The Key Elements of Film Form: Sound Flashcards
Filmmakers use a range of elements in constructing narrative meaning and generating response.
What are the five Key Elements of Film Form?
MSPEC
- Mise en scene
- Sound
- Performance
- Editing
- Cinematography
What are the 4 Principal Elements of Sound?
- Vocal sounds (dialogue and narration), environmental sounds (ambient, sound effects and Foley), music, silence
- diegetic or non-diegetic sound
- Parallel and contrapuntal sound and the distinction between them
- Multitrack sound mixing and layering, asychronous sound, sound design
List 2 Creative Uses of Sound.
- How sound is used expressively
- How sound relates to characters and narrative development including sound motifs
List 4 ways that Sound Conveys Messages and Values.
- Why different spectators –> different interpretations of the same sound
- How sound –> used to align spectators and relates to interpretation of narrative
- How sound –> contributes to ideologies of film
What are the 4 common things to think about when analysing how the Key Elements of Film Form (cinematography, mise-en-scene, sound, editing, performance) convey Messages and Values?
- How [Camera shot / M-e-s / Editing / Sound / Performance] –> contributes to narrative development
- How [Camera shot / M-e-s / Editing / Sound / Performance] –> generates multiple connotations and suggests a range of interpretations
- Why different spectators –> different interpretations of the same [Camera shot / M-e-s / Editing / Sound / Performance]
- How [Camera shot / M-e-s / Editing / Sound / Performance] –> used to align spectators and relates to interpretation of narrative
- How [Camera shot / M-e-s / Editing / Sound / Performance] –> contributes to ideologies of film
Core Study Areas: Film Form
What is aesthetic?
The style adopted by an artist or a film movement
Core Study Areas: Film Form
What is production?
The period of actual shooting
Core Study Areas: Film Form
What are auteurs?
Certain directors will have a strong aesthetic
Core Study Areas: Film Form
What is pre-production?
The period prior to filming, where key decisions are made, including securing funding, selecting actors and creative personnel, choosing locations, building sets, designing costumes and determining the film’s aesthetic and planning the production schedule.
Core Study Areas: Film Form: Sound
Name 4 aural elements
- Speech
- Music
- Noise
- Absence of aural elements
Core Study Areas: Film Form: Sound
Complete the cloze:
Most films have music comprising an ______ ____ ____ from a ________ (___-____) and or existing/new songs (both _____ and ___-_____)
- Original
- Music
- Score
- Composer
- (Non-diegetic)
- (Diegetic
- (Non-diegetic)
Core Study Areas: Film Form: Sound
Describe 3 things that film music is designed to do.
- Set the tone
- Further the character/story
- Enhance the filmmaker’s aesthetic
Core Study Areas: Film Form: Sound
Describe the roles of:
- a music supervisor
- a sound recordist
- Foley and additional dialogue recording artists (ADR)
- Sound designer/editor
- (MS) Responsible for bringing the original music score from a composer and/or existing new songs
- (SR) Records sound and dialogue on location
- (F) Add further sound during post-production
- SD/E) Brings all these components together
Core Study Areas: Film Form: Sound
Name the two types of sound-track.
- Diegetic sound
- Non-diegetic sound
Core Study Areas: Film Form: Sound: Diegetic and Non-diegetic sound
What is diegetic sound? Give two examples. Where can the sound occur?
- The vocal and ambient sound that the characters can hear: footsteps when someone is walking and radio when a car is turned on. The sounds will be those from both the on- and off-screen spaces
Core Study Areas: Film Form: Sound: Diegetic and Non-diegetic sound
What is non-diegetic sound? Give two examples.
- The sound that does not come from the actual world of narrative: accompanying music and voice-overs
Core Study Areas: Film Form: Sound: Vocal and ambient sounds (diegetic)
What is the primary focus for the sound recordist while on set or location? Why?
- To capture the actor’s dialogue and performance.
Core Study Areas: Film Form: Sound: Vocal and ambient sounds (diegetic)
What are the 4 types of ambient sound? Give a few examples of each.
