What is it With Blonde Movies Lately?

This week’s comedy theme is clearly Blondes. First there was Blonde and Blonder and now we have Blonde Ambition. Come to think of it I think I saw at least 5 different new films with the word Blonde in the title when I was picking out this weeks rentals, it's the latest fad I guess. Anyway I figured that any film with Luke Wilson is a good bet for comedy, in this case, a guarantee and that to the one catastrophe after another approach it was absolutely hilarious.

Unfortunately there wasn’t much that was unique as far as sound goes. There was at least one example of Mickey mousing in the scene with the kid’s birthday party disaster when the fireworks that fall out of the piniata are set off, but other than that it’s just a normal comedy. Most of the pit music was added in and synced. There were quite a few good examples of punctuation, especially with the toilet exploding, but the best was the on screen sound when the group of Norwegian priests were at the bar singing karaoke to Baby Got Back. I laughed so hard I almost cried.

Other than that, most of the sound heard was related to the location, it took place in New York, so you heard the normal associated sounds, taxi cabs, car horns, construction, elevator bells in the business scenes etc. Not really all that original, but synced to fit. Aside from its apparent lack of audio originality, it was a fairly good film comically.

A new twist on Dumb and Dumber

I found the greatest example of Mickey mousing this week. In a brief attempt to relax during finals week I rented a few movies. Against my better judgment I picked up the new film Blonde and Blonder and found that while it was extreme corny it was also absolutely hilarious and it was a great example of Mickey mousing.

It wasn’t really special sound effects that worked this way, although there were a few times that followed this usual example, but the musical accompaniment itself. Most of the pit music was made up of empathetic Broadway style motives and songs that worked to punctuate certain scenes and events and make the film absolutely ridiculous. To top that off, the film makers saw fit to decide that they even needed to add verbal punctuation in to the scenes to send it over the top.

I don’t think that there was any music specifically composed for this film, but instead certain motives were added from older comedies that through semantic listening were easily recognizable and extremely noticeable. These specific motives were highly effective combined with the verbal and filmed punctuation within the scenes and made for what I’ve labeled stupid comedy which rates right next to Austin Powers, but with a few less lewd jokes. I’ll just leave it at I was pleasantly surprised with the comical aspect of this film.

Mute Math

I was just thinking about some cool music videos and the video "Typical" by a band called Mute Math came to mind. Its a pretty good song in my opinion, i havnt listened to much of their other music, but they seem legit. The video is real freakin cool though. The entire video seems like its running in real time, forward. But its actually a recording being played in reverse. Its not a completely original idea, but i think they pulled it off real well. Its almost obvious the entire time that you are watching a reversed recording, but the music and lyrics seem to synch up fairly well the entire time. For instance, there is a short section in which the lead singer has massive ammounts of paint flying off of his body (reversing the process of splattering it on) however, he is singing right into the camera and his vocals seem to match the forward playing music track, for the most part. Okay, i tried posting links to this video as well as a bunch of others, but it didnt really work out. But you can find the video "typical" on youtube fairly easily. Also, if you havnt seen it, look up "Parabola" by TooL.

Reflection of this Class (before completion of paper)

I remember early on posting an item about how this class could possibly change our perception of movies and the cinema in general, whether it was for the good or the bad.  I'm not sure if it was assigned or a free blog, but I thought I would address the aftermath of my own experience in the class being someone who usually gets pretty burnt out on analysis when it comes to things that I regularly enjoy.

Firstly.  I notice that among some of my peers- analysis is really fun.  Some others... pure hell. I am somewhat in the middle- being that I like analysis of things I like for a very short portion of time (for the most part- some things being excepted from this list).  

So what do I think about picking apart movies...  I think I have survived.  Although I was heavily skeptical when it came to subscribing to some of the ideas put out by the class and by Chion's book and take on analysis, I feel that I actually can enjoy cinema more after taking the class.  The only unfortunate part is that you are able to find where a movie has a hole.  Something that would make a normal movie great, for instance, I began to realize that some movies are still just normal movies although they had the chance to be something more.  This, coming from a non-movie-critic.  So I am definitely not the first choice in saying whether or not a movie *has it* or not.

But in the mean time, if others are taking a look at this class' blog from another class hoping to decide whether or not this class will be enlightening or not- it is.  

This class has not ruined movie watching for me.

Carson Daly Killed Music Video

No truer a statement could be made.

Ok, well maybe he didn't kill them.  He just had a large part in selling it's soul to corporate MTV with the 'top 10' of the week or day or whichever.  Honestly I don't remember when they stopped showing music videos since I despised the reality TV that pre and posted the show.

Where did the days of Beavis and Butthead go?  They were true troopers and protagonists when it came to deciding what music videos were good.

Ha.  No, but really, those days of televised music videos were the best.  And those cartoon two knew it too.  No matter how bad they made fun of Michael Stipe.  The video was sort of weird anyway.

////

In the way that some cinema is televised radio programs- I think that the music video is in a different way- televised music.  They are both related to televised radio, but they each serve a different function.

One is to give a story to the audience- mapped and plotted out to a more semantic degree, and another to a musical degree (causal and reduced listening [depending on the listener and music])- respectively.

Two Thousand Won. 8)

It really is too bad that there isn't really a large monolith deposited in the moon, or that we aren't currently riding personal spacecraft to the moon and back to play golf.  I mean- who doesn't want to go play golf by a screaming monolith where there is 20 some percent of normal gravity there to slow the ball down once you've hit it.  Tiger Woods be afraid.  We are on the moon destroying your long shots.

But more to the point.  The Ligety piece that was placed in the moon scene was probably my favorite.  I could not imagine someone trying to mimic that piece and come anywhere close to the affect that it gives the scene.  I really would like to see the score for the piece, but I think in respect to the movie, the score really isn't all too important- UNLESS- it was performed again for the movie (not just the pre-recording that was available to Kubrick during the direction.)

I also like that it is not necessarily diagetic or non-diagetic since we don't know the exact auditory reference from which it is coming from.  Although we could postulate that since there is no atmosphere that there is no sound- thus non-diagetic.  BUT- if it happened to be some other wavelike force propagating from the monolith- then it could perhaps be diagetic since the high frequency squeal affects the people nearby and there is still no atmosphere to allow 'sound' to occur.  Very interesting.  So in this case- the sound is traveling perhaps by some other medium- electromagnetic waves or some other form of radiation.  Perhaps by dark matter or some other not-yet-discovered force.

Music Videos

Since I cancelled my cable because one, there's really nothing good on and two, I don't really watch a lot of TV and spend much more time surfing the net, I have to admit I haven't really watched a lot of music videos lately. In fact, the closest I've really ever came to thoroughly watch music videos is CMT and the last time I watched anything on that station was, well I can't really remember.

I thought that the few videos we watched the other day were fairly interesting. I still don't truly understand the thought process behind a video for techno music, but I have seen stranger things. I've seen the one with the guitar and red and white drum set before, I just can't remember where.

To be honest, I've never really got into music videos. I've always felt that music should be able to send a message to the listener and that message should be clear without needing any outside support. Which, quite frankly, most music videos fail to do anyway, they rarely as a whole are vital to, or strongly support the over all theme within a song. As a matter of fact, I'd even go so far to say that there are videos I've seen that I think ruined my experience of songs in the past, hence my less than stellar enthusiasm toward them. And I think it is mostly to do with the fact that when I hear a song, my mind paints this picture for me of what is generally happening in the piece and then when I watch a music video that has nothing to do with the lyrics I heard or doesn't fit the feel of the music at all. It just leaves me with a feeling like something vital is missing and it doesn't feel quite right. I don't know, maybe I expect to much from what I watch or maybe I just tend to look for different things when I watch TV in general.

Chemical Brothers

so pretty much all of the Chemical Brothers videos i've seen are very synched up with the music. but for all intensive purposes i will only be talking about one of them. this video is "Believe". if you haven't seen this film, first i suggest you look it up on youtube and second it is about a man in a car factory that starts noticing the welding machines noticing him. he later sees thes machines in the streets outside of his job. the machines work very well with the song because one of the elements of the song is a pnuematic wrench type sound that accompanies the movement of the machines very well. there is also a beat in the song which goes along with the steps of the machine and renders the machine with quite a large mass since it is a deep bass sound for when the main body of the machine hits the ground. there are also some great uses of the action on screen being punctuated by some aspect of the music. a couple of examples of this are when the cymbal crash comes into the song at different points throughtout the song. the first time this happens the machine crashes through the mans bathroom window. so the cymbal crash is made into a sound effect for the breaking glass. another time when the cymbal crash comes in is when the maching is chasing the man on a bus and its crashed into by another bus going the other way. this is what makes Chemical Brothers videos so entertianing to watch because quite a lot of time the music lines up with some visual element on screen and this makes things seem to work together in a way that makes the video not just some visual elements with a song in the background. it gives life to the video by giving it sound effects that dont have to be added becaus they are simply part of the song.

