TV Theory 5: Sound

How important is sound?
-Can you have sound without pictures?
-Can you have pictures without sound?

Films that use sound without moving pictures:
-Derek Jarman's Blues (voices over blue screen).
-Chris Marker's La jetee (voices over still photographs)
-Even 'silent' cinema used live musical accompaniment and sound effects.

Function of sound:
-aural narrative (dialogue, voiceover)
-sonic 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 designed t 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)

Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown (1988)
Director: Pedro Almodovar
Dubbing Nicholas Ray's Hollywood film.

Looking for Langston (1989)

'Films are 50 percent visual and 50 percent sound. Sometimes around even overplays the visual'-David Lynch

How important is music?
The Imperial March- Conveys power, villainous, marshal, militaristic.

Music as narrative device:
-Music underscores or accentuates visual narrative, emotion or 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).
-Pop songs as commentary/dramatic device: 'When words fail, music speaks' (Hans Christian Andersen)

-How important is the right music?

-Can you use any music regardless of dramatic context?

-Why are some musical soundtracks changed?

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 t 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 (intertextuality 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).