Preliminary Exercise 14: Defining and Analyzing Sound in Film

Intro: Sound in film is basically everything one hears in a movie. It can be voices, footsteps, or even wind among other things. It's important because one of the reasons we watch movies is feel like we're in the movie, to be immersed into the action. Without sound though this is impossible. In this assignment and the next my team and I will prove this and give a good breakdown of sound in film.

Section A:  Definitions and Examples 

Score: ______/60 marks
Word	Meaning and example from a specific movie. (Add details
Diegetic Sound	Sounds that the character and audience can hear, for example footsteps.
Non diegetic Sound	Sounds that only the audience can hear, for example narration.
Source music	The written form of musical composition, usually for an orchestra.
On screen Sound	Sounds that can be represented visually, for example and instrument.
Off Screen	Music that can’t be represented visually, for example a bird singing in the background.
Underscore	A soft theme that accompanies an action in a performance.
Internal diegetic Sound	Sounds that only 1 character can hear in their head, usually internal dialogue.
Background Sound	Sounds only found in a single location or scene, like traffic noise in a city
Foley Artist	Someone who creates foley sounds
Foley Sound Effects	Sounds created by Foley artists during post-production to enhance the audio quality of the film. Like bones breaking are created using celery.
Sound motif	A sound effect that associated with a common type of movie, for example gunshots create sounds associated with something like an action movie.
Monologue	A lengthy speech given by a character to explain the plot or a characters goals. For example in the movie Rocky when he delivers a monologue to inspire his son.
Sound Bridge	An editing technique that transitions through scenes using music, for example in “The Matrix” when Neo wakes up from hearing his alarm clock in the previous scene.
Sound Design	The art of creating soundtracks and sound effects for movies, for example Ben Burtt.
Sound Perspective	The distance between the audience and music, for example the difference between muffled and normal music.
Sound Mixing	The volume of the music in contrast with the other sound effects, it can be really noticeable if it’s bad.
Stings	The vibrating element of string instruments, for example a violin or guitar.
Melodic Sound	Anything sweet sounding, for example birds chirping.
Discordant Sound	Music that is used to make an audience uneasy, like in the movie “Good Morning” they played “What A Wonderful World” over images of war-torn Saigon.
Contrapuntal Sound	2 or more songs that are played at the same time, for example if 2 bands are playing music at the same exact time.
Room tone	“Silence” that is recorded at a location when there's no dialogue being spoken.
Walla Sound	Vocal sounds from background characters while actors with speaking roles deliver their lines. This can be seen in most films that take place in a high school.
Synchronous Sound	Audio that lines up with what's happening on screen, like punching sounds during a fight scene
Asynchronous Sound	Audio that does not match up with the visuals, for example if someone is walking down a hallway and you hear their footsteps as dogs bark.
Direct Sound	Sounds that travel directly from a source, for example a microphone.
Parallel Sound	Sounds that complement the mood, tone, or atmosphere of a scene, for example wind blowing before an epic samurai duel.
Loudness	Loud sounds, for example Godzilla’s roar.
Silence	The lack of sound, for example an empty field would have a lack of sound.
Crescendo	The loudest point in a gradually increasing sound, for example an alarm can do this.
Rhythm	A strong regular pattern of movement, movies can have this and it’s basically how it flows along.

 

 

 

Section B: Analysis 1: General analysis of film opening.  (28 marks) 

Opening of “The Giver”
What is the film about?	“The Giver” is about a boy who lives in a colorless world
Production Company/companies	As Is Productions, Walden Media, Tonik
Director	Director: Phillip Noyce	Sound Engineer (s)	Marco Beltrami
Genre (s)	Science fiction	Movie release	August 15, 2014
Audience (s)	Young Adult interested in Sci-FI
Original music titles from the soundtrack. (Only from the opening.)	Main titles by Marco Beltrami
Music  (List 3 words used to describe this music)	Dramatic, intriguing, suspensful
Sound Effects  (List 8 effects)	Bike, children playing, medication. Background, bike dinging, drone flying, wind in the air, Monologue
Dialogue  (List the most important line in the film’s opening and why? 3 sentences to describe information.	Non-diegetic Line: “we live in a world where differences aren't aloud”
	Explanation: This piece of dialogue sets up the world that the story is progressing in. It shows Us why this world looks far more different than ours and what we should be expecting.

 

Section C: Analysis 2: (25 marks) 

Using the table below place the sounds in this film into their correct sound source categories. Using the vocabulary box label each type of sound using the examples provided. 

Examples 

Dialogue: monologue, direct sound. 

Sound Effect: Thunder: Ambient sound, foley sound, loud, asynchronous. 

                         Alarm Clock: Ambient sound, foley sound, loud, synchronous. 

Music: Headphones playing “Three Little Birds” by Bob Marley, incidental music, foley sound, crescendo, asynchronous. 

Diegetic Sounds (Dialogue, Music and Sound Effects the audience and characters can hear.)	Non-diegetic Sounds  ( voiceover, sound effects and music)
Monologue at the start direct sound  Walla Sound of the children playing  Sound effect of the morning medication foley sound  Dialogue of the teens riding bikes direct sound  Ring of the bicycle ambient sound  The sound effects of the drone going by loud sound	Underscore for the movie that plays behind the monologue ambient sound  The Movies score intensifying with the monologue as it ends loud sound

 

 Reflection: In this assignment, we defined sound and used an example from the movie, "The Giver" which wouldn't be very good if it was quiet. We defined terms about sound in film too, which you can read to get a feel of what we are talking about when we say sound is important. Sound in general is an important aspect of film that gets overshadowed by talks about the visuals. But the visuals have no meaning without sound. Without sound in film, movies would truly just be "motion pictures."