The Sound Design of Wall-E

LINK
http://www.collider.com/entertainment/interviews/article.asp/aid/9762/tcid/1

While idly browsing the internet I stumbled upon an article about the sound design of the movie Wall-E. (The site is linked above.) The most interesting part of the article by far is the four embedded videos in which sound designer Ben Burtt discusses his process in creating the sound of a film. Not only that but he gives a small live demonstration of how he created these unique sounds. These are great videos and I would definitely recommend watching them all the way through but I want to discuss two things he mentions that I did not realize before.

The first thing that Mr. Burtt discusses is the fact that Wall-E is a film with no production sound. That is to say that it is a film without any sound captured during a normal filming process. While this is rather obvious due to the nature of animated films, it really sunk in for me. Mr. Burtt, as the sound designer, had to create every sound of the screen. Every single sound whether primary, secondary, or EAS was added during post production. That is a pretty mindblowing task especially when you consider that Mr. Burtt created over 2500 unique sounds for the film.

The second, and last thing, I did not really think about when viewing the film is how Mr. Burtt created a distinct defining auditory line between new technology and old technology in the film. He discusses how used sounds to that we associate with something high tech or sounds that we might consider low tech. This is a great example of added value that was used throughout the entire movie.

Well, I don’t want to ramble on too long and I think the videos speak for themselves well enough so check them out in the link.

Music Videos - The Visual Marketing of Sound

It is interesting that we are analyzing music videos based on their content. People often talk about their story telling qualities giving added value to the music or they talk about whether a music video “fits” its music. Like Dr Twombly stated, this is an interesting case in which the visual aspects of a piece of cinema give added value to the audio and not the other way around. Yet, this is not as shock as after all, music video as created for the music.

I also find the discussion of music videos interesting because, in the end, academic analysis is being applied to a promotional or marketing tool. It brings up the questions of the value of analyzing such a thing. Is there even a value worth being analyzed in these music videos? Obviously, there is something to be gained by analyzing music videos. They allow us greater insight into a song’s meaning or intent when a musical work is given a visual element. They allow us to redefine the intent or meaning of a song if need be. Finally, they add a new tactile dimension by adding visual elements to a piece that was originally aural.

But where does one draw the line? If music videos are acceptable for academic analysis, are television commercials fair game? Is it possible to seriously analyze the value of a Rogaine commercial? I do not have the answers because I do not think there are any absolute answers to these questions.

...ahh to be a kid again!

so don't ask why but, over the weekend i went to the movie Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa with a friend and was amazed at how much adult material was actually in the film. now when i say adult material i don't mean nudity, swearing or violence like you would typically think but adult related humor that the general child audience would not get. i always knew that children movies contained adult jokes but i was amazed at how much material from this movie was directed to the adult audience that accompanies the small children.

first of all there were a number of stereotypical racial references throughout the movie. one of such was a presumably Jewish character that was on one of the safari's that everytime she was portrayed on screen was accompanied by traditional Jewish accordion type music. this same character also had the stereotypical New York Jewish accent.

another time in the film that this racial stereotypes comes up is when the zebra played by Chris Tucker is in Africa and is hanging out with the other zebras and one of the other main characters tells him that he can't tell the difference between him and all the rest of the zebras that also happen to look exactly like the Chris Tucker zebra and they also all have Chris Tuckers voice.

the other thing that surprised me about the film was the references to other films throughout the movie. one seen in particular where this happens is a scene in which the animals are in an airplane trying to fly back to new york and there are a bunch of penguins in the cockpit and all the jokes in this part are Airplane! related jokes that no one under the age of 15 would probably get.

it was interesting to go to a childrens movie and see what kids think is funny because it has been some time since i was a kid and i had kinda forgotten what was funny as a kid. i discovered that most of the small children in the theater weren't laughing at the jokes and the dialogue of the film but at the funny sound effects that would accompany the action of the characters on screen and the goofy behavior of the characters. alot of the younger children were also very susceptable to the empathetic music of the film. some of the children would get kind of upset when loud dramatic buiding music was being played.

overall it was a very interesting experience to go to a kids movie; since i havent seen one in quite a long time, to see how movie makers are aiming their humor at multiple audiences and not just the kids that are the primary target of their film.

2001

I thought this movie was fantastic. In fact, I have been itching to get a copy for myself so that I could watch it all the way through and without jumping around. I may sound like a gushing, over-hyped loser but this is the kind of film that is a cinematic masterpiece to me.

It seemed to me, this only being my first viewing of the film, that there almost seemed to be two things grabbing for your attention on the screen at once. I would argue as the viewer your attention is split between the audio and visual track. It would be easy to think the opposite is true. The argument could be made that because of the minimalism in the audio and visual track, it would be hard to focus your attention. But it is because of that minimalism, that the two tracks demand your attention.

You cannot help but feel a great amount of suspense in the minimalism. As a member of the audience, I feel that you are straining your attention in the hopes of not missing any sudden change in the audio or visual elements. In a sense, you feel like you are watching two movies at once, one audio movie and one visual. It is not often that I find myself so drawn into a movie that my mind does not wander but 2001 accomplished that and more. I think this will be the first time that I will purchase a DVD without seeing a movie in its entirety.

I don't want to set the world on fire. I just want to set a flame in your heart.

An interesting development in video games has been the creation of radio stations in games. As far to my knowledge, this phenomenon only occurs in sandbox video games like Fallout 3, Grand Theft Auto IV, etc. These in game radio stations offer music, in game commentary and humor as a way to immerse the gamer into the environment of the video game. These radio stations have unique DJs and dialogue beyond unique music so that one feels that they really are in a world with different varying characters.

Now this development is different from being able to import your music in to a playlist that plays in game. The importing playlists occurs mainly in sports games and does not really add to the gaming environment. The music tends to play over menus and is rarely if ever used during actual game play.

Another interesting aspect to me of in game radio stations is that by giving the player a radio station, video game developers have in fact given the player another choice. It allows you to select something that fits your character or playing style yet is obviously onscreen music. In essence, it is something that your character is supposed to hear.

Finally, it is interesting to me that these in game radio stations exist at all. I mean it requires not only acquiring the rights to play the music but also the creation of more dialogue and more programming scripting to make the radio seem real. In game radio stations are, in fact, quite the creative undertaking. However, they serve to interest us as players and make our virtual realities seem that much closer to home.

PS – Have some free Tom Cruise dancing. Trust me, it’s funny.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cO3BaKEn7TE

predator and sound distraction

so i was watching Predator the other day and there was a sound in the film which really distracted me. it was the sound they used for punching. i'm sure that you all have heard it before. THE BULL WHIP. but this ones was particularly distracting because it sounded nothing like a punch and made it seem really cheesy. not to mention arnold's incredibly horrible acting skills. this alone turned this film from an action adventure to a comedy in a number of seconds. i guess this is a great example of how something as small as a sound of a punch can ruin a film.

this may also be because since i've been this class i notice these things so much more. along with listening to the films semanticly i have started using reduced listening without even thinking about it. this has come as a gift and a curse. i now notice things that i wouldn't normally and this adds to the experience of a film or tv show but it has also made me notice things that distract me from the experience. either way my movie viewing experience will be forever changed.

2001: A sound odyssey

As far as sound goes 2001 presented the sounds of space very realistically. while a good percentage of the time that sound was little more than the sound of silence. i felt that this was more effective in giving the audience a real sense of what space is really like, instead of getting explosions and laser beams bewww bewwwing through the screen. they also used a lot of sounds that most movies would tend to cut out of their soundtrack. like the sound of breathing and the sound of the oxygen tanks in the space suits. while many mainstream movies try to be thrilling and entertaining, they tend to try to cut out any sounds that may annoy the audience and take their attention away from the plot of the film. 2001 on the other had goes completely the opposite way and made things real and believable, while also making an entertaining film. while at times in the film this lack of sound can become, well boring for lack of a better term. but this is the cold reality of space. its not all glits and glamour that hollywood makes it out to be. but why not make something to be as realistic as possible. i guess that america just doesnt have the patients that they used to.

