Quiz 9

Question 1

sound crew

Answer 1

The group that generates and controls a movie’s sound physically, manipulating its properties to produce the effects that the director desires.

Question 2

sound design

Answer 2

A state-of-the-art concept, pioneered by director Francis Ford Coppola and film editor Walter Murch, combining the crafts of editing and mixing and, like them, involving both theoretical and practical issues. In essence, sound design represents advocacy for movie sound (to counter some people’s tendency to favor the movie image).

Question 3

sound track

Answer 3

A separate recording tape occupied by one specific type of sound recorded for a movie (one track for vocals, one for sound effects, one for music, etc.).

Question 4

Digital format

Answer 4

A means of storing recorded sound, made possible by computer technology, in which each sound wave is represented by combinations of the numbers 0 and 1.

Question 5

Boom

Answer 5

A polelike mechanical device for holding the microphone in the air, out of camera range, that can be moved in almost any direction.

Question 6

Double-system recording

Answer 6

The standard technique of recording film sound on a medium separate from the picture; this technique allows both for maximum quality control of the medium and for the many aspects of manipulating sound during postproduction editing, mixing, and synchronization.

Question 7

Dailies

Answer 7

Also known as rushes. Usually, synchronized picture/sound work prints of a day’s shooting that can be studied by the director, editor, and other crew members before the next day’s shooting begins.

Question 8

Outtake

Answer 8

Material that is not used in either the rough cut or the final cut, but is cataloged and saved.

Question 9

Rerecording

Answer 9

Also known as looping or dubbing. The replacing of dialogue, which can be done manually (that is, with the actors watching the footage, synchronizing their lips with it, and rereading the lines) or, more likely today, through computerized automatic dialogue replacement (ADR). (Dubbing also refers to the process of replacing dialogue in a foreign language with English, or the reverse, throughout a film.)

Question 10

automatic dialogue replacement (ADR)

Answer 10

Rerecording done via computer – a faster, less expensive, and more technically sophisticated process than rerecording that is done with actors.

Question 11

Mixing

Answer 11

The process of combining different sound tracks onto one composite sound track that is synchronous with the picture.

Question 12

Pitch

Answer 12

The level of a sound, which is defined by its frequency. Pitch is described as either high or low.

Question 13

Frequency

Answer 13

The speed with which a sound is produced (the number of sound waves produced per second). The speed of sound remains fairly constant when it passes through air, but it varies in different media and in the same medium at different temperatures.

Question 14

Loudness

Answer 14

The volume or intensity of a sound, which is defined by its amplitude. Loudness is described as either loud or soft.

Question 15

Amplitude

Answer 15

The degree of motion of air (or other medium) within a sound wave. The greater the amplitude of the sound wave, the harder it strike the eardrum, and thus the louder the sound.

Question 16

Quality

Answer 16

Also known as timbre, texture, or color. The complexity of a sound, which is defined by its harmonic content. Described as simple or complex, quality is the characteristic that distinguishes a sound from others of the same pitch and loudness.

Question 17

Harmonic content

Answer 17

The wavelengths that make up a sound.

Question 18

Fidelity

Answer 18

The faithfulness or unfaithfulness of a sound to its source.

Question 19

Diegetic sound

Answer 19

Sound that originates from a source within a film’s world.

Question 20

Nondiegetic sound

Answer 20

Sound that originates from a source outside a film’s world.

Question 21

Onscreen sound

Answer 21

A form of diegetic sound that emanates from a source that we both see and hear. Onscreen sound may be internal sound or external sound.

Question 22

offscreen sound

Answer 22

A form of sound, either diegetic or nondiegetic, that derives from a source we do not see. When diegetic, it consists of sound effects, music, or vocals that emanate from the world of the story. When nondiegetic, it takes the form of a musical score or narration by someone who is not a character in the story.

Question 23

Simultaneous sound

Answer 23

Sound that is diegetic and occurs onscreen.

Question 24

nonsimultaneous sound

Answer 24

Sound that has previously been established in the movie and replays for some narrative or expressive purpose. Nonsimultaneous sounds often occur when a character has a mental flashback to an earlier voice that recalls a conversation, or to a sound that identifies a place, event, or other significant element of the narrative.

Question 25

Asynchronous sound

Answer 25

Sound that comes from a source apparent in the image but that is not precisely matched temporally with the actions occurring in that image.

Question 26

Internal sound

Answer 26

A form of diegetic sound in which we hear the thoughts of a character we see onscreen and assume that other characters cannot hear them.

Question 27

interior monologue

Answer 27

One variation on the mental, subjective point of view of an individual character that allows us to see a character and hear that character’s thoughts (in his or her own voice, even though the character’s lips don’t move).

Question 28

External sound

Answer 28

A form of diegetic sound that comes from a place within the world of the story, which we and the characters in the scene hear but do not see.

Question 29

Dialogue

Answer 29

The lip-synchronous speech of characters who are either visible onscreen or speaking offscreen, say from another part of the room that is not visible or from an adjacent room.

Question 30

Narration

Answer 30

The act of telling the story of the film. The primary source of a movie’s narration is the camera, which narrates the story by showing us the events of the narrative on-screen. When the word “narration” is used to refer more narrowly to spoken narration, the reference is to commentary spoken by either an offscreen or on-screen voice. When that commentary is not spoken by one of the characters in the movie, it is omniscient. When spoken by a character within the movie, the commentary is first-person narration.

Question 31

Ambient sound

Answer 31

Sound that emanates from the ambience (background) of the setting or environment being filmed, either recorded during production or added during postproduction. Although it may incorporate other types of film sound – dialogue, narration, sound effects, Foley sounds, and music – ambient sound does not include any unintentionally recorded noise made during production.

Question 32

sound effect

Answer 32

A sound artificially created for the sound track that has a definite function in telling the story.

Question 33

Foley sound

Answer 33

A sound belonging to a special category of sound effects, invented in the 1930s by Jack Foley, a sound technician at Universal Studios. Technicians known as Foley artists create these sounds in specially equipped studios, where they use a variety of props and other equipment to simulate sounds such as footsteps in the mud, jingling car keys, or cutlery hitting a plate.