sound in cinema
DESCRIPTION
SONIDO EN CINETRANSCRIPT
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Pedro Rebelo 2006
URL: http://www.sarc.qub.ac.uk/~prebelo/teaching/sd
Sound Design
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Sound in Cinema
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We gestate in Sound, and are born into SightCinema gestated in Sight and was born into SoundWalter Murch (in Michel Chions Audio Vision)
From sonic acuteness to the explosion of senses Cinema: Mechanistic Reversal
Sound in Cinema
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Silent Cinema (1892 - 1927) Sonic environment composed of live music (piano, organ), audience,
theatre sounds etc...
1927: Synchresis (Synchronism + Synthesis) (Chion) The spontaneous and irresistible mental fusion, completely free of any
logic, that happens between a sound and a visual when these occur at exactly the same time (Chion, 1994 p. xviii).
Sound in Cinema
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Fabricating reality: actress on screen with different voices
From dubbed voice to hyper-real sound
Rendered Sound : more real than real (Chion)
Sound sources often do not correspond to actions on screen
Sound in Cinema
Both Marlene Dietrich and Greta Garbo did not speak a word of English when they began to work in Hollywood
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Separation (by virtue of film practice) between what we see and what we hear
A layer of sound fertilises the image layer (not always by mimicking it)
Sound communicates physical qualities (material, weight, mass, volume, tension, force...)
Sound Design
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Complex set of relationships in a synchronised audio-visual environment:
Sound Design
Visual stimuli focusing listening
Audio stimuli defining visual time
Discrepancy between audio and visual stimuli providing dual modality perception
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Visual stimuli focusing listening
The panning of a video camera is able to focus our listening to a particular layer (e.g. orchestral concert broadcast)
Sound Design
Example: Elis Regina & Tom Jobim Aguas de Maro
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Visual stimuli focusing listening
The panning of a video camera is able to focus our listening to a particular layer (e.g. orchestral concert broadcast)
Sound Design
Example: Elis Regina & Tom Jobim Aguas de Maro
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Audio stimuli defining visual time
Sound conveys time information more accurately than visuals (e.g. the moment the gun is shot is primarily a sonic event)
Sonic acceleration and deceleration can modulate visual rhythm
Rdn#06 Underworld (onedotzero_select dvd - 07)Visual movement/speed is perceived in two different modes by virtue of two contrasting sound environments.
Sound Design
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Discrepancy between audio and visual stimuli providing dual modality perception
Non-linear interaction between audio and visuals
Sound can be used to occlude expected events (e.g. parts of a dialogue). (Jean Luc Goddards Weekend)
Sound Design
8 1/2 Women, Peter Greenaway1999Chapter 1Opening credit sequence features a shot of nigh-time urban cityscape with the sound of birdsong.
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Designing in Context
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Designing in Context Sound Design for screen or visual media is context specific: Design
of connections as much as design of materials
John Cage / Merce Cunningham collaboration: releasing accidental connectivity
Contextual elements such as performance situation and particularly timing (duration) are agreed, whereas micro-structure events are left to chance
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Designing in Context
Excerpt from Variations VJohn Cage / Merce Cunningham
John Cage made Variations V in 1965 for the Merce Cunningham Dance Company. He and David Tudor settled on two systems for the sound to be affected by movement. For the first, Billy Klver and his colleagues set up a system of directional photocells aimed at the stage lights, so that the dancers triggered sounds as they cut the light beams with their movements. A second system used a series of antennas. When a dancer came within four feet of an antenna a sound would result. Ten photocells were wired to activate tape-recorders and short-wave radios. Cecil Coker designed a control circuit, which was built by my assistant Witt Wittnebert. Film footage by Stan VanDerBeek and Nam June Paik's manipulated television images were projected on screens behind the dancers. The score was created by flipping coins to determine each element and consisted of thirty-five remarks outlining the structure, components, and methodology. The specific sound score would change at each performance as it was created by radio antennas responding to the dancers' movements.
http://www.medienkunstnetz.de/works/variations-v/video/1/
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Designing in Context
Sound design for the screen, in its most inventive moments, suggests an approach in which image and sound interact by a counterpoint of editing and a process of layering that brings forward both sound and image at different times.
The exploration of provocative and unusual audio-visual situations is a primary concern in a wide range of film and new media practice. Mimicking is not enough...
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Three Listening Modes (Chion, 1990)
Understanding the relationship between sound, its source and its perception...
Causal Listening
Semantic Listening
Reduced Listening
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Causal ListeningListening to a sound in order to gather information about its cause or source
The most common listening mode
We recognise a persons voice
Without it necessarily corresponding to an image (radio presenter)
CATEGORIES of sources: animal, human, mechanic
MORPHOLOGIES of sound (causal history)Scraping = acceleration, changes of pressure, speed, amplitude, timbre
We recognise scraping as a sound producing action (without knowing the precise nature of materials)
In cinema, the identification of cause is dependent on: the audio-visual contract and the phenomenon of synchresis
how much water in the bottle?