- Objects
- The environment
- Human noises
- Special sound effects
Core Study Areas: Film Form: Sound: Vocal and ambient sounds (diegetic)
Who focusses on the ambient sounds? Where are they recorded? In which phase are the added or enhanced?
- Foley artists
- Recorded on location but they are often added or enhanced in post-production
Core Study Areas: Film Form: Sound: Vocal and ambient sounds (diegetic)
What is it called when a sound is exaggerated? Give an example.
- Pleonastic sound, the sound of the knife being sharpened in the opening sequence of City of God
Core Study Areas: Film Form: Sound: Vocal and ambient sounds (diegetic)
What does ADR stand for? What happens during these sessions? What are the reasons that an ADR session has to take place?
- Additional dialogue recording
- Actors will reproduce missing vocal sounds such as background artistes’ chatter
- If the original recording is not good enough quality or changes in the edit requires new lines of dialogue or alternative delivery of a line
Core Study Areas: Film Form: Sound: Narration (non-diegetic)
Define Non-diegetic and give an example from a film.
- The sound that does not come from the actual world of the narrative, including accompanying music and voice-overs.
- Renton’s in Trainspotting
Core Study Areas: Film Form: Sound: Narration (non-diegetic)
What are two types of Narrator in Narration (non-diegetic)? What is the purpose of narrations?
TYPES:
- A character within a story, which indicates that the story is being told from their perspective
- An omnipresent narrator or storyteller like “Once Upon a Time
PURPOSE:
- to draw the viewer into the world
- throughout to provide commentary on the action
Core Study Areas: Film Form: Sound: Narration (Breaking the fourth wall
Define ‘Breaking the Fourth Wall’. What type of dialogue is it?
- A character stops interacting with the narrative/other characters and turns to the camera and talks directly to the audience.
- Non-diegetic
Core Study Areas: Film Form: Sound: CASE STUDY
- What did Vangelis, the composer of the score of Chariots of Fire, do that was so original at the time?
- Why does the score of Blade Runner work on a ‘visceral’ level?
- How did the composer seamlessly blend the end of the non-diegetic score and the beginning of the diegetic sounds of the narrative world?
- What effect does the drum roll have at the beginning of Blade Runner. What does the mix of synth and real percussion achieve?
- How is a sense of urgency achieved?
- What is used to draw attention to key visuals?
- List other sounds from the film and their effect.
- He changed the music landscape with his pioneering use of synthesisers combined with real instruments
- He watched edited sequences of the film and improvise, drawing on how the scenes made him feel
- He matched the qualities of the music (pitch, tone and mood) with the industrial elements of the landscape
- It announces the start of the film. It serves as a link from the familiar scores of the past with this new sound
- An industrial sound emulating a heartbeat
- Percussions
- Other sounds:
- Explosions in the foreground and background –> diegetic sound of explosions
- Spaceships –> the sound emerging from off-screen
- Lightning –> Signals the start of the main music
- Interior of a skyscraper –> extreme long shot of the office from outside
- Rotation of a fan –> Non-diegetic sound mirrors the rotation of the fan
- Invitation to the audience to enter that world –> ‘come in’ dialogue
Core Study Areas: Film Form: Sound: Silence
Describe the effect that silence has in a film.
- It leaves suspense which creates a greater tension
Core Study Areas: Film Form: Sound: Music
List 4 ways in which music (diegetic and non-diegetic) helps to create further meaning for audiences:
- Serving as the unseen narrative voice pushing us towards the appropriate emotive response, whether it be fear, longing or pride
- Highlighting the character’s psychological or emotional response to a situation
- Creating a sense of continuity from one scene to the next (sound bridges)
- Building tension and giving a sense of relief/finality
Core Study Areas: Film Form: Sound: Music
In addition to creating further meaning, what are 4 other things that music helps to indicate?
- The mood or personality of the character/scene
- Location
- A realistic setting
- Period setting
Core Study Areas: Film Form: Sound: Music
List and describe the three types of music.
