Research: Sound - Mrs. Quinlan

Sound

What is sound and why is it important?

Sound is one of the most vital micro elements in a movie. It is what the audience can hear, it can be people talking, music and sound effects. Sound is used to create understanding for the audience and to create more meaning about the character and their emotions. As well as this it is used to create the appropriate response from the audience parallel with the scene. There are two types of sound which are diegetic sound and non-diegetic sound. Sound is extremely important as it can manipulate the way the audience react to a scene, if the audience were to watch a thriller film without sound they would have a completely different reaction.

Sound definitions and examples

There are two main types of sound that are used to define the others, diegetic and non-diegetic sound. In total there are six different sounds as well as diegetic and non diegetic, there is also on screen and off screen, parallel and contrapuntal sound. Diegetic sound is sound which is part of the film, such as dialogue, music from a radio or jukebox. Diegetic sound can either be on or off screen. Non diegetic sound is sound that is not part of the film, it is usually added on post-production, a soundtrack or voice over is an example of this. Characters in the film are not able to hear non-diegetic sound.

In this scene from Nightcrawler (2014), diegetic sound is part of the film world, the characters can hear it too. Diegetic sound is evident from the dialogue between the two characters in the car, as well as the roaring from the engine and later on, the horn from the other cars as they speed into oncoming traffic. This creates excitement for the audience and uncertainty as they have an idea of what speed the characters are going at, therefore not knowing when they'll end up.

This scene from American Psycho (2000), there is clear representation of non-diegetic sound, this is sound which is not part of the film world, such as the soundtrack, sound effects and voiceovers. There is a voiceover throughout the scene and there is also on-screen sound (the shower), which is when we can see where the sound is coming from. This makes the audience feel as if they can hear the man's thought or that they are directly talking to them, depending on how the audience perceive the dialogue they may believe that the character is crazy as they are talking to themselves so much.

Off screen sound is evident in this clip from Insidious (2011), off-screen sound is sound that you can hear but don't know where it is coming from. At 0:34 you can hear banging which the characters in the scene clearly aren't aware of what is causing it, this makes them curious and has the same effect as the audience as we don't know what is making the banging noise. This can create a suspenseful or scared reaction from the audience.

In this clip from The Departed (2006) there is a train passing over the bridge which is evident of parallel sound, this is sound that is expected. This makes the audience feel as if they are in the same environment as the characters, giving them a feel of the setting as they can hear all the sounds around. In this example the audience feel as if they are in the car with the characters.

This scene from Reservoir Dogs (1992) shows contrapuntal sound which is sound that is not expected from the scene. The scene shows a character dancing to quite an upbeat song while holding a blade and there is a dead body on the floor, as well as a tied up man who is bleeding. This can give the audience a confused reaction as well as associating the dancing character with madness as he seems to be happy during a distressing scene.

Scene analysis

This is a scene from The Dark Knight Rises (2012) which contains a lot of different types of sound. From the start of the scene we can observe on-screen sound which is coming from the police siren as the engine in roaring and the car is moving at a high speed. This creates excitement for the audience as the sound is loud and fast paced. Also at 1:35 to 1:38 there is an example of diegetic sound from the police radio, we are able to hear the radio but not see it. This gives the audience the feeling they are in the car with the characters as they can hear the sound they cannot see. At 3:10 there is an explosion from the gun that Batman uses which is an example of parallel sound, we can observe the explosion and the reactions it causes therefore it is also on screen sound.

Conclusion

To conclude, I have decided to use off screen and on screen sound, due to the varied audience reactions it will give me, off screen and non diegetic sound can provide a lot of suspense when something is happening, for example banging noises which confuse the characters and by extension, the audience. In addition to this I will use parallel sound to create the atmosphere for the viewers and there will be minimal use of contrapuntal sound for a tense reaction.