like someone is getting punched in a fight scene o *“What is Foley Sound by Sound Ideas” video Semi-sync e.g.: cheering and clapping o Sounds you can get from a sound library...