Describe each of these basic categories of sound.
Dialogue: aids in identifying characters and locations. To develop plot points, reveal characters, while creating a atmosphere and personalities with motivations while supporting the films theme or message.
Sound effects: add realism to the characters and location in the film providing humor or suspense to the scenes. At times actual sounds can be recorded to be added to the objects or imagery on the screen. Depending on the scene the sounds can be loud or soft and other times it can be a unrelated sound that can be more effective than the real thing (Internet Movie Database).
Music: conveys mood with emotions within the character by using rhythm with tempo and melody with instrumentation. If film makers were to use imagery by itself without the music and sound the shot or transition from one scene would not be as effective with the viewers. For example the sound of a pounding heart beat behind a closed door in a horror film can effect or generate a feeling of suspense. Add a few sharp dissonant notes to it and now you have scary.
Explain how the different categories of sound are used in my chosen film Unforgiven.
In the film Unforgiven dialogue takes place in a natural location as well as on the set or sound stage. Some of the scenes are shot outside in their natural elements and while the characters are exchanging dialogue you can hear the wind rustling the grass and blowing through pine-trees. Chirping of birds are in the background. Or in another scene when the three main characters are in a gunfight with some young boys. You can hear the echo of their voices as they are hollering at one another. Especially when Eastwood’s character hollers “will ya give that boy a damn drink of water I’m not gonna shoot ya” (1992, Eastwood).
Music: is a vital part of each dialogue in each scene. In the scene you ain’t ugly like me. Eastwood tried to justify his comment to the women who’s face was slashed. As he was saying you ain’t ugly like me you could hear the music in the back ground play very softly and yet it was short as he was toning down his dialogue. Choosing his words carefully not to offend her. This set the tone for the scene as well as Eastwood’s dialogue.
How does the use of sound inform the mood of the scene or overall film?
The use of sound aids in the film’s characters dialogue helping to move from bantering and arguing in one scene to a more serious mood further into the scene. There were plenty of diegetic sound effects in the film Unforgiven. By using the natural sound effects of the elements and enhancing them to exaggerate the sound and making it dramatic in the scene. Example the thunder and the rain in the beginning of the film. Adding more of diegetic sound effects makes the thunder and the rain louder than it was in it’s natural element. By using these sounds it makes it easier to key in on plot points throughout the film (Academy of motion pictures). These sound effects set the mood in each of the scenes.
Identify specific sounds in the film Unforgiven that allow you to infer a particular genre.
Thunderstorms with the thunder and wind driven rain. Scenes where it is windy giving off the appearance that a storm is rolling in. Cowboy boots and spurs jingling as the character strides across the wooden floor of a saloon. The sound of a rifle being cocked before firing the first bullet in a gunfight. Horses and riders stampeding through the town. Bullets ricocheting in a gunfight. These are some of the common sounds that you hear in a lot of genre westerns (Eastwood, 1992).
Since each category of sound may produce a range of effects how might I characterize the effects in my film Unforgiven?
Realistic sounds of the wind in the grass and the pine-trees, blowing through the dry grass. Sounds of spurs and cowboy boots walking across a wooden floor would be characterized as natural sounds. The thunderstorm rolling in with the sound of thunder in the background and the wind would be characterized as natural sounds in a natural element or realistic sounds. The realistic sounds of nature in its elements a viewer would expect unless the sound is recreated to make a more dramatic sound in the scene. Some of the unexpected sounds would be the lashing of a bullwhip (IMDb database) in one of the scenes where the sheriff lashed Ned with a bullwhip and it went on and on and you could hear it across the town.
Assess how the scene / sequence would play differently if I were to changed or remove a key category of sound.
If I removed all the natural sounds out of the film the dialogue of the characters would be just that a dialogue. There would be nothing to back up the emotions of the kid crying because he killed a man or screams in the slashing of the woman’s face in each of these scenes. Sound makes everything dramatic especially where each plot point is or gives us the suspense in the scenes. It helps to transition one shot to another from scene to scene. With the natural sounds in this film it help to make the film by giving it character and personality.
References
Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences
Retrieved from http://www.Oscars.org
Unforgiven (1992). Clint Eastwood
Retrieved from http://www.clinteastwood.net/filmography/unforgiven
Unforgiven Reviews and Ratings – IMBd
Retrieved from http://www.imbd.com/title/-0105695/reviews
Database: Internet movie database
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