Sound [Recap]

To finish our recap of the ‘M’ in Migraine, we went through our knowledge of sound and did some technical analysis to refresh our memory.
Firstly, we talked as a group about the words we already associate with sound. Here is the list we came up with:

• MP3
• Tension
• Loud/quiet
• Orchestral
• Thematics
• Foley
• Natural/unnatural
• Tone
• Diegetic/non-diegetic
• Drama
• Effects
• Peaceful

Shortly after this, we were asked to stay silent for a minute or two and listen to the sounds around us in the classroom. Here is my list from then:

• Clicking
• Typing
• The rumble of traffic
• People bustling about outside
• Feet stamping/walking/tapping on the floor
• Distant conversations in other classes
• The AC
• Somebody cracking their knuckles
• Sighing
• Whispering
• Laughing
• Static
• computers whirring

I wasn’t surprised when I looked back that I had heard a lot of typical sounds for a school in the city, but I was taken aback at the quantity. There were a lot more sounds than I realised! I sometimes find it a miracle that our brains are able to process everything and sort out what’s not useful, to block out, and what to focus on.

Next, we were played three clips without actually seeing the videos, so that it was just the sound that we could hear. The first one had deep music, perhaps some guitar, and sounded hopeful, calm, important and/or emotional. I could imagine a setting being panned over and guessed that the genre was probably drama. I think I did well with the first one since it was the Twin Peaks introduction, which is a mystery drama series. For the next one, I could hear traffic and building sounds, as if somebody was sawing a tree perhaps? It was something like static. There was also funky, jazz music, making me think it was yet another introduction. I was a little off for this one and I think I was influenced by the Twin Peaks clip because there was no tree sawing whatsoever. It was the introduction of The Wire, an investigative crime series, which would explain what we later saw was typing, coding/numerical sounds and cameras snapping. Finally, the third clip had deep bass, fiddle and drums. It made me think of epic battle music because of the war drums and fast beat which put training into mind. There were also exotic elements alongside the deeper, serious music, and I had a strong feeling the genre was fantasy. This one was spot on because the music was from Witcher, one of the most popular recent fantasy series.

 

Ambient Sound

 

 

Everything on the list comprising of what I heard in class is an example of ambient sounds (ambient audio, ambience, atmosphere or atmos). These are all of the background sounds that can be heard in a location or scene and aren’t generally noticed much because they’re usually everyday sounds and are used to add realism. Common examples include wind, water, birds, crowds and talking.

 

Music

 

 

A key element in the soundtrack of a film/tv series, music allows the audience to interpret the mood and genre through the often subconscious decoding of the style. It serves a large variety of purposes, from heightening the emotion and drama of a scene, building up and releasing tension and changing the emotional or physical status of a character, to smoothing out transitions, allowing a film to flow and the scenes to link together, and highlighting a certain theme or message.

The example we watched in class was ‘Hip to be Square’ scene from American Psycho, which perfectly highlighted how the contrast between the audio and visual aspects can make something more jarring and bring out a stronger reaction from the audience.

 

Dialogue

 

 

This is all of the words spoken by a character within a scene. It can be used to establish character and relationships, along with moving the plot and giving the audience information and back-story. Both the content and the delivery of the dialogue are important since they develop the narration and characterization in the film world.

For this element, we watched ‘Big Kahuna Burger’ from Pulp Fiction, where Samuel L. Jackson’s brilliant performance emphasised the power of presence, tone and delivery, which can make a seemingly pleasant conversation tense and intimidating.

 

Diegetic/Non-diegetic

 

 

There are two types of sound in film and tv. The first, diegetic, is in the story world and is everything the characters can hear or could hear. Things like dialogue, object sounds and music, can add to the realism and/or atmosphere. For example, a character might be walking in the snow, so they would be able to hear the crunch underfoot, and if they have headphones in, depending on what the director wants, we might be able to hear a muffled or super loud song. Ambience is a key part of this and can make a world more natural and easier to fall into.

Non-diegetic is every sound that does not originate from the world of the film, which characters are unable to hear and are purely intended for the audience. Examples include the film’s musical score, sound effects and any narration or voice over. These things can set a tone, add drama or comic relief, provide an element of surprise, reinforce an idea or key concept within the plot and manipulate emotions. All non-diegetic sound is added by sound editors in post-production and is a major aspect in influencing the audience and the overall experience of a movie or series.

