Unit 1: Practical 2: Film Forms

Sound

Is sound important?

Sound is often thought of as a secondary factor in film. However most filmmakers consider sound to be equally as important to the overall effect of watching a film.

Sound after our sense of smell is our strongest sense. Sounds can easily take us back to past memories evoking particular moods, images, and a sense of place or time. Its use in film, therefore is extremely important to create a realistic sense of place or atmosphere.

Cinema being a technological artform, often uses advancements in sound technology to market films. Developments in sonic technology such as Dolby noise reduction, THX , Surround sound, are seen as adding to the whole cinematic experience or home cinema experience.

Sound Editing

Sound in the cinema does not necessarily match the image, nor does it have to be continuous. The sound bridge is used to ease the transition between shots in the continuity style. Sound can also be used to reintroduce events from earlier in the diegesis. Especially since the introduction of magnetic tape recording after WWII, the possibilities of sound manipulation and layering have increased tremendously. Directors such as Robert Altman are famous for their complex use of the soundtrack, layering multiple voices and sound effects in a sort of "sonic deep focus." In this clip from Nashville (1975), we simultaneously hear a conversation between an English reporter and her guide, a gospel choir singing, and the sound engineers' chatter.

http://classes.yale.edu/film/videos/Clip26Nashville.asf

TIMELINE

1895 – 1926 – Silent films accompanied by Orchestra, Organ or Piano 1926 Don Juan Music no dialogue using the Vitaphone process 1927 Warner Bros release The Jazz Singer with dialogue (Clip) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G-WZRUIfHjo 1929 – Over half of the approximately 20, 500 American cinemas had

already switched over to sound Delay was due to expense and the need to refit cinemas and studios

with sound equipment. Many Silent movie stars did not survive the move to sound.

The decline of cinematic art as developed in Silent film (Purely visual art)

Sound equipment created limitations for film again. The camera returns to a fixed position.

Film moves closer to reality and further from art – Rudolf Arnheim suggests ‘the strangulation of a beautiful, hope-filled art form’.

Hollywood –‘the dream factory’ Beginning of Hollywood’s most successful period. – creation of new sound

centered genres. The sound film brought the musical genre to the forefront. Escapism from

everyday life. In 1930 no fewer than 70 musicals were filmed. Busby Berkeley choreographed some of the most expensive 42nd Street (1933)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SuqJJMSK15U As the studio system develops, many studios become associated with particular

genres, musicals are often associated with MGM studios for example. Crime Genre- The classical gangster film (Often associated with Warner Bros)

unimaginable without screeching brakes, rattling pistols and the pithy slang typical of the underworld. The gritty genre also reflected the times, the Newspaper headlines regarding crime and the growth of the Mafia.

Actors such as Humphry Bogart and James Cagney are associated with this genre. The Roaring Twenties (1939) epitomized the genre.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OecE7FfXGSs Horror Films- also blossomed during the early 1930’s enlivened by the use of

sound. Dracula (1930)Frankenstein (1931) The Screwball comedy – Bringing up Baby by Howard Hawks

Thinking about sound

The contemplation of sound can be split into distinct areas involving volume, pitch, timbre and its position within space and time. All of these variables effect the way in which we respond and interact with the film.

Stop for a moment and consider the sounds that you are hearing.

We filter out most background sounds to focus on the sound that is most important.

Film works in a similar way. Sounds are layered and enhanced to draw your attention to specific sounds and create particular atmospheres.

If you simply record with a microphone and the camera you will record everything. Perhaps you want this ambience, but you can also be more selective by using stock sounds, music. Samples etc.

Analysing Sound

SOUND CUE - Like Framing, focus, colour, lighting etc sound can direct our focus within the frame or create an overall ambience or mood. Sound cues can anticipate visual events e.g. footsteps.

OFF SCREEN Sound – Convey information beyond the on screen image Simultaneous sound from a source assumed to be in the space of the scene but

outside what is visible onscreen. In Life on Earth (La Vie sur Terre, Abderrahmane Sissako, 1998) a telephone operator tries to help a woman getting a call trough. While he tries to establish a connection, the camera examines the office and the other people present in the scene. Yet, even if the operator and the woman are now offscreen, their centrality to the scene is alway tangible through sounds (dialing, talking, etc).

http://classes.yale.edu/film/videos/OffscreenSpace-LifeEarth.wmv Of course, a film may use offscreen sound to play with our assumptions. In this clip

from Women On The Verge Of A Nervous Breakdown (Mujeres al Borde de un Ataque de Nervios, Pedro Almodóvar, 1988), we hear a woman and a man's voices in conversation, in what it looks like a film production studio. Even if we do not see the speakers, we instantly believe they must be around. Gradually, the camera shows us that we are in a dubbing studio, and only the woman is present, the man's voice being previously recorded. Moreover, theirs is not a real conversation but lines from a movie dialogue.

http://classes.yale.edu/film/videos/Sound-Women2.wmv

Analysing sound - Quality

LOUDNESS – Loudness is also related to perceived distance; often the louder the sound, the closer we take it to be.

