“We gestate in Sound and are born into sight. Cinema gestated in sight, and was born in sound.”
Michel Chion
Texts:
“Audio-Vision: Sound on Screen” – Michel Chion
“In the Blink of an Eye” – Walter Murch
“Sculpting in Time: Reflections on the cinema” – Tarkovski
“You were never really here” – Paul Davies interview.
You have more freedom with sound than you do with picture. There are, consequently, fewer rules. But the big three things—which are emotion, story, and rhythm—apply to sound just as much as they apply to picture. You are always primarily looking for something that will underline or emphasize or counterpoint the emotion that you want to elicit from the audience. You can do that through sound just as well as through editing, if not more so. Rhythm is obviously important; sound is a temporal medium. And then story. You choose sounds that help people to feel the story of what you’re doing.
Walter Murch- ‘In the Blink of an Eye’
In this class we spoke about how our brains prioritise image and sound can be more subliminal. ‘Music can tell you how to feel’ – this came up in Sam Auinger’s lecture when he was speaking about how tonality causes us to understand something more deeply or at least helps it to translate. We can be so easily manipulated by music into feeling emotions, in that sense it’s a very powerful thing that should be respected. In our Visiting Lecture Series last year, we spoke with a few sound designers and composers who spoke about collaboration between those departments and the importance of a balance, too much soundtrack dulls us to soundtracks powers, and too much over the top sound could take someone out of the picture. The perfect balance between these elements is what can create escapism.
Dynamics
Non Sync/ Sync – Godard
Diegetic / Non-Diegetic
Dialogue Sync
ADR. > STEMS > > SOUND DESIGN
Voiceover
Atmospheres
Sound FX
TONE
VOLUME
DYNAMICS
TEXTURE
SPATIAL PLACEMENT
We Need To Talk About Kevin
Listening without sound / With sound, a good excercise for thinking about your creative decisions.