Use of Sound

I’ve always thought of a movie soundtrack containing sound that is usually diagetic in nature. I never really thought of a lack of sound acting in the same way, but in 2001: A Space Odyssey the lack of sound acts in exactly that way. There is no sound in space and so for most of the very long film there is no sound and so everything being correct this should complete the audio/visual contract. I’m not entirely sure it does. I find it disturbing to hear nothing but absolute silence.

Quite often I tell my family member’s that one of the reasons I love deer hunting so much is the hours of silence and tranquility that allow me to relax and think. But even in a dark tree stand at 5am there is always some sort of subtle noise present. So I guess that’s just one of the things about Stanley Kubrick’s sound design that bothers me, granted, I think that that unsettled felling is probably what he was going for, but it seemed a little out of place especially in scenes where the astronauts were all relaxing on the ship. At the very least I expected to hear more sounds that were related to the operation of the ship, but aside from the hibernation monitor beeping, be got nothing. It seemed to me like a very unique use of sound, but not nearly unique enough for me to torture myself with watching 3 hours of silent film, sorry, my attention span is much to short.

http://www.windworld.com/

I found this website recently, its pretty awesome.

The site has a whole bunch of information about experimental musical instruments, pictures and sound clips. One of my favorite instruments is Richard Water's Waterphone which uses a thin layer of water at the metallic base of the large instrument to subtly modulate the tones of connected brass rods which are played with a bow. My absolute favorite, however, would have to be "The Tree" by Nazim Ozel. This instrument is an actual tree, with very many branches, which has been meticulously rigged with hundreds of strings in every direction. The 800 or so strings encompass fixed tonal scales, microtonal scales, primitive and naive scales. Nazim's aim is to create a instrument which has a massive variety of sounds which can be played with many different techniques, such as bowing, striking, and plucking. The Tree is meant for what he calls "Free tonal" music. The massive size of the instrument creates an excellent interactive sound environment that can actually surround the player physically and that's just fantastic. Not to mention, the instrument is a Tree and i love trees very much. Nazim Ozel picked an especially beautiful tree as well. I would like to purchase one of these "Trees" but sadly they are not for sale, understandably. I couldn't afford it anyway. There are a few instruments on there that you can buy though, there are also instrument parts and information on creating your own instruments. So check it out!

2001

I have seen very many "space movies", and not a single one can compare to 2001: A Space Odyssey. I can definitely understand why it's one of the most parodied and satirized movies of all time. I was just watching a Futurama dvd the other night, an episode in which they parodied the psychedelic "Star gate" sequence from 2001. At the time 2001 was created, the type of visual effect used to create the "Star gate" (trippy wormhole thing) had never been used in such a way before. A man named Douglas Trumbull created a revolutionary camera design which used "slit scan" photography. Modern films would likely use computers to achieve such an effect, but Trumbull used a a strictly mechanical technique. I am still not sure exactly how Trumbull used slit scan to do it. All I know is that it has something to do with simultaneously moving a camera and a slide with a slit cut in it to create the effect of infinitely moving planes of light. I was reading that Trumbull had suggested to Kubrick that he should kill all of the astronauts but one and then send him alone through the star gate with the monolith watching over him. Apparently Kubrick told Trumbull that he was "ridiculously stupid" and disregarded the idea. However, the movie ended just how Trumbull had suggested, more or less. I'm not sure if all this is true, but if it is, I'm sure Kubrick must have apologized. All of the special effects in 2001 were done without the benefits of computers and the effects achieved are very impressive, especially the slit scan star gate sequence which no movie goer had ever seen the likes of before. Minds were blown.

Preparation

I had been holding out on things to write for a few of my 'choice' blogs.  And with little to no topics taking priority over my recital, I figure I would spout something about it.

November 19th, Wednesday - 6pm.  Recital Hall.  Be there.

So as I had no idea what to expect while trying to organize a composition/new media recital, my last month has been very trying.  Also, you have to consider that half of the performances don't include players, so for the traditional comp students:  I take my proverbial hat off to you.

Some of the biggest struggles are due to writing a piece the semester of a performance.  I am not exactly the fastest composer, and would still probably not take any pride in saying that I composed a piece in a day (lie) but the piece I wrote for this semester was especially challenging.  As of this day- I have no idea how it sounds except for what I think it should sound like in my head.  This would be the first piece that I wrote out completely on paper before inputting it into a notation program.  Even once it was there, there were some technical issues with notating vs. accurate playback.  You can really only achieve one of them to satisfaction with only a small window of time with instruments such as percussion.  Or at least from my experience.  If you have a good idea on fixing this- feel free to let me know.

Another challenge is organizing performers.  At this stage in the 'game' it is difficult to find student performers that have enough time, and also- that all of them have the same time open once they do have enough time.  It hurts my brain to think about.  But as the scenario pans out, things usually fall into place.  And if not- we're musicians- We'll improvise.

So.  Just needed to vent if anything.  It should be a fun show.  Full of varying things to listen to.

FALLOUT 3

I have been playing the game Fallout 3... a lot

Fallout 3 is a role playing game based in a post nuclear apocalypse wasteland and its pretty much, awesome. So play it if you can.

The focus of this blog is the amazing sound experience this game offers. The game is filled with thousands of individual objects which each have their very own sounds. If you bump into a shopping cart, it makes the sound of a shopping cart, its great. What’s most interesting to me however, is the way in which the game allows you to interact with these sounds. You are able to use a video game controller to navigate a three dimensional (virtual) space filled with potential sound. Ill have to go back to the shopping cart for this because its one of the coolest sounds. If you see an object, like the shopping cart, you can choose to approach it and interact with. If you push it over, you can experience the shopping cart interacting with the virtual environment. If any part of the cart hits the ground, or a person etc, then the corresponding sound (shopping cart rattle) is heard. You can see what looks just like a shopping cart crash to the ground and in perfect synchresis, hear exactly what you would expect a shopping cart crashing to the ground would sound like. It seems very real. What’s even cooler though, is that you can also interact with specialization. If the cart falls to the right of you, you will hear it panned to the right speakers, it’s all very well done and very smooth.
While playing around with these sounds i discovered a very interesting effect. Imagine you are playing the game and there is another character standing in front of you, talking. The sound of them talking is panned to direct center. Now you walk towards them and the sound of their voice gets louder, you sneak around them to the right and you can now hear them at their loudest from the left speaker. Now you continue walking forward, their voice is getting softer and panning back to center. In this scenario the illusion can be created that the sound is now actually coming from behind you, even if you don't have surround sound and it is most definitely still coming from your tv. In fallout 3, you hear what your character should hear. When you see the visual source of the audio move behind your character and the audio is done properly, your brain may actually interpret the sound as coming from behind you, its very cool.
Also, the game accounts for different acoustic environments. For instance, if a sound is made within the hull of an old abandoned aircraft carrier, a very sweet reverb effect is added, but if the same sound is made outside, you will hear little or no reverb at all.

A Musing or May be a Rant

It is not often that a lack of synchresis bothers me. In fact, there are certain films that I might enjoy all the more because of it. At least for me, this increases my enjoyment of old western films and old kung fu movies. The lack of a solid audiovisual contract becomes a unique aspect onto the reality of the film. Dare I say that this lack of synchresis almost becomes natural in these films?
But this is a double edged sword, as I have learned. I find that, as a viewer or member of an audience, I hold complete disdain for this when it occurs outside those film genres. I have a hard time watching late 70s and early 80s action films. The lack of any synchronization in punches or gunshots or even dialogue sticks out like a sore thumb to me.
I even believe that at certain points or in certain films, it seems like this lack of synchronization is on purpose. As if the sound designer were trying to capture or create that unique aspect of reality in other films and splice it onto his own film. Personally, I think it is arrogant to try and foolish to believe it is a good idea.
May be I do not know what I am talking about. May be I am assuming a lot of sound designers who have limited funds, technology, and time. But still it’s hard to watch something like Magnum Force and believe sound designers were still struggling with the same woes that they had nearly a decade previous.

Some Sound Cliches.

I was looking the list of sound cliches over at filmsound.org. While it is an impressive list I would like to add a few things I’ve noticed on my own to it.