PITCH – Pitch plays a useful role in picking out distinct sounds in a film. It helps distinguish music and speech from noises.

TIMBRE –The harmonic components of sound give it a certain colour, or tone quality – what musicians call timbre.

In creating a soundtrack a filmmaker must select sounds that will fulfill a particular function. The sound world on film is usually a little clearer/simpler than reality, however sounds maybe more exaggerated.

Much like quality of the image, the aural properties of a sound -- its timbre, volume, reverb, sustain, etc. -- have a major effect on a film's aesthetic. A film can register the space in which a sound is produced (its sound signature) or it can be otherwise manipulated for dramatic purposes. The recording of Orson Welles' voice at the end of Touch of Evil (1958) adds a menacing reverb to his confession.

http://classes.yale.edu/film/videos/Clip25TouchofEvil.asf The mediation of Abbas Kiarostami's voice through the walkie-talkie and the video quality

of the image in the coda of Taste of Cherry (Ta'm e Guilass, Iran, 1997) underscore the reflexivity that is characteristic of his films.

http://classes.yale.edu/film/videos/SoundQuality-TasteCherries.wmv

Rhythm

Music – can obviously be used to enhance mood and to create motifs for individual characters.

Rhythm - Sound occupies a duration and has a rhythm For example footsteps, train movement. Speech also has a distinct rhythm

Volume . Editing and length of shots also creates a rhythm. Images can be in sync with music ‘mickey mousing’ In speech you can edit against the rhythm of the speech.

Dialogue overlap – in conversations often the film will cut away from the speaker to see the individuals response and vice versa

Contrast rhythm of image and sound – In Chris Markers La Jetee the contrast between image and sound rhythms dominates the film.

Rhythm usually varies within a film.

Fidelity (Fidelity denotes how accurate a copy is to its source. For example, a worn

gramophone record will have a lower fidelity than one in good condition, and a recording made by a low budget record company in the early 20th century is likely to have significantly less audio fidelity than a good modern recording)

the extent to which the sound is faithful to the source. Jaques Tati experimented with the fidelity of sounds for humorous effect. Mr Hulots Holiday http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r9yiHKaAEGQ

Daffy Duck – Duck run amuck (Mickey Mousing/fidelity)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=snVoxwVSGhc Changes in fidelity can occur through volume e.g.

Curtis Bernhardt Posessed.

Diegetic and non-diegetic

Sound has a spatial dimension because it comes from a source Diegetic – sounds that take place in the story world –words spoken by

characters, sounds made by objects and music coming from objects in the story.

Non-diegetic sound – sounds that come from outside the film world. Musical soundtrack. The omniscient narrator.

Diegertic sound can come from on – or off-screen as in a conversation. A lot can be explained about a location . where in the world it is, what time of day. How big the room is through the sound.

Internal and external Diegetic – Subjective sound can also be used to reveal what a person is thinking.. We can hear the characters voice without seeing their lips move.

Experimentation in diegetic sound – Directors can create uncertainty between the borders of diegetic and non-diegetic sound e.g. Magnolia Characters sing along to Save Me by Aimee Mann.

DIEGETIC/NON-DIEGETIC SOUND Any voice, musical passage, or sound effect presented as originating froma source within the

film's world is diegetic. If it originates outside the film (as most background music) then it is non-diegetic.

A further distinction can be made between external and internal diegetic sound. In the first clip from Almodóvar's Women On The Verge Of A Nervous Breakdown (Mujeres al Borde de un Ataque de Nervios, 1988) we hear Iván speaking into the microphone as he works on the Spanish dubbing of Johnny Guitar (Nicholas Ray, 1954). Since he is speaking out loud and any other character could hear him, this is an example of external diegetic sound. This clip has no non-diegetic sounds other than the brief keyboard chord that introduces the scene.

http://classes.yale.edu/film/videos/Sound-Women1.wmv Sound and diegesis gets more complicated in the next clip, from Dario Argento's The Stendhal

Syndrome (La Sindrome di Stendhal, Italy, 1996). As Anna looks at Paolo Uccello's famous painting of the Battle of San Romano (c1435), we begin to hear the sounds of the battle: horses whimpering, weapons clashing, etc. These sounds exist only in Anna's troubled mind, which is highly sensitive to works of art. These are internal diegetic sounds (inside of a character's mind) that no one else in the gallery can hear.

http://classes.yale.edu/film/videos/stendhal-sound.wmv On the other hand, the Ennio Morricone eerie score that sets up the scene and mixes with the

battle sounds, is a common example of non-diegetic sound, sounds that only the spectators can hear. (Obviously, no boom-box blasting tourist is allowed into the Uffizi's gallery!)