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Semantic ListeningListening as referring to a code of language
The interpretation of a message
At the centre of linguistic studies
Not about the acoustic properties of an individual event (phoneme)
but rather its contribution to a system of differences and oppositions
e.g. consonants, vowels, diphthongs...
what does that mean?
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Reduced ListeningFocusing on sound itself, independent of cause or meaning
Pierre Schaeffer
Rooted in fixed sounds - recordingInfinite repetition directs our attention away from cause or meaning
Ear TrainingSimilar to traditional music ear training (identifying an interval between two notes)
Pierre Schaeffer Trait des object musicaux (1966)System of classification that suggests a solfeggio for recorded sound objects
Reduced listening, as a discipline allows for the sound designer to engage with the media
and explore the perceptual and acoustic richness in any sound
how does that sound?
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Reduced Listeningand Acousmatic Sound
In an acousmatic listening situation the sound source is not visible.
The Acousmatics
Pythagoras disciples promoting lectures behind the screen
Obscuring the source would focus the audience on sound - the message
without the distractions of bodily presenceSound as primordial mode of communication (also theorised by Marshall McLuhan)
Acousmatic Music is defined by composer Francois Bayle as shot and developed in the studio, and projected in a hall, like a film (Bayle)
sound composed to be played over an array of loudspeakers
how does that sound?
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Phythagoras FootstepsVision is typically enclosed by a stable frame (painting, photography, cinema, computer screen...)
it directs/crops our gazeIn sound there is no frame...
Analysis of sound in cinema refers to the role of the frame:
diegetic sound - belongs to actions in the framecharacters speaking, objects being moved etc...
non-diegetic - sounds outside the frame background music
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Phythagoras Footstepsdiegetic sound - belongs to actions in the frame
characters speaking, objects being moved etc...
non-diegetic - sounds outside the frame background music
http://www.stanford.edu/~gdegroat/PF/pictures.htm
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Phythagoras Footsteps
Numerous examples problematise this categorisation.In particular, technological presence in film:
radio, computer voices, recorded conversations...
Chions terminology: Offscreen - not visible but part of the frame
Onscreen - visible action for sound
Non-diegetic - non visible
Michel Chion Audio Vision
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Phythagoras FootstepsChions extended terminology:
Ambient Sound (Territory-Sound)sound that envelops a scene and inhabits its space without raising the question of the identification or visual embodiment of its
source (Chion, p.75)sound as a way of identifying a particular space or situation (church bells, birdsong, etc...)
Internal SoundSituated in the present action, physical and mental interior of a character
internal voices, bodily sounds...
On-the-Air SoundTransmitted electronically onto the scene
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Phythagoras Footsteps
Dimensions and Oppositions in film sound:
Opposition between acousmatic and visualised
Opposition between objective and subjective or real and imagined
Difference between past, present and future
Michel Chion Audio Vision
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Elements in a Soundtrack
AmbienceTriggers of motion
Evocation of space or situation through soundDependent on references (non-narrative)
e.g. voice whispers, whistling wind...
Earcons Imply an immediate response (e.g. Carl Stalling)
User interface sounds... not spatially defined, somewhat arbitrary
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No Soundtrack
Sound element subsidiary to narrative (or film structure)Integrated with visuals to produce one single effect
The relationship between sound and image often changes throughout a film; they become so intertwined that it becomes impossible to separate them and still treat either element as a
coherent entity.
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Forced Marriage
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Exercise: Source Library
Sound Object Groups:
A: FootstepsB: Movement C: Environments (indoors and outdoors)D: Impact and CollisionE: Sound Events from Analysis Files
In preparation for the next two assignments the class will work as a group in recording and editing sound sources
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1. Record as a group (Experiment!)
2. Divide up Editing Tasks
3. Catalogue all edited files as appropriate
4. Present Sound Library to Class
Exercise: Source Library
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Audio-Visual Analysis
Itemize the different audio elementswhich is dominant and what point?
Characterise consistency
how do the different elements interact?balance, reverberation, masking
Points of Synchronisationpoints that are crucial for meaning and dynamics
Sound-Image Comparisonformal relationships in speed, materials, definition, distance, scale
technical comparison between camera movement and the soundtrackcompare by observing audio and visual elements separately
What do I see of what I hear?What do I hear of what I see?
Metaphor through SoundAre there any metaphorical relationships articulated specifically through sound?
Excerpts for Analysis:
Artificial Intelligence (S. Spielberg 2001)Delicatessen (Jeunet & Caro, 1991)Russian Ark (A. Sokurov, 2002)