• Immigrants will inevitably speak with a stereotypical accent regardless of how long they have lived in the United States. (It’s true we all have an accent of some kind because of our regionally differences but, if you live somewhere else, you will pick up the local accent whether you want to or not.)
• Footsteps always echo in stairwells.
• Any machine that has an electrical power source will hum.
• Any machine that has a mechanical or old look will click.
• People always drive cars with big intakes so they roar when accelerating.
• Every person outside the United States only listens to local ethnic music.
• Any ship will have the sound of metal groaning regardless of how good in repair the ship is.
• Film projectors always hum and click on start up.
• Every beach has seagulls squawking.
• A gun shot will either be too loud or too quiet depending on what the plot requires.
• When closing a car door you will always hear the latching mechanism click in place.
• Any troops that are marching will be heard when watched through a looking glass.
• All broken bones are set with a loud cracking sound.
• All tissues that a character regrows or reattaches will have a squishy sound.
• Smart dogs always respond to something said.
• Cats always hiss at dogs. Dogs always bark at cats.
• Every arrow shot will whistle through the air.
• Every time a coin is dropped it makes the same sound regardless of size, shape, or metallurgy.
• Any satellite dish must rotate and make the sound of Morse Code.
• Faucets always drip.
• Morgan Freeman will narrate every movie he is in from The Shawshank Redemption until his last film.

Subtitles

Something that I may never get used to on the first try is subtitles.

A little bit ago I watched Ringu at the Pioneer Place on 5th.  The screen was a tidbit too far away for me to get a good quality 'look' at it, but the sound supported what needed to be heard:

Japanese.

So, to my joy, I had to get used to reading subtitles while watching for interesting phenomena during the show.  If I had a choice to do it again with a little more preparation, I would have watched a different subtitled film beforehand to learn to listen to rather than read the screen.  So it was after a few major moments in the film that I began to really home in on what was important.

I couldn't get past recollecting the American film 'The Ring' the entire time and was making comparisons as I went, but over all each film holds the plot up very well.  I couldn't choose between the two if I was forced.  I would probably side on Ringu's side if I knew a lick of Japanese, but alas, I don't.  That will be next summer.  Right...

Moving on.

So what piqued my interest in this film?  Aside from differences in the plot due to differences in direction and cultural differences (this wasn't quite a mainstream Hollywood type film) there were sonic differences that were popping up all over the place and throughout.  The soundtrack was the most noticeable.  During the driving scenes I kept wanting to hear the edgy strings being nervously bowed while the driver knew she was going to die if she didn't figure out the mystery.  But instead, there was something else.  The comparison is hard to avoid at the moment.

There were also a few points where the sound of 'the death' or 'the 'remembrance of death' (i.e. the closet scene) where the sound didn't react as I thought it would.  Instead of being a quick shot of the deceased it was a somewhat drawn out moment where the sound was drawn out with the visuals in synch (and somewhat held after the fact).  This was much more eerie if I could be subjective about it.  Not only was there the initial shock, but also this sense of heaviness to the situation.  It wasn't as gimmicky as "The Ring" since it wasn't just this gunshot to the chest of an unfortunate event.  It was sitting there in front of you for a few seconds.

Frightening.

ringu

After a long search for Ringu i finally found it at the library, since none of the stores in town seemed to have it. Along with the sound included in the film they also used a lot of silence throughout the film. I think their use of silence in the film was a very effective use of suspense, because you never knew when something loud and creepy would happen.

Although I'm not really effected by scary movies they had some audio that was fairly creepy. The use of violin sounds mixed with some very industrial sounds created an audio space that give you an uncomfortable feeling. One sound in particular sounded much like the sound of dragging a pipe along concrete in a long corridor. It amazes me that just that sound can put you in that place even when the visuals on screen don't have anything to do with that space. the musical part of the film was very basic with just a few notes of a violin and some drums for punctuation.

The end of the movie had some sounds that didn't seem to fit very well. One of these sounds was the sound of the woman getting hit it the back of the head and falling into the well. The sound was kind of the typical punch sound and seemed kind of hokey, kind of mickey moused. the other that i noticed that wasn't very effective was when they were pushing the large slab off of the well and while pushing it, it sounded very heavy with the concrete scraping sound but when it hit the ground it didn't make much of any sound at all. This was kind of confusing because of its lack of sound in rendering its weight upon impact.

Last of all is that presence of the phone ringing throughout the film that also gave it it's creepyness. it was only creepy through its link to what you knew what was on the other end. this is also where they used silence effectively. They never had audio for what was being said when the person answered the phone when they were notified they were goiong to die, but when it was just another person they had audio for what they were saying. The lack of use of audio gives mystery to the movie, and mystery brings curiosity, and curioisity brings imagination, and imagination brings the worst one can think of.

Why Rendering?

I find it amusing beyond belief how many different terms have been established to express the many different sound practices in film that are created using the exact same basic method. For example, first there was Punctuation, using a specific sound to make something in this film stand out and now we have Rendering, using a specific sound to give us outside knowledge about a character on screen. And ironically, both practices are inevitably achieved through the old and simple practice of added value.

My question is why does it have to be complicated when to the average listener it's as simple as, hey, this sound is here and it works in this way. Rather than the overly long and complicated version of this sound is strategically placed in this exact place in a way that punctuates, in this case imaginary action, and causes a rendered effect resulting in giving us the impression of the character having weight or another specific quality.

I mean I understand the specific differences; it just seems like a new term for something we all already know about since it's a direct result of added value. Not only that, but it’s not as if any of the things heard in this process are really all that entertaining. Creating voices and personalities for cartoons or animations is not exactly a new practice, they’ve been making cartoons since way before I was born and they’ve always used pretty much the same practices, although they do stick out more in Who Framed Roger Rabbit than in a simple Loony Tune’s cartoon because of the live and real props rather than cartoon background for most of it.

The words of the profits are written in the studio wall.

One trend I have noticed in modern television is the use of rock or popular music to help set the tone of scene. In fact, I have noticed that, more often than not, popular music has usurped the more traditional symphonic or orchestrated scores that television shows used to have.
You can see what I am talking about if you compare the background music of say The Andy Griffith Show or Hogan’s Heroes to House or Scrubs. Hell, it seems at points that Scrubs can not end a show with a recap of the moral of the story overlaid with some pop or folk ballad.
The easy argument you could make is that popular music applies more to current viewers. People are interested in hearing music that they relate to rather than more subtle tone painting. However, am I the only person that thinks that by replacing an orchestrated score with popular music is actually kind of a bad idea?
Sure there are plenty of places where popular music is well placed or it even redefines a scene. Look at the use of Stealers Wheel’s Stuck in the Middle with You in Reservoir Dogs. It’s hard to image that scene without that song. But the use of popular music or, more specifically, current chart toppers really dates an episode or scene to me. I can watch a show and it is hard not to hear a song and think “Oh, this was made in 2003.”
With an orchestrated score, the music has a more timeless quality. It is hard to place a specific piece in a given timeframe unless you have intimate knowledge of the history of the piece. To use a show I mentioned previously, I cannot watch an episode of Hogan’s Heroes and pinpoint the exact year the episode was made from the musical score alone.
I guess my compliant of using popular music in television arises from the fact that the music used rarely has a timeless quality to it. Sure, that song is popular now but is it popular ten, twenty, or thirty years from now? Unless the track to be used is carefully selected and does have this quality of timeless I have been discussing then you are just dating your show as being old (not new?) faster.

The Rendering Plant

Rendering is an interesting technique. It is an attempt to produce cinematic reality in the utter absence of world reality. The creation of aural characteristics to that which does not inherently have any must be the dream of any sound designer.
Think about it. You are given a completely blank slate and from that slate you are asked to define a character in a realm of sense. Varying on the genre of film being produced, you could be asked to create the sounds of a character in a comical way. Or if it is a dramatic scene or film, you may be asked to create the audio side of a character in a logical or more real way. Either way, the character’s realness or believability rests on the shoulders (ears?) of the sound designer.
Obviously such a monumentus act of cinematic creation can be a daunting task. Any failure to successfully produce a believable audio reality for a character would make the character flat, unreal, and, perhaps, unintentionally comical to the audience.
So the role that a sound designer must play is part psychic as well as part creator. You are left to guess what would be believable to the audience. The only true way to gauge what is believe to the audience is to ask what sounds truly believable to yourself.

realism

Synthesizing a “realistic” experience is a strange concept, considering that experiencing the synthesized experience, is a realistic experience in itself. I believe that in cinema, movie creators often try to mimic a realistic experience, but I am not always sure why. I do not believe that a movie necessarily becomes any better simply because it “seems” more realistic, however, pseudo realism can create a very immersive experience and it’s when we forget about reality and substitute it with the “movie reality” that movies become the most real and this is often times a very enjoyable experience.