There is also a third specific subtype of sound called internal diegetic, which is the sound within a character’s mind. None of the characters can hear it, so it is mostly used to express the characters thoughts or feelings to the audience.

 

Sound Effects

 

 

This is a recorded sound, other than speech or music, which is included in the soundtrack in order to enhance the narrative or make a creative statement. Sound effects and background noises are a key element in world-building and can be used to add realism, increase mystery, suspense, disorientation and a whole slew of other moods and emotional components.

 

Voice Over/Narration

 

 

This one is quite obvious, a sound device used to communicate something to the audience without every or any character(s) knowing, usually the voice of a specific character (they won’t be speaking the words on-screen) or a narrator that isn’t included in the world, which is done in third person and often provides background information on people or events. First-person narration, on the other hand, often done by a specific character, is usually done to reveal their thoughts. Both add to the plot development and can make or break a film depending on how they are used.

 

Pleonastic Sound

 

 

This refers to any exaggerated sound that is used to heighten the emotion or meaning in a scene. Directors sometimes use this sound to suggest an incoming threat, reinforce a character’s nature when they are present on-screen or emphasise the emotional impact of a specific action taking place.

 

– Task –

 

Horror is excellent for sound analysis in my opinion since it is an integral aspect to evoking the right emotions from the audience, particularly in regards to fear, which is a convention built into the backbone of the genre, so I decided to go for it even though I don’t personally watch a lot of horror films.

 

 

I have chosen to analyse a clip from ‘Don’t Breathe’ which is a 2016 American horror-thriller film that follows three thieves who try to rob a blind veteran who won a major cash settlement following the death of his only child, figuring him an easy target. They find themselves trapped inside a house with a murderous man who has heightened senses, the main one being sound, resulting in a film that relies on silence. In this particular scene, the man turns off the lights to render them blind and give himself the advantage.

The clip starts with tense music and running footsteps and when he turns off the light, the sound seems loud and ominous, deeper than just a simple light switch, as if it spells their doom. Because the screen goes black, we are put in the same situation as the characters, where we focus on every single little sound, since it is literally life or death if we don’t. We can only hear breathing, however, which starts the tension build that lasts for most of the scene. The fact that the music has stopped and we can only hear diegetic sounds makes the situation even more terrifying because it suggests that the characters have absolutely no outside help, and are completely cut off from the world.

Suddenly, we hear shots being fired and the aftermath of this, glass breaking, things falling, the characters scrambling about. It is shockingly loud after the tense breathing, and the unexpected sound and light emitted from the sparks is a massive jumpscare that effectively puts us in the same position as the characters. The non-diegetic sound returns through some tense, low music, that seems seamless with what is happening. It is hard to notice it because of the amplified diegetic sounds and we instead hear the ringing that happens after a gun is shot nearby. As the characters try to find each other, the frantic mood is translated through their inability to be silent. Each sound, the rattling of chains, knocking against wooden and clink of metal, makes the hairs of the audience stand on end because it is like an arrow pointing to their location. To remind us of this fact, and keep the tension up, the girl says “Alex” in an attempted hushed whisper, and the gunshot that follows is instantaneous, confirming our fears and ramping up the tension yet again.

It is more of the same afterwards; stressful, laboured breathing, whimpers of shock and fear and the ringing, which is like a constant hum in the audience’s ear as if the psychopath with the gun is in the very room that they are watching the film in. When he appears on-screen next, a sound that is quite different from the others jumps out at us, a chaotic piano key sound effect, similar to a warning sound. It juxtaposes with the frantic drumbeat in the background music, making us associate the danger with the blind man and spelling out a clear alert for the audience, which is ironic since the characters are the one’s who need this most. It is an age-old technique in horror – make the audience scared for the characters, concerned for their safety. As the man moves about, he feels his way through the paths, significantly faster than the two heroes, since he is used to not being able to see. The sounds that he makes are bizarre, thrilling and unsettling – seemingly normal things like the whirl of a pinwheel or knowing your hand against wood become a petrifying resonance that shows him getting closer and closer to his goal, like a predator rustling the grass or scratching a tree. And although these sounds are what makes the scene so scary to watch, at 1:00, when all of the sounds completely stops, we achieve a blood-curling silence that can only mean one thing – someone has made enough noise to spell their location. Everything seems to pause in the stillness, waiting, listening, and as the man melts into the shadows, disappearing altogether, we seem to beg, an audience desperate for sound in order to know what is happening, but at the same time, not daring to breathe…

 

  Silence is the most powerful scream   

– Anonymous