Sound/Experimental Film

Sync of senses

making a single rhythm or expressive quality bind together image and sound

Loudness

amplitude, breadth of the vibrations produce our sense of loudness/volume

Pitch

frequency of sound vibrations

Timbre

harmonic components of sound give it certain color/tone quality

Three types of sound

Speech, music, and noise

Recording

dialogue is recorded during filming

Reworking sound

the creation of the film’s soundtrack resembles the editing or the image track

Sound effects

important, dry recording

Sound mixing

mixing or combining particular sounds

layers and contrasts

mixer can control the volume, duration, and tone quality

dramatic sound stream

sounds can create a stream of information

sound perspective

closer to a camera source the louder

sound and film form

engaging patterns that run through the whole film

sound space

sound has spatial dimension because it comes from a source

diegetic sound

sound that has a source in the story world

nondiegetic sound

sound source from the outside world

external diegetic sound

sound has a physical source

internal diegetic sound

inside the mind of the character (SUBJECTIVE)

Synchronous sound

hear the sound the same time the lips move

asynchronous sound

out of sync, glitch, mistake

simultaneous sound

sound at the same time as the image

non-simultaneous sound

manipulation of story order on the sound track

sonic flashback

sound earlier in the story than image

sound bridge

transitions by setting up expectations that are quickly confirmed (sound later in story than image), sound from a previous scene lingers over the new one

sound match

graphic match with a flashback sound

Point of audition sound (listening)

places us in the body of the character, how the person perceives sound, borrowed someone’s “ears”, sound identified by its physical characteristic as it might be heard by a character within the film

Films that are hard to classify

experimental/avant-garde films

abstract form

organizing an entire film around colors, shapes, sizes, and movements in the images

Ballet Mecanique

film style (crucial role, stress the geometric qualities or ordinary things (close framing, masks, unusual camera angles, neutral backdrops)

associational form

suggest ideas and emotions to the viewer by assembling images and sound that may not have any logical connections