Sound and Perspective-

Volume and positioning of sound in the stereo spectrum can suggest off-screen space and the movement of sound into or away from Frame. In Apocalypse Now Ben Willard is lying in bed and the sound oscillates between internal and external status as he remembers and we see superimposed the battle scenes and helicopters over the ceiling fan. Sound moves from multiple channels to mono to suggest the movement from a hyper aural space to a normal one.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bU0DxJVWhGw

Temporal dimension

Synchronous sounds are those sounds which are synchronized or matched with what is viewed. For example: DialogueIf the film portrays a character playing the piano, the sounds of the piano are projected.

Asynchronous sound effects are not matched with a visible source of the sound on screen. Such sounds are included so as to provide an appropriate emotional nuance, and they may also add to the realism of the film. For example:A film maker might opt to include the background sound of an ambulance's siren while the foreground sound and image portrays an arguing couple. The asynchronous ambulance siren underscores the psychic injury incurred in the argument; at the same time the noise of the siren adds to the realism of the film.

Experimentation with asynchronous sound Woody Allen’s What’s Up Tiger Lilly Asian spy film with a new dubbed sound track. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=awd6NNA_v30 Simultaneous sound- in the same time frame of the film Nonsimultaneous sound – e.g. a sonic flashback as in apocalypse Now . by means

of nonsimultaneous sound we can discover more about a character or the story.

Experimenting with Sound

Sound is conventionally used in commercial cinema to underline the emotional impact of the narrative, playing a supporting role to the image.

In artists' film, filmmakers have freed up sound from this traditional use and have questioned how sound works: how sound can be an end in itself.

The idea of synchronised sound was only made technically possible after three decades of silent filmmaking. A visual language had already evolved which didn't require sound interpretation for audiences to understand narrative. Artists have continued to evolve this visual narrative [it's worth considering the value of silence as an alternative to sound] as well as explore the possibilities of sound as an autonomous element.

From unsynchronised incongruity to harmony, sound is a medium of experimentation.

Voice Over

Voice over is a method of narrative storytelling which suggests that an authority, usually reliable, is overseeing the film from an external position, as privileged to the action, if not more so, than the audience.

It is used conventionally as a controlling device, offering a shorthand to meaning that images alone cannot suggest e.g. voice over can be used to describe something that has happened off screen or a reading of the image that is not apparent. Voice over requires a passivity in the viewer's response: to trust the word.

Artists have responded to this by calling into question and often challenging the authority of the voice over. One aspect of the conventional voice over is its supposed neutrality. Filmmakers have disrupted this, for instance, by sharing intimacies through voice over and by making obvious the prejudice of the speaker.

THE GIRL CHEWING GUM John Smith 1976 12mins Black &

White 16mm 'In The Girl Chewing Gum an authoritative voice-over pre-empts the

events occurring in the image, seeming to order not only the people, cars and moving objects within the screen but also the actual camera movements operated on the street in view. In relinquishing the more subtle use of voice-over in television documentary, the film draws attention to the control and directional function of that practice: imposing, judging, creating an imaginary scene from a visual trace. This 'Big Brother' is not only looking at you but ordering you about as the viewer's identification shifts from the people in the street to the camera eye overlooking the scene. The resultant voyeurism takes on an uncanny aspect as the blandness of the scene (shot in black and white on a grey day in Hackney) contrasts with the near 'magical' control identified with the voice. The most surprising effect is the ease with which representation and description turn into phantasm through the determining power of language.' - Michael Maziere, John Smith's Films: Reading the Visible'

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=upHAWrEj1qY

WALKING OFF COURT George Barber 2003 10 mins

Colour Video The story of James Goodman "WALKING OFF COURT" concerns a story I saw in

the Times about a tennis coach called James Goodman who had a nervous breakdown around about the time that a motorway was built right outside his house. He spent a lot of time aimlessly walking in circles around new roads and road works. I contacted him and even ended up playing tennis with him. The video is loosely the story around his experience and his changing relationship to his normal circumstances."

http://www.luxonline.org.uk/artists/george_barber/walking_off_court.html

MOUTH WORKS Stuart Marshall 1975-77 20 mins B & W

Sound Video An extreme close-up of a mouth is used to

examine speech patterning, perception of mime, vocal cavity resonation and the electronic fracturing of speech.

http://www.luxonline.org.uk/artists/stuart_marshall/mouth_works.html

MUSIC

The idea of collaboration is one that rarely diverts a conventional film from its construction.

In artists' film, collaboration is usually much more self-conscious and some of the best sound work had been produced in conjunction with a filmmaker where the musician and the filmmaker's approaches can coalesce in an intelligent and sympathetic exchange.

Where convention suggests that music is illustrative of action and is secondary to image, the best artists' film goes beyond this idea and the process behind the filmmaking is mirrored in the musical landscape.

