Final Words

My film class is over, save for the final exam, and I leave feeling like I've actually learned something this time around. Being a business student doesn't give me enough opportunities to immerse myself in the arts, and I feel as though I milked this class for all it's worth. I love film, and this was the perfect class to take to expand my knowledge on something I know little about.

I've taken film classes before, but they were mostly strictly lectures. We watched a few clips here and there, but we learned theory and never had the chance to apply what we learned. Not in this class. I learned, and I got the chance to apply what I learned, to relate theories to films, to experience the soundtrack of a movie on a personal level, one on one, with no one telling me how to feel but me.

Sound is the aspect of film I always felt the least comfortable with, but that's no longer the case. Not only do I know a bit about the history of film, I'm able to identify what the sound is doing and why it's doing such a thing. I know the difference between parallel sounds and synergistic sounds, I know how the sounds in a film are rarely "natural" sounds, I understand now that the most important sound to capture in the filmmaking process is the voice. Everything else can be added in later. There's an art to sound editing, and I feel like I've had my first glimpse into it. I used to think if I were ever to become a filmmaker, that I would be so completely lost when it came time to scoring the film. Not anymore. I'm no composer, but at least I understand the basics behind sound in film, and I'm so grateful for that. Being able to understand the different elements, being able to assign meaning to different moments of sound in film is wonderful.

And the best part of it all is that I learned (I'll admit, at the beginning of the course it was harder than I thought it would be) to not analyze a film from the get-go. I'm able to sit back and watch a film without thinking too much about the sound. But, the beauty of it is that now I'm able to look back on the soundtrack of the film after I've finished it and I'm able to notice the times the sound had an impact on me. I can point out different aspects of the soundtrack that I liked, what worked and what didn't, why the sound, whether diagetic or non-diagetic made me feel one way or another. And I love being able to do that.

So thank you to my Movie Soundtrack professor, I'm so grateful for having had the opportunity to learn something I never thought I would have the chance to learn. This is a course full of material I will be using for the rest of my life.

The Big Chill

I always try to watch at least one movie a week. One sounds like such a small number, but with school and work and life, there are times where I never even meet that goal. The one movie that I did watch, recently, was The Big Chill. And I was amazed at how incredible the soundtrack was.

The soundtrack of the film was comprised of songs Lawrence Kasdan's wife found — songs that were all the rage the days the group of friends were in college.

I'm a big fan of 60s and 70s music and a smile would burst onto my face every time I heard a new song. In an interview with Meg Kasdan (Lawrence's wife), she explained how she was given the job of listening to all the main songs of the late 60s and early 70s — songs that would have defined the lives of the characters while in college — and figuring out which ones to use in the film. According to her, there were some songs that she (and her husband) knew would fit perfectly with a scene, to heighten the audience's emotions, but there were also moments that took a lot of time to find the perfect song.

What I liked about the soundtrack was that I knew all of the songs. As much as I enjoy music made specifically for a film, as it gives each scene a unique sound, the pop songs in The Big Chill worked, well. They felt seamless with the emotions presented and the relationships between the characters. Meg Kasdan did a fabulous job at choosing songs, and the rest of the sound editing team did a stupendous job at weaving them in and out of the scenes. Big congrats to them, I couldn't get over how amazing it was and wouldn't stop mentioning it to my mom (who also loves the film) for days.

Creating scene sounds

I've been reading Michael Ondaatje's The Conversations: Walter Murch and The Art of Editing Film and came across a very interesting passage the other day. Murch and Ondaatje are talking about hyperreal sounds: how sometimes recording a "real sound" just doesn't cut it for a film. For example, for Apocalypse Now, Murch needed cricket sounds for a scene. Murch knew that he wanted a "hallucinatory clarity," and he knew that going out and recording a field of crickets would be too ordinary for the scene. He needed something that was extraordinary — or, in his case, hyperreal. So, Murch went out and got close to one cricket and recorded it. Then, electronically, he multiplied the sound of that one cricket to make the sound of thousands of crickets, all in the same pitch, which gave it a "harmonic unity."

