Sound in film

In today's lesson we found out about different sounds in the media/film.

There are three key elements of sound in a film these are:

1) Dialogue (conversation)

2) Music

3) Sound effects (footsteps, doors slamming etc.)

Then we were told to think about what out of the three categories was the most effective and emotive during a film, most of the class including me decided that the most emotive and effective type of sound in a film was the music that was added into the scene this is because it is meant to give us an inkling of what the character is feeling or what is to come for example in the end scene of the film The Sixth Sense.

   

The Sixth Sense is a film that is considered to be a Thriller, Mystery and a Drama it came out on the 5th of November 1999,the description of the film is that there is a boy (Haley Joel Osment) that suggests that he can see and communicate with the dead /spirits, no longer being able to take what he is seeing he seeks help from a disheartened child psychologist (Bruce Willis) 

The Sixth Sense is a very good example of how added music may have an effect and may give the viewer an inkling of what it is to come in the 1st clip it is the scene and the music added together this music allows us to feel sorrow for Malcolm (Bruce Willis) and then we understand and feel his inner turmoil even though we haven't been in his exact situation we are able to relate. The 2nd clip is just of the ending music I have always believed that classical music is the most emotive and especially classical music made for scores in films as they are meant to convey a range of emotions and themes this can be to show the emotions of the characters or the theme of the film, for example horror/thriller films mostly use eerie music as it is used to make us believe that something bad is going to happen or may go wrong or even if something is not as it seems as is used in The Sixth Sense ,but for romance films there is normally a floral or upbeat tune to make us feel happy and excited that the character is happy.

Music is mostly used to character our opinion on the character that we see/ acknowledge or the mood of the scene this is greatly shown in the anime film Howl's Moving Castle.

Both are great films I highly recommend them to anyone and to all ages although younger children shouldn't watch the sixth sense since they may be psychologically harmed 

All sounds in film can be divided into two categories:

1) Diegetic sound: this is sound that the character can also hear within the film also described as "sounds from within the world of film for example this may be the rustling of papers or the clicking of shoes these are dialogue, sound effects and many more. 

2) Non-Diegetic sound: this is sound that the character cannot hear within the film this is also described as "sounds from outside the world of the film" for example this is the classical music I talked about earlier or Music in general that isn't being played within the film and many more. 

Then we watched a clip of the last king of Scotland and noted what sounds in the clip were Diegetic or Non-Diegetic:  

1) Diegetic: 

                  Moving of papers

                  Footsteps

                  Door closing

2) Non-Diegetic:

                           Classical music -1) Low tone + Deep

                                                        2) Violin + Cello 

After a brief discussion of what we found as a group we moved on to compare two different film clips and wrote a list like the other: 

Clip 1: Slumdog Millionaire -Train

                                                 Children playing/Talking 

                                                 Splashing water   

                                                 Slow pace music/Motionless

                                                 Harp plucking sound 

                                                 Drums

                                                 Men / shouting 

                                                 Muted/Distorted sound  

Clip 2: Rat Catcher - Distant children playing

                                     Church bell

                                     Boy getting hit on the head 

                                     Running up stairs 

                                     Splashing of water 

After another re-grouping we talked about what categories the sounds we hear may be called we named  them  : 

1) On-screen-sound: this is when we can see the source of the sound being heard for example a whistling sound and you can see the person/character whistling.

2) Off-screen-sound: this is when we can't see the source of the sound being heard for example hearing a distant church bell but not actually seeing the church bell.

Editing sound

when editing sound you have to pay attention to picture and sound so they fit together well .

when editing a conversation you have to start with a master shot,a master shot is a shot when you can see all the people in the conversation and then when you want individual shots of different characters you can go into single shots which is called a cut away but also we need to consider that you don't always have to see the person currently talking this links to on/off screen sound  and it also links onto the effects we can use.

^ Master Shot                                                                  ^ Cutaway shot           

Above I wrote about diegetic and non-diegetic sound but there are two categories within Non-diegetic sound : 
Non-diegetic sound:
Parallel sound: this is sound that does match the scene that is being shown. 
Contrapuntal sound: this is sound that doesn't match the scene that is being shown.

An example of both parallel and contrapuntal sound that we filmed and put on to our clip is on my other posts called The argument: The 3 versions.