- Background music is written specifically for a film by one composer and used throughout the film
- Found music is existing music such as pop songs or classical music/opera
- Music and songs performed as part of the story
Core Study Areas: Film Form: Sound: Music: Background music
What can a film score do in general, and what 3 things can it help to add to a flat scene?
- It can bring all the visual elements together
- Adds weight
- Meaning
- Power
Core Study Areas: Film Form: Sound: Music: Background music
List the 9 ways in which non-diegetic background music can be used.
- Define genres
- Create mood
- Establish setting
- Develop character
- Provide short cuts
- Form part of the aesthetic style
- Further plot
- Enhance action
- Offer in-jokes or knowingness
Core Study Areas: Film Form: Sound: Music: Background music
Complete the cloze:
You may not even note that music is playing until it is gone. If it is noticeable, this too is a form of a ___________.
-Manipulation
Core Study Areas: Film Form: Sound: Music: Background music
Describe parallel and contrapuntal sounds.
- Parallel sounds are music that either enhance or reinforce the action on screen, mirroring the pace of the film created by the cinematography and editing
- Contrapuntal sounds are when it can work against such expectations
Core Study Areas: Film Form: Sound: Music: Background music
Complete the cloze:
Background music has to work _____________; there is no time to develop the ____.
- Immediately
- Mood
Core Study Areas: Film Form: Sound: Music: Background music
What are leitmotifs? Give an example from a film.
- Recurring themes to reference the character, location or idea
Core Study Areas: Film Form: Sound: Music: Found music
What must be done before an existing song can be used in a film?
- The rights would have to be cleared before filming as the performance and the editing would be timed to the music
Core Study Areas: Film Form: Sound: Music: Found music
List 2 ways a song can be used and describe these. Provide an example from a film.
- Diegetically such as listening to a vinyl record or by turning on a radio
- Non-diegetically such as ‘eye of the tiger’ montage training scene from Rocky
Core Study Areas: Film Form: Sound: Music: Performed music
List the 2 types of performed music, describe them and provide examples from films.
- Part of the narrative such as the bands we see in Boyhood. These are realist uses of performed music and can be seen across a number of film genres
- Heightened emotion such as the ‘Another Day’ in La La Land is anti-realist and are usually only used in musicals
Core Study Areas: Film Form: Sound: Music: Parallel and contrapuntal sounds
What are parallel sounds? What are 2 reasons that they are used? Give an example from a film.
- Parallel sounds are sounds that go hand in hand with the images on screen: upbeat music for a comedy or sinister music for a thriller
Core Study Areas: Film Form: Sound: Music: Parallel and contrapuntal sounds
What are contrapuntal sounds?
- Sounds that counterpoint the action, the mood of the sounds you are hearing does not match what you are seeing
Core Study Areas: Film Form: Sound: Music: Parallel and contrapuntal sounds
Cite and explain an example from a film in which songs juxtapose sound and image.
- Clockwork Orange and Goodfellas are scenes of great violence are played out to upbeat energetic music. The music works against what we are seeing. This could be used for humour or to emphasise the characters’ gleefulness and/or relaxed attitude to the violence they are perpetrating
Core Study Areas: Film Form: Sound: Music: Synchronous and asynchronous sound
Complete the cloze:
____________ sounds contribute to the realism of a film as the sounds heard _________ ____ _______ __ ____ _.
- Synchronous
- Match the actions on screen
Core Study Areas: Film Form: Sound: Music: Synchronous and asynchronous sound
Complete the cloze:
____________ sounds are sound effects that ___ ____ ____ ___ _ _____ _______ ____ ___ ___ __ _______.
- Asynchronous
- Are not matched with a visible source of the sound on screen
Core Study Areas: Film Form: Sound: Music: Synchronous and asynchronous sound
Define synchronous sound.
- The recorded sounds are exactly aligned to the image on screen, primarily so that the words people speak match their mouth movements
Core Study Areas: Film Form: Sound: Music: Synchronous and asynchronous sound
Define asynchronous sound.
- Diegetic sound heard before the action that produces it is seen or sound that continues after that action is no longer on screen.