I think it's so interesting how much altering of sounds is done in film in order to give bring the audience in as much as possible. If you think about it, the aim of everyone involved in the film is to make it as real as possible for the audience so that they are able to feel captivated and engrossed by it; able to feel part of the world on screen. Weird, then, how, in order to get that sensation, sound designers have to manipulate real sounds or record "fake" sounds (ie. sounds created in a foley studio that weren't recorded during production). Nothing is ever as it seems, especially in the world of film.

A Beautiful Mind

I've decided to watch a few of the six movies we have to choose from for our final paper. I wanted to be able to watch the movie once, allowing the music to affect my experience subconsciously.

The first movie I watched was A Beautiful Mind. My goal was to enjoy the film as I would any other film while it was playing, and then, after it was done, think about what sounds were significant; what I could remember.

Looking back on my experience, I remember many moments of swelling, heart-tugging music. However, I remember an equal number of scenes filled with silence. From what I remember, silence encompassed the scenes where something particularly important was going on — the music started after the moment. But the silences were particularly important, as they allowed the audience to get absorbed by the content of the shot instead of the music. The content made us feel a specific way. And the music, which started seconds after the moment, simply picked us up where we were and carried us along, further emphasizing our feeling. Beautifully done.

The one other thing I remember is the importance of sound near the end of the film, when Nash was hearing voices. The scene that stands out in particular is when he's speaking with his wife and Dr. Rosen. He hears a faint giggle and says, "is that the baby?" It's heartbreaking and touching at the same time.

We, the audience, listen to sound from Nash's point of view, which makes it hard for us to distinguish what's real and what isn't. At the moment mentioned above, we don't know that the baby is with Alicia's mother, and we think, "wow, what a tender moment, he just heard is baby's faint giggle, see, he does pay attention to things that are real and meaningful." Then, we discover that the baby isn't there.

The way the filmmaker used sound to manipulate the way we saw each scene was fantastic, because you don't realize it as it's happening. We think each sound is one everyone can here and only realize later we were listening to what Nash could hear in his subjective reality.

I'm eager to watch at least two other films, see what I think of them without listening too carefully, and then picking the one I want to focus on.

Walter Murch

I've been reading Michael Ondaatje's The Conversations: Walter Murch and the Art of Editing Film and I've been surprised at how much I've learned so far.

I didn't know anything about Murch before opening the book and, based on the title, figured that it was simply about editing film. How wrong I was.

Walter Murch is a sound designer as well as editor, and this book has given me the chance to understand, at least more than I had, the art of sound editing and design.

Murch was the sound editor in the film The Conversation. The Conversation is the story of a private surveillance expert who is following and recording everything said by a young couple. And the way Murch manipulated sound in the film was extraordinary. I don't know if I was more aware of it because I had just finished reading about it, but the entire movie was filmed from the main character's point of view, including sound. The audience hears nothing Harry Caul can't hear.

Had the film been set up any other way, the outcome would have been so completely different. Caul spends much of the film mulling over the conversation he recorded at the opening. Whenever there was interference with the recording, all we heard was the distorted version of the couple's voices. We were kept in the dark not due to visuals, but due to sound. Sound was everything in this picture. And the way it manipulated our thoughts about the actions was fascinating. Sound led the film, whereas in many other films I feel the picture leads it. Sound had an obvious impact on the audience, it wasn't as subtle as I normally feel it to be. But it worked perfectly because we, the audience, were yearning to uncover the secret of the couple just as much as Caul was and we knew just how to get there, we just needed the right sound.

Up the Yangtze

I watched "Up the Yangtze" tonight and the very first thing I noticed was how they didn't remove all of the natural sounds.

We learned in class that the filmmaker wants to focus solely on the actors voices so that the audience does not get distracted by any other noises. However, in the first few minutes of the film, we can hear the wind rustling the leaves of the plants clearly. And I loved being able to hear that. I assume that because the film is a documentary, it would capture any and all sounds. This makes me wonder — are all documentaries the same? I would guess they would be, but is there ever a case where the shots are set so that only the actors voices are heard and the rest of the sound is minimized?