Many philosophers compare our minds to a “hyper-realistic” movie theater to which we have front row seats. Conceptually, this actually makes a lot of sense. However, a movie theater can only account for two of the perceptual senses which compose our reality, sight and sound. In order to create a “realistic” experience we only need to recreate the experiences of our senses in the actual experience. In the movie format, smell, touch, taste, and anything extra perceptual is out of the question. Therefore, the audio and visual experience is all that can be utilized to create realism.

However, if you filmed a scene in which the camera captured everything as it was and the audio was exactly what the microphones recorded, it still may not be a “realistic” experience. Considering the plot and setting of film, original recordings of the actual scene may need to be altered in order to achieve a more believable experience. Also, because only audio and visual can be used, the lack of attention to the other senses leaves a gaping void of unrealistic non-stimulation. In order to make up for this, audio and visual moments need to be altered further and used in grand collaborations in order to create an immersive experience which needs not the other senses to feel real. Also, audio and visual moments presented in the right way can trigger powerful emotional responses from viewers. Most of our lives are lived within and around our emotions, if a film can stir up emotions like, fear, anger, suspense, joy, etc, it can become very realistic. Because of these factors, as well as others I’m sure, sometimes a large amount of non-realism, such as heavy editing and “fake sounds” are needed to create a realistic experience.

1408

1408

I watched the movie 1408 the other night and found it to be quite enjoyable. 1408 is a movie about an author (John Cusac) who writes books about haunted places who spends the night in, what Samuel L. Jackson calls “A real Fu*king evil room!”.
Not being a big fan of horror flicks, I wasn’t too stoked about watching this film, so I focused my attention on the audio and began to think about my sound and cinema class. It wasn’t long before I began to hear all kinds of innovative amazing things.
Basically, the protagonist’s experience in the room is something like a very intense, very bad, LSD trip. He is actually convinced for a time that Samuel L. Jackson had secretly “dosed” him with the drug. Although this wasn’t the case, the night was filled with some very scary and very well done auditory hallucinations.
During one scene, shortly after the room begins to take hold of John Cusac, he caused to believe that he has gone deaf. While the expressions on John’s face began to show panic and confusion, the sound of an intense high pitched whine begins to grow louder and louder while the ambient, non-diagetic sounds of the hotel room and the city outside fade out. A moment later, while John is shown screaming out the window, only very low, muffled frequencies can be heard. I believe some type of filtering was used to filter out all high and midrange frequencies. The effect was executed perfectly and is and excellent example of using “first person audio” to achieve movie magic!
During another scene, John believes he hears a baby crying on the other side of a wall, as he listens closer to the wall the sound of the baby’s screams begin too echo and exponentially increase in volume. As John falls to the floor holding his ears the amount of reverb and delay on the looped cry continues to increase before fading away in an otherworldly fashion. I found the scene to be very scary and was surprised that such a terrifying moment could be achieved when the only visual stimulus was some dude standing in a normal looking hotel room. : )
I just want to say that 1408 is a pretty good scary movie, and uses sound in some very fun and very spooky ways.

A Question for Dr. Twombly or Any Composers

Earlier in the semester we discussed THX and the creation of a blank audio canvas for modern cinema theaters. This gives the sound designers a lot of freedom to create and mold the audio film. In a way, I could imagine a sound engineer achieving what Brian Wilson had hope to by creating his own pet sounds but not only creating pet sounds, but creating the pet cage or world too. To be honest, it sounds daunting and exciting for any artist.
Anyways, the question I pose is this and any composition majors should feel free to chime in. What is wrong with having a blank audio canvas to work with? I would figure that having such freedom would be a composer’s dream. You could craft every sound, every phrase to its own uniqueness and truly hope to control the aspects of piece. Granted there is the worry that, during a performance, such guided audio creations may not be reproduced entirely accurate but that is a problem even now.
Another question: does it matter that you have a blank audio canvas based on what type of piece you are writing? What I’m asking is would it be more helpful to have an acoustically flat room for composing a film score or sounds versus creating a commissioned piece or vis-versa? Does what you are composing change what you want from an acoustic space? I would love to hear everyone’s answers and explanations for these questions.

Airplane!

Well, I do not know about the rest of you but that was the first time I had ever seen Airplane!. God, that style of humor gave me flash backs to movies like Hot Shots! and Hot Shots!: Part Deux. Personally, I kind of want to bust out those movies and see how similar the sound designs are. (Hell, I might make that my final.)
However, because this was my first time watching this film, I did not catch many of the sound devices we have been studying. As such, I would like to thank Doctor Twombly for pointing out what he did. Yet, I did notice one thing on my own.
There were two passengers in the film that spoke what was called “jive.” Obviously we, as the audience, weren’t supposed to understand everything the passengers were saying but I occasionally thought when I listened carefully I could understand the words they were saying even if they spoke so fast it was hard to get the meaning without the subtitles.
This is similar to the old man in Blazing Saddles but where Mel Brooks used gibberish to confuse the ear, the creators of Airplane! used speed to confuse the ear. I found it interesting that the same joke was made in each movie, but each movie used a different method to create the comedic effect. Apparently there are more than two ways to skin a joke.

Reality and Complacency

Movie reality.  What does that 'mean'?  Dude?  Is it like all, "no way! that is so reeel!" or like, "dude.  This just got real."

I don't believe it's either.

Pinning down reality as a fact is a matter of fiction.  Some of the obstacles that are in the way of thwarting this statement are: perception, intention, and reason- to name a few.  

Reality can be taken from 3 perspectives mainly: the creator, the 'consumer', and the observer.  The one who creates the reality has control over it to some extent.  There are rules- as such in film, music, solar systems, etc.  This control within the rules that are set up is what creates the setting or environment of the 'reality' in question.  

Reason, then from some sentient being "the consumer", is used to address the situation as it is.  If in a movie- they may question the premise with: "why?"  Why is this here.  Then all the other "w's" follow.  These view can be varied as most 'consumers' will be occupying separate minds- at least from what we know.

The last person who could be involved is any third party who takes into account the situation as a whole.  They see and question the whole process without being a creator or a consumer.  Then they are able to analyze the situation with the least bias (unless of course they are a mixture of consumer and observer- then the system starts to fail).

So related it all to cinema.  Someone- perhaps a group of people fall in line of being the creator in this instance.  They produce a reality that has certain parameters of understanding.  This meaning it is not something else inherently.  It is unique unless intentionally emulated.  This created 'thing' now is finished- it is passed on by some medium to 'the consumer' and is witnessed.  Their perception will filter out what they do and don't believe.  They will then choose to consider what is reality and what is not.  There are too many variables to even mention here, but to name a few- mood, values, past experiences, etc. will change the direction of belief from here on out.  Which is important.  Here is why no one reality for any one thing will exist.

Now moving on to the observer.  Let's say it is the professor in a film class.  Someone who is analyzing what students take from the 'creation-consumer' process.  Although they have once been a consumer, and might very well be a creator, they now have a different role.  They see the process take place and get to decipher how the process has taken place.  They get to hear, from the consumer, what reality they have and try to explain it to the observer.  There aren't necessarily right answers for the question of "what is real in this shot?" but are finding out answers that could lead to a reasonable 'average' for what reality could have been intended by the creator.

*A short cut to the process is to hear directly from the creator.  Not as much fun.  Well, maybe for some.  Who knows.

So.  I really didn't argue whether reality is real, but that sort of gives one perspective- one that I don't even know if I agree with, but one that seems to be a working model of how the process of reality flows in a specific medium such as cinema.

Hmm...

Theatre and Film (My Colored View)

As a creative writing major, I cannot help but see film as a logical extension of theatre. In fact, despite certain formatting requirements and issues, playwriting and screenplay composition are closely related. Dialogue is the bulk of the writers work even they also compose a brief description of any related actions. However, the action in a given scene must, in the end, be interpreted and partially composed by a director.
Most of you no doubt have realized this relationship or, at least, suspected it and I am by no means trying to sell this intermixing of film and theatre as my own idea. The reason I am bringing this up is because I want to dredge up some old arguments that we have discussing, specifically, I want to bring up the addition of audio to film. I know we have done an entire blog about this but I thought I would add two more cents to the two cents I have already given.
If we see cinema as an extension of theatre than it is completely illogical to expect that sound would remain out of the realm of film. The theatre is an audio medium as much as it is a visual one and it is almost arguably more audio based than visual. I wonder why people can pine for the “golden age” of silent film when anyone with any decent foresight (or in our modern view, hindsight) could see that a lack of audio was merely a technological hurdle to eventually be overcome. Audio in film was more than eventuality, it is a return to the truth of form for a theatre based cinematic experience.

The Realities of Reality

The nature of reality in cinema is an interesting subject to broach. Obviously, the goal of any filmmaker is to create an onscreen reality the audience will accept with minimal intellectual discomfort. We are asked as the audience to accept that the characters and plot as being plausible; that things could be real even if they are on the fringes of possibility.
However, as Chion has pointed out, the reality of the film sometimes breaks the reality of life in order to make the cinematic reality more real to the audience. Apparently, our immersion in the film is more important than staying true to the reality of life. This isn’t an amazing revelation because, as an audience, we watch a film to get something besides reality or above and beyond the constraints of real life reality.
As the example Dr. Twombly gave us showed, certain aspects of filmmaking and story telling would not hold up to real life. Two characters whispering to each other in order to not be heard is a commonplace story telling device but, if the audience cannot hear what they are talking about, it jars us out of the immerged reality we have accepted. If the audience does not act as an outside observer, then we cannot follow the plot or the meanings behind the film. In fact, I would argue are lack of “true” reality in film allows us to enjoy films much more.

Looks Like...

I have some catching up to do.

The theatre experience.  It was interesting to say the least.  I hadn't been inside that part of a theater.  Yes I am using both words: Theatre and Theater.  I don't actually use the first (thee-a-tre) since it is sort of awkward to say.  I digress.

The actual tour or ture:  One of the most interesting things were the differences in technology than I was expecting.  I still thought of the 'reel-to-reel' style projector and was sort of startled by the box-shaped thing that was spewing out lit pictures upon the screen.  Another was the way the film was stored before and after it went through the projector.  Once again- an ingenious idea compared with rewinding the reels the old way I suppose.  The last major thing was the different methods of audio embedded on the film and on CD with the synching process.  I am amazed that binary can be transmitted the way it is.  It makes absolutely no sense to me at the moment, but I'm sure a few classes, and a league of homework later I could find out.  But since I'm behind on a task like Blogging- then I'm probably not ready for that endeavor yet.  We'll see.

The things that I didn't find surprising was the atmosphere of the projector area.  For some reason I had this innate feeling it would be sort of attic-like and look the way it did.  It serves a function.  It doesn't necessarily need to look like the main 'consumer' area- since they don't see it- it wont affect the business.  Although- I would think since someone has to sit up there and wait for movies to get done hour after hour- that they would spruce it up a little bit- or even have carpeting so that they don't make noise while walking from place to place.  Who knows- maybe it's set up the best way possible.

And I have deviated away from anything class-like.  Great.

Similar Sounds

Since we spent the week discussing how most of the sounds in film are added in afterward and then synced together to create the illusion of reality, I got to thinking about how many different sounds in a film have to been created. In Lord of the Rings the sound of a walrus was used for the cave troll and other sounds were used for the orcs and goblins.

This got me thinking about other obviously substituted sounds. I’m curious as to what sounds were used to represent the T- Rex in the comedy One Night at the Museum? It sounds to me like a mixture of a lion and something else but I’m not sure exactly what. The animal sounds were fairly realistic throughout the film, but I’m pretty sure that they were added in after the filming. And lastly, the mummy, I’m not so sure on what that sound was either.

Mentally, I’m creating a list of all the fantasy and fiction movies I’ve seen and comparing the use of all these different sound heard in each one. I’d be willing to bet that a lions roar has probably been used as sound for every dragon film I’ve seen, whether it be the fireworks dragon in LOTR’s, Saphira from Eragon or even the multitude of different dragons created for the film Dungeons & Dragons. Yet no one ever seems to think that there is anything odd about it. This really shows just how easy it is for film makers to fool the audience just by using this practice of syncing sound and visuals.

Cartoons Are Great

In a rush to get in this week’s Blogs before Friday, I cheated miserably and decided to check out a new film I haven't seen yet. So I rented Ratatouille, I mean what could be better for studying the idea of using fake sounds to create a realistic experience than a cartoon movie about a talking rat that wants to be a chef.

There were a lot of examples of Visual and Audio irony. The best scene for this was the scene in the evil food critic’s office, in which sad and depressing music accompanies the frame of the office which was fittingly depicted in the shape of a coffin. I'm not really sure where I stand on the philosophy behind the realism of the sound in film when most of the sounds in film are faked to create the illusion of reality.

But then again, I did watch a film that in the real world would be absolutely insane, yet on screen made complete sense. As long as I could hear the pans clanging, the fires starting and everything was synchronized I had no problem at all imagining a clan of rats cooking dinner in a three star restaurant in France. I understand how this idea of realization is created, I just don’t know if the I really believe that there is a really successful philosophy behind it, because it is ironic how it works.

A Simple Thought Experiment

I want to play a game. Well, more specifically, a thought game. Hell, let’s just call it a thought experiment.

You are about to watch a movie you have never seen before. You are only allowed to use either your vision or your hearing to experience the movie. You are allowed to keep all your other senses because cinema is, obviously, an audio-visually driven medium. Which do you choose and why?

Personally, I choose to keep my hearing. I find that my focus in a film is often in semantic and causal listening and, from the sounds, I can assign greater importance or meaning to the vision of the film. Even without seeing the film, I can get an idea of what is happening on the screen. It is hard to get an idea of the plot when all you can do is see the screen.

Keeping my hearing would be my choice in general. It is obvious that I might change my choice, or you might, based on what genre of film you are watching. Something like an action movie is very visually driven with less focus on dialogue or plot. On the other hand, something like a drama film is probably very auditory driven. It focuses great on the development of plot through conversation.

So, anyone care to respond to my thought experiment?

Tour Time

One of the most interesting things about the tour to me was seeing how much the image still dominates sound in a modern theatre. It seemed like there was more technology or emphasis given to creation of the image to the creation of the companioned sounds.

I suppose I could be saying this because our guide was a projectionist and, well, of course projectionists are going to be obsessed with the image. However, just by the amount of machinery alone, you would have to assume the image is still the primary focus of cinema. Between the large standard projectors and the smaller 3D projector I think about 90% of the occupied area in the booth was devoted just projecting an image. The sound racks, as we saw, were small and tended to be placed in an out of the way place.

I know we have talked about the image has dominated cinema and still does but it is hard to see that sometimes when you are in a class that is focusing on the sound aspects of film. I think we have addressed this repeatedly in class but it really didn’t sink in completely for me until I started see the large amount of mechanical effort that put forth.

Changes in Sound

Since I really haven't watched anything this week on TV I thought I'd brain storm on some of the changes I've noticed over time in the use of sound in TV shows and movies. When you watch and old Tom & Jerry episode it's mostly music with a bit of added sound for emphasis on certain things that happen in the screen. It's drastically different from the cartoons of today everything is Digi this and Digi that, I'm not knocking it if your into it, but even the sound that accompanies follows the same principle. Most of it sounds electronically mixed with a few really fake sounds to emphasize a certain action in the screen. Personally, I find them incredibly cheesy, but that's just me.

In a similar fashion I think it's peculiar that early films began with no sound except for music and have gradually evolved to these extremely complex sound creations that they are today. Mixing music with other added and mixed sounds to make a film so exact. Complete polar opposites fr the most part. I suppose that's the difference created with technology within the last fifty years or so. I think it this trend keeps progressing the way it is now that it'll be interesting to see what film sound like in another twenty years.

Friday's Tour

I now understand why my brother, who is the facilities manager at the Eden Prarie AMC movie theater complians so much when the projectionists are gone and he has to run the booth. I don't think that I could ever figure out the order of the film reels for set up even after watching someone set up those machines a dozen or so times.

I was fairly surprised about the CD and film syncronization though it was something I never bothered to ask about and I was surprised to hear that they used welding glass for the windows in the booth. I feel so cheated, never in all the gripping about his job has said brother ever mentioned exploding bulbs. That has to be fun to watch provided one is wearing the appropriate protective clothing.

