Wednesday, June 24, 2009

Role of Sound in Films

Let's do a fast wrap on the role of sound in film:

1. It can play a narrative or direct storytelling role.

2. Or a Subliminal narrative role, inviting our willing suspension of disbelief.

3. It can be manipulated to produce emotional involvement in the material--Hitchcock, for example, was a master of manipulating sound to tell his tales in the most compelling way possible.

4. The function of music in a movie is to tell the audience how to feel from moment to moment....there is a set of unwritten emotional sound equations, where, for example, low frequencies represent a threat etc.

5. Think about the shark in Jaws, introduced by four low notes, implying this sense of foreboding or doom...if you take a perfectly pleasant sunny scene and punctuate it with distant thunderclaps, you're sending a very clear message to the audience.