Formalist and Realist Sound Effects

Sounds which serve for images

Table of Contents

1) Sounds in the film

2) Film Realism and Sound

3) Formalist Sound Effects

Sounds in the Film

Cinematic sound is that which does not simply add to, but multiplies, two or three times, the effect of the image.

Akira Kurosawa

Sounds in the Film

Production Recordist Sound mixer

Boom operator Third man

Sound Unit or Sound Recording Unit

Sounds in the Film

Sounds in the Film

Recording Mixer

Sound Editor

Sounds in the Film

• SOUND EDITING AND SOUND MIXING

• ‘Automated dialogue replacement’ (ADR) Dubbing or Looping

• Creation and finding sound effects and adding them to a film

• Composing and/or finding music and adding it to a film

Sounds in the Film

• Each voice, effects and music occupies a separate track

• A final mixing session puts dozens of such separate tracks together into a single master track on 35 mm magnetic film.

Film Realism and Sound

• The introduction of synchronous sound recording (1928) and colour film (1950s) - the two major technological changes which contribute the development of film realism

• The arrival of sound leads to the birth of naturalistic acting on screen.

Film Realism and Sound• Alfred Hitchcock’s

Blackmail (1929)• Started as a silent film

and re-shot as a talkie.• Silent film acting and

static camera work• Alfred Hitchcock’s

The Lady Vanishes (1938)

• Naturalistic sound and acting and naturalistic sound

Film Realism and Sound

• In most of realist films, the process of producing the sound track is simplified and minimized.

• Direct synchronous sound recording with little or no effect, music and no dubbing or looping.

• Post-shooting sound editing is the manipulation of reality and must be avoided.

Film Realism and Sound

• Eric Rohmer’s films (Le Femme de l’aviateur)• Direct synchronous sound recording • No dubbing (looping)• No sound effect• No music• No editing (microphone picks up every environmental s

ound and the sound editor does not clean up noises)

Film Realism and Sound

• Filmmakers normally edit the sound.

• Background noises picked up during the shooting are either erased or reduced so that dialogue can be heard better.

• Dialogue and background noises are balanced.

Film Realism and Sound

• Satyajit Ray’s Pather Panchali (Song of the Little Road, 1955)

• Direct synchronous sound recording with minimum music from Rabi Shankar

Formalist Sound Effects

• Sound can actively shape how we perceive and interpret the image of reality and help heightened the viewer’s sense of reality.

• Film realism or formalism?• Sound can help us understand what images

cannot show us – inner feeling and psychology of a character. Sound also emphasizes them.

• Film realism or formalism?

Formalist Sound Effects

• Sound effects are added to enhance the mood of a scene.

• Alan Parker’s Midnight Express (1978) A man tries to smuggle drag out of Turkey. His heart beats are exaggerated during passing the immigration.

Formalist Sound Effects

• Heightened sounds• Roman Polanski’s Repulsi

on (1965)• Carol, a Belgian manicurist

living in London, intensely dislikes men, any men commits a murder while her roommate sister is away on holiday.

Formalist Sound Effects

• Kurosawa Akira’s Seven Samurai (1954)

• Exaggerated natural sounds and the increase of tension in the film

Formalist Sound Effects

• Use of silence• Kurosawa Akira’s Ikir

u (Living, 1952)

• The shock and blankness of the protagonist is expressed by silence.

Formalist Sound Effects

• Like noise or sound effect, music can shape and emphasize the meaning of images.

• Sorts of music

• Source music, music specially composed for a film, and existing recorded music

Formalist Sound Effects

• Woody Allen’s use of sound and music

• The way in which his choice of music emphasises the meanings of the images he creates.

Formalist Sound Effects

• Francis Ford Coppola’s use of Richard Wagner in his Apocalypse Now

• Aggression, bellicosity, and megalomania

Formalist Sound Effects• Ironic use of music• Stanley Kubrick’s Dr.

Strangelove (1964)• A nuclear war starte

d between US and USSR, nuclear missiles are about to hit their targets. Vera Lynn’s 50s hit ‘We’ll Meet Again’ is played against nuclear explosions.

Formalist Sound Effects • Is every music used for formalist purpose?

• Any realist music?• Ermanno Olmi’s Alber

o degli zoccoli , 1978)

• Use of J.S. Bach’s organ Choral.

• Subtle and unobtrusive - underlying the dignity of the lives and labour of peasants.