This idea of musical exchange has had great seminal impact beyond artists' film. Music promos now often borrow a lot from this type of partnership so that films are made to sympathetically express music rather than simplistically illustrate their content. A new form of collaboration has evolved where literal artistic exchanges have been replaced by exchanges in ideas between different mediums.

Malcolm Le Grice – Berlin Horse

Malcolm Le Grice's Berlin Horse /Sound by Brian Eno

" Multi-projection film Berlin Horse (1970) was based entirely on a novel but simple idea of a repeating, subtly changing film loop. The soundtrack created by Brian Eno was also implemented using a tape loop. According to the director, Berlin Horse examines how the eye works and how the minds builds up a perceptual rhythmic structure"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LDj8Tc6259o

STABAT MATERNina Danino 1990 8mins colour

http://www.luxonline.org.uk/artists/nina_danino/stabat_mater.html

The songs at the beginning and end are the two pillars of the film - the voice of my mother singing two laments - a saeta - a type of song sung during holy week to the Mater Dolorosa. It attempts to locate that which is lost, contained by the body but outside of objectification, absent and unnameable.

Found Sound

The idea of perfectly orchestrated synchronised scores is debunked by the notion of found sound. Found sound is pre- or previously recorded music or sound that is rediscovered and used in a new context.

The effect of using found sound is to make self-conscious the use of illustrative sound. An old song or incongruous piece of sound design points up the unsynched nature of sound and image. Juxtaposition generates an awareness in the audience response of how sound is employed. For instance, if the recording quality of a 78 record is placed alongside an image filmed on the latest sharpest digibeta recorder an audience is made aware of the texture of different recording processes they might otherwise take for granted. The application of found sound asks for a larger cultural understanding of the immediacy of the emotional moment in the film.

Using found sound also has a commemorative effect. For instance, John Smith literally commemorates where sound is found in Lost Sound, a real adventure in the art of sound curation. And Cordelia Swann exploits to perfection the evocative nature of popular music in Desert Rose. She presents the nuclear poisoning of desert round Las Vegas in a cunning interweaving of image, voice over and the twangy musical sounds of the mid 20th century desert city to ghostly effect.

LOST SOUND John Smith 1998-2001 28mins Colour Video

Collaboration with Graeme Miller. 'The theme of fragmentation and decay is taken up by my favorite work here, the video

Lost Sound (2001), made in collaboration with sound artist Graeme Miller. Divided into short sections titled by location, Lost Sound shows discarded audiotapes around London - strands clinging to a fence, trapped in the crevices of a tree trunk, intertwined with weeds. The sound track combines the voices and songs on the found audiotapes with ambient sounds recorded on location. Visually the audiotapes tell us almost nothing; they must be 'decoded' by the equipment that put them on the sound track. But we come to see that the signs, cars, and pedestrians in the videotape pose similar 'decoding' problems: what do they mean, where do they come from, who are they? A city that at first seems comprehensible is revealed as a layering of mysteries; we know no more about the passing humans from their images than we do about what's on the crumpled tapes... Each section charts a different relationship between tape and urban scene, taking the viewer on a little unpredictable journey. Finally, as happens so often in Smith's work, the representational structure itself seems to break down. Titles and images are flipped left to right, undermining the readability of words, and men loading boxes onto a truck are seen in a repeated loop, foregrounding the arbitrariness of cinematic time as well as commenting on the repetitiousness of manual labor. Lost in an indecipherable maze whose rules change constantly, we see the city as a network of unpredictably shifting relationships and come to doubt even the sounds encoded in the tape fragments.' Fred Camper, from 'Pushed to the Limit - Films and Videos by John Smith', "Chicago Reader" magazine, 2001.

http://www.johnsmithfilms.com/texts/sf11.html#

VISION AS SOUND

Another approach to creating sound with film is to negotiate directly with the material of film.

A film's soundtrack is read optically as it plays through a projector and translated into sound. The film carries a soundtrack which can be physically exploited to generate sound.

Vowels and Consonants – Guy Sherwin six 16mm film projection. live

performance. filmmakers Lynn Loo, Guy Sherwin and sound artists Sarah Washington, Knut Aufermann. performed at Bullion Theatre 16th July 2005 for Spice Festival.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OuLtbiBrSFk

Sound Properties

 suggest a  mood, evoke a feeling   set a pace   indicate a geographical locale   indicate a historical period   clarify the plot   define a character   connect otherwise unconnected ideas, characters, places,  images, or

moments   heighten realism or diminish it   heighten ambiguity or diminish it   draw attention to a detail, or away from it   indicate changes in time   smooth otherwise abrupt changes between shots or scenes   emphasize a transition for dramatic effect   describe an acoustic space   startle or soothe 

 exaggerate action or mediate it