I think that the thing that shocked me the most thought is just how long the film reels really were. I can't imagine how complicated it must be to splice together all the sections. I was thouroghly surprised by all of the different things that we go to see. And here I though all they had to do was pop in a DVD.

unnecessary sound

so recently i've noticed that in a lot of the things that i've been watching that they include a lot of unnecessary sound or sound that would not normally occur. a few example that i can remember is a scene in which a family is eating dinner and the father picks up a piece of silverware and you hear the sound of clanking silverware. in most everyday situations you would not normally clank your silverware together before you pick it up. another example i can think of is that i was watching a show about magnets on the history channel or something like that and they were showing how you can make a magnet my wrapping wire around a nail and connecting the ends of the wire to a power source and in the illustration of how to construct such a device they had the sound that everybody associates with a electricity, the buzzing sound. even though if you actually made this kind of magnet in real life that it would not make this sound and in fact would have to be an incredibly high voltage to actually make anything like this sound. and they did this even after they had already highlighted the wire blue to show that it had electricity running through it. i guess that this is done to focus attention to a particular thing in a shot, but many times it seems like attention is not needed on that particular thing. it generally doesn't have anything to do with the plot. i remember a number of years back hearing about how a lot of things in film are over exageratted because the audience can be kind of dumb sometimes. the thing that they cited as an example was the visual use of over empahsizing things with putting ribbon on to fans or air conditioners to show that they were actually on, because if the audience doesn't see that the air is moving they don't think that it is actually on. so i guess that this over use of sound is the audio version of over emphasizing.

theater tour/ long live analog

the tour of the theater friday was an enlightening one. before the tour i was completely unaware that the sound of the film wasn't actually on the film itself. it was interesting that each film has a set of cd's that have the sound/soundtrack on them. the synching of the sound completely amazes and boggles me. it's beyond my ability to comprehend how some simple binary can synch with cds to create an entire product/experience. i guess that this is the solution for the problem with the soundtrack being destroyed with handling and use. this is also probably a product of the digital age. with all the audio becoming digital, film is just following suit with the trends. but being a fan of analog myself i would love to see film return to the analog sound. i feel like analog just has more of a connection to the real sound, since it's not broken down into samples that replicate the actual wave of the sound. digital sound just seems a little crispy to me. although most of the music i own is digital i have recently discovered the "warmth" of analog through my collecting of vinyl. i've actually started buying albums i already own on vinyl, just because i prefer to listen to vinyl. now if only they could create a portable vinly player.

Fun with synchresis

Bored?

Would you like to have some fun with audio/visual relationships?

I can tell you how!

For those of you who have never tried this, it is super duper fun and you should probably do it soon. All you need is a cartoon with a lot of speaking, (like family guy, south park, SpongeBob, aquateen, etc) and some rap music, with a lot of rapping. All you need to do now is mute the sound on the cartoon you are watching and put on the rap music. You will be amazed at how easily your mind is tricked! The cartoon characters will suddenly seems to be the ones saying the lyrics. It’s fantastic!

If a characters mouth is moving in any way, shape, or form that mimics actual speaking while audio of a voice is played, our minds will automatically associate the sound of the voice with the moving mouth. I should also mention that it helps if the source of the music is very close to the source of the visuals. Like a stereo on top of your television.

This trick works best with rap music because a large amount of vocals allows for much more frequent and believable synchresis.

If you set the default language on your cable box to Spanish, every once and a while SpongeBob will get really weird, maybe, it happened to me last night. I suppose the speaking audio was supposed to be dubbed into Spanish, but it was not and the English audio was still missing. Every time a character spoke, its mouth moved, but no sound came out. However, the sound effects were all still intact. For a long time I was very confused, I thought that maybe it was just a very stylistic episode in which all of the characters were mutes, or mimes or something. But that would be really weird and unlikely so I became somewhat distressed. Luckily I figured out the problem and tonight I realized that this scenario would be perfect for the rap/cartoon trick. You wouldn’t have to lose the sound of the characters actions, but the rap vocals would still seem to come from their mouths!

Tour de Theatre

I have to say that the tour of the waite park movie theater on Friday was pretty cool. I wasn’t quite sure what to expect and I was surprised by whets really going on behind the little glass window up in the back of the theater.

My favorite part of the tour was the projector bulbs. A 600 watt light bulb that will blind you if you look at it and could violently explode if mishandled... pretty darn kewl. I wonder how much those bulbs cost, I should have asked. Even if I got my hands on one though, a ballast of some sort to power it is probably a fortune. I bet a 600 watt projector bulb would be great for indoor gardening.

It was also very interesting how the film sound is all analog. I was sure it would be completely digital by now. Having a syncing strip running down the side of the film was also an interesting concept. I just thought of a lot of questions concerning that, however. I would like to know how the projector reads the "blue strip" and how the syncing takes place. I would also like to know how the sound source is set up. Is it one long recording of the all the films sound as it should be heard on screen? Or could it be an archive of all the movies individual sounds which would be triggered by the blue strip? The latter seems unlikely now, but it would be kinda neat if it were true.

The speaker setup in the theater we went into wasn’t really spectacular. I never had any idea that much of the sound was coming from behind the screen. It’s obvious now, but I would have probably never really questioned it, had it not been for the tour.

Overall, it was a pretty cool time, I enjoyed the tour very much, thx Twombly :)

The Wilhelm Scream

Unfortunately, (or may be fortunately), this blog will be kept brief as it requires your ears more than your eyes to correctly understand what I am talking about. This blog is about the Wilhelm Scream, which is, a common sound effect that is heard in many popular movies. If you are thinking there is a chance you haven’t heard it, you are probably wrong. It has graced movies like the Indiana Jones trilogy, the Star Wars trilogy, and even all the way down to Gremlins 2.
What blows my mind is I found out about the history of this scream through a website while researching things for this class but I kind of already knew about the scream. I heard it so often as a child, and it is so unique, that even when I was ten years old I knew that there was a common scream that was used a lot in some of my favorite movies. Pretty weird for a kid to pick up on something like that but repetition is way we learn about things.
I won’t discuss the history of the scream because, well, there’s a youtube link below this that does just that. Also at the bottom of this blog are two collages of various movie scenes which use the Wilhelm Scream. Definitely check these videos out if you want a laugh or if you just want to know what the hell I was talking about.

The History of the Wilhelm Scream

The Wilhelm Scream (1953-1999)

The Wilhelm Scream (1977-2007)

Punctuated Incorporated

I happened to catch an episode of the Outer Limits (the remake of course) a couple of days ago. It was an okay episode. The plot followed a scientist who worked for a world government. He was hired to investigate an obelisk like object that had landed in a large city. The obelisk kept emitting new and changing sounds and continued to change the environment around it into a more natural state. Eventually, our protagonist realizes that the sound emitted by the object was a form of communication and its message was directions on how to enter it which, of course, the scientist does. The plot was a bit predictable and there was nothing overly amazing visually either. What kept my attention was the sound design.
Nearly every sound on the screen was carefully selected or crafted by the sound editor. Obviously, I could go on and on about the use of the sound to describe the obelisk, but since this blog is about punctuation, I’ll focus on a very specific scene. Near the end of the episode, the scientist enters the obelisk and the sound scene changes very abruptly. As he walks toward the object, there is myriad of sound effects that are suppose to represent the encroaching nature such as birds squawking, animals snorting, and the character’s muffled footfalls as he steps from concrete to grass. Throughout this scene, the musical score is very tense with a long crescendo reaching climax just as the scientist enters the object. However, when he enters he stands in a room composed of nothing but white light. There is no sound; no background sound effects or musical score. He stands there dumbfounded until a nonhuman voice rumbles “Hello” and the scene cuts abruptly to credits after the alien speaks.
What is interesting is how the lack of sound inside the obelisk is used to punctuate the scene. It helps reinforce the idea of an alien environment and stands out in stark contrast to the ocean of sound we are given for the scene prior. The abrupt cut at the end, also, reinforces and maintains the alien-like environment in the mind of the viewer. Overall, I thought this was an excellent example of punctuation.

Punctuation?

So the concept of sound as punctuation is pretty darn interesting. It’s pretty obvious that we could use sound to add value to or just accentuate the action on screen. I have seldom thought about the very many different ways sound can be used to punctuate cinema. Once I begin to imagine sound punctuation in relation to grammar punctuation, the possibilities of sound punctuation become much clearer.

It’s difficult to pick any one example of punctuation, considering there are so very many. Also, it’s very difficult for me to write about sound punctuation, it’s so hard to describe or recreate the most interesting sounds with text. However, I just remembered a clear example of punctuation which is easy to talk about. I haven’t watched the show "Survivor" in a very long time, but I can remember several instances of new scenes, new camera angles, or new show developments being punctuated by the sound of a gong crash.

The gong crash is one of the most obvious and easily used punctuation devices. Imagine if a gong sounded just before you said or did anything cool or important. Now imagine if a gong sounded just after you did or said anything cool or important. Either way, it would be very epic. The fact that a gong would punctuate or add value to your life is undisputable. I believe that the gong crash is one of the most powerful guns in the sound punctuation arsenal.

Power isn’t everything however, and believe it or not, there are other tools besides the gong crash for sound punctuation. Most sound punctuation is much more subtle. Most of the time viewers do not directly notice acts of sound punctuation, but the overall effects punctuation can have on cinema can be incredibly powerful and nearly impossible to miss.

Montage

I’ve been wracking my brain all day to figure out what else to write about because I have honestly not turned on the TV all week. So I thought back to our class discussion this week and remembered discussing the concept of montage and what it is as well as how sound affects these scenes.

I just happened to remember that there is a great example of montage at the end of the film Definitely Maybe where the daughter is kind of scolding her father and then the scenes change and progress through about three different screens until the characters reach the arrival scene outside the friend’s apartment, but the music stays the same until then. Even though it's a fairly short example, I thought that this set of scenes really fit the definition of montage and helped me to understand it a little better. I do have to say that while I understand the point that Eisenstein makes, I didn’t find anything unfitting about just hearing one musical accompaniment throughout these scenes, if anything, the accompaniment seemed to connect them together. But maybe that’s because I’m so used to hearing sound used the way it is.

Punctuation.....What's the Difference?

After this week’s example of Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon I was left with one big question. What isn’t punctuation in an action film, the answer, apparently very little. If one is going to use certain sounds to stress certain actions within a scene like swords clinking and such, then using this example are we to understand that every single sound that acts in the same manner to also be a form of punctuation?

The problem with these examples and definitions is that the sound within a frame is so integrated that it’s difficult to differentiate the multitude of different sound practices used. Because to me punctuation seems really no different than any other empathetic sound added to films. Obviously Mickey Mousing is easy to identify, but even in the film this week, what is so different between the fighting sounds of this film compared to the fighting sounds of any other previous action film that we’ve seen.

It seems to me that we are creating more and more fancy terms to describe the exact same practices that we’ve already discussed. Because whether it’s an action movie with lots of fighting sounds or just odd sounds like footsteps in Mon Uncle, each sound you hear unless it’s a musical accompaniment is still just being used empathetically to add value to the screen. At this point, I am honestly starting to think that Chion is making this way to complicated.

lack of punctuation

So i have recently started watching a show on BBC America called Skins and it is kind of a new experience in television watching The thing that mainly throws me off is there complete lack of punctuation I am not sure if this is a cultural thing or if it is just the style of this show but it really threw me at first Mainly i guess because we have become so accustomed to punctuation in our media The only real thing that they have to end the scene is their Skins title before and after commercials It is just weird to transition without any sound I am kind of wondering if it is possibly a cultural thing and if people in Brittan are used to this kind of thing It may just seem to them that this use of punctuation is a little weird to them I think that some other shows pull this off a bit more effectively Like some shows will end with a punch line or something in the conversation that brings a natural end to the scene But in Skins the commercials just kind of come out of nowhere and surprise you because you're not expecting them from the cues of the speech

Punctuation.!?

So there is a show i watch quite a bit that has some of the most pronounced punctuation that I can think of. The show is called Corner Gas it is a sitcom from Canada that airs on WGN. For pretty much all their transitions to commercials they have the same sound of three notes on a guitar. I'm not sure if this would qualify as punctuation or not but this seemed to be the best example that I could think of. It kind of lets you know when the scene is over and brings a wrap to what was going on in the story. This also brings a kind of signature to the show because they use is so prevalently throughout their episodes, along with some of the other sounds they use in their transitions to scenes. They will use this kind of whipping sound to jump to a short shot of another character (usually being talked about in the scene), and back to the original scene. This sound is also used alot in Scrubs. The sound also acts like a ellipsis in the show when they cut to a another situation with other characters.

Punctuated!...?;"*`-'@

I always wonder before I write these, "Should the 'required' blog necessarily be longer or more engaging than the 'free-for-all' blog?"  I have yet to answer myself in any way to even begin.  But for the sake of this paragraph, I have very little to say about punctuation.  Period.

Although it is quite noticeable in most of it's forms as described in Chion's book, it still is about as important as something's color.  You can point out an object's color but whether it's function is an important factor is somewhat separate from it's existence.  

For example:

"That apple is red!" Ted exclaims!

Now depending on the situation it could be very important or not very important.

Very Important: The red apple that someone is about to eat is poisoned and it was the only red apple in the vicinity of a large amount of, let's say, green apples.

Not Very Important:  The red apple is among other apples of the same color.  Now what Ted exclaims is quite irrelevant or maybe even just overly obvious.  (They're all red Ted.)

Now.  The analogous part of the blog:

If something were to be punctuated and have meaning:

Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon fight scene.  They are making careful choices to punctuate specific things she is doing rather than all of them.  Footsteps have been omitted unless they are integrated into a 'fighting move'.

Let's say now we watch an episode of "Leave it to Beaver" and The Beav' walks in and absolutely everything he does has a sound effect.  Everything is meticulously punctuated to an insane extreme.  Punctuation would loose all meaning and I would be laughing hysterically.

So.  We come to the end of my argument.  I think that it is as important as a nonchalantly placed color in certain circumstances, but is only useful when being quite specific about a certain point in a film- usually for added significance.

Final unrelated coincidence in my argument:

Color was not integrated in film in the beginning;

Sound was not integrated in film in the beginning.

Eh?  Eh?

changing the way you think

overall i have found it very hard to change the way that i watch movies. i am so used to just watching the movie to get the story/plot out of it. so needless to say it has been very hard to change the way that i have been trained to watch films my whole life. But even before this class i had been particularly adept to finding little idiosyncrasies in films that many people would just pass over. For example when something is overdubbed it sticks out to me like a sore thumb. So I would say that i am pretty good at noticing little things in films. But I have found it particularly challenging to turn off the enjoyment part of my movie watching and to turn on the analysis part of my movie watching. But as time goes on it gets slightly better. I just hope that at the end of the semester that this situation won't be the other way around and that i will constantly be stuck in the analysis mode, but I think that this may also help me get more out of my movie watching experiences. To be able to look a little further into the choices that the creators made in order to construct a piece as a whole.

Did You Hear That?

Although many silent films were very good, there is no denying the hugely positive effect the addition of sound has had on cinema. In terms of cinema, I can talk about the visual and sound elements separately. But, when it comes down to the final product, audio and visual fuse to become "The Audio Visual Contract!” This relation between visual images and audio created a completely new realm of artistic and creative possibilities. I believe that sound completely changed film making. The addition of sound didn’t just change the way movies are made, it sparked a complete cinema evolution. The way we approach creating or even experiencing cinema is now totally different and I believe it is for the best.

Sound allows film creators to achieve all whole new level of realism and immersion in their works. Sound also completely changed the anatomy of the film "Frame". Sound adds another dimension by creating space and places off screen which are just as real to the viewer as those on screen. Sound doesn’t just add value to visual images; it also allows for much more effective use of visual images. For instance, sound can be used to connect or relate many different visual stimuli when used in a montage. A montage without sound would be confusing, disconnected, and scattered. The positive impacts of sound on cinema go on and on, unfortunately, I am much too sick to continue typing and going to go to bed. After playing a little spore o_O!

positive addition of sound

one film in particular that i think of in which sound was added in a positive way is Punch Drunk Love. throughout the entire film there are transitional shots of morphing color with sound that accompanies them to set an almost eerie but peaceful mood. The music of the film fits the overall mood of the film very well I think too. While much of the movie is kind of shocking and somewhat disturbing. they keep the overall calm and happy feeling of the film with the music and then change it up when you see bits of color. Some of the other music of the film, comes from an organ that Adam Sandler's character finds by his shop. The resulting "music" or tones that come from this organ seem to go along with with the his characters personality. Very timid and demure but when messed with can become very harsh and surprising. I think that overall the creators did a great job in deciding the tone of the film and getting and creating sounds that would go along with that mood.