I realize though, after hearing the natural sounds, how much I loved them. It didn't distract me in the least. It made the whole story feel real, more so than any blockbuster film does.

Funny, how that works. Wouldn't all filmmakers want their stories to feel real?

Musicals

Musicals are my favorite genre of film. I could pop a musical into my DVD player and watch it over and over again, never tiring from listening to the songs being performed. Of the hundreds of times I've seen musicals, I never once thought of all the work that goes into making sure the audio track is synced with the movement of the actors' lips during singing scenes — until I watched a behind the scenes feature on the Glee DVD.

Before I knew any better, I assumed voices were recorded while filming and those were what was used in the final piece, no ifs, ands or buts. However, on one of the behind the scenes clips from the Glee DVD, one of the actresses is talking about how they have to record the songs in a studio prior to filming, and then sing along with the recording so that the movement of the lips match the song.

Who knew?

Definitely not me. A lip-syncher in a crowd of actual singers stands out like a a candle in a pitch black room. They're always so easily spotted. I guess that's why they actually sing along with their recorded voices during taping. Does it ever happen that the producers like the live version better than the recorded version and use that instead? I wonder.

I think a big part of it is that I never realized that voices that are recorded can be muted out so that replacement voices can be added in. It makes perfect sense that they do all of this. Nobody wants to watch a movie where the singing is off-key or where you can hear voices but the mouths aren't moving. It's interesting how much I've learning so far. And I never stop learning. There's always something new.

Instrumental vs. Vocal Music

Ever since the start of my movie soundtrack class, I've done some thinking about the challenges a composer must face when trying to compose the soundtrack for a film. My professor explained to the class how composers are given a short amount of time to create the soundtrack after the film is complete. I've heard some incredible soundtracks in my life and it occurred to me that most movies are composed of either instrumental music or vocal music.

This made me wonder: how does a composer decide in such a short amount of time whether he or she wants to create a soundtrack based on instrumental music or on vocal music? Do composers usually stick to either one kind or the other? I imagine they do — in my mind I think of movies as either being made up of purely instrumental sounds or music with lyrics. What makes a film, then, or a specific scene, worthy of instrumental music or what makes one worthy of vocal music? Is vocal music more modern? No, it doesn't seem to be that way. Many modern movies use instrumental music. Is instrumental music used in films where the director wants to reach his or her audience through their emotions without the possibility of them listening too closely to the words? I'm not sure, but I sure would love to understand more about the process.

On another note, I've also been wondering when a scene in a film, or a film as a whole, merits an original song or score. Why is it that some films simply use music that's already been recorded and produced when others get music specially recorded for the film? Does it depend on the genre of the film? Is it the director who wants a new recording to be used at the climax in order to convey the exact emotion he or she wants? Or is it the composer who decides based on the amount of time he or she has, his or her ability and his or her interpretation of the scene?

So many questions. I hope to be able to learn more about the process and understand why films are made up of different scores, instrumental or vocal; original or not.

Authentic Sounds

Although it makes sense now that I've thought about it, I had never realized how unreal "authentic sounds" in films are. The fact that sounds such as a gun shot or birds chirping — sounds that make a scene in a film as close to real life as can be — are recorded prior to the shooting of the scene and embedded onto the soundtrack seems contradictory. I understand that while filming, authentic sounds may not be picked up as well or may not work in the scene properly, but to me, that would be what makes a scene real.

Now, when I watch a film and hear any sort of sound that's supposed to be authentic, I know I'll be thinking twice about what I hear, wondering whether or not it's a fake "real" sound, or if it's one of the few truly authentic sounds picked up while shooting and kept for the scene.

While I watched The Departed this evening, I couldn't help but think about how all of those gun shots were recorded after shooting was done; how they weren't real at all. I know it's something I can look past, something that doesn't have to bother me, but it may take a bit of time before I let it go.

Noticing Sound Transitions

I spent this past weekend in Guelph with my cousins, where they spent much of the time watching the entire first season of Glee. I joined in for episode five, titled "The Rhodes Not Taken." Throughout the episode I was more attuned to a few concepts we learned in class, such as the different kinds of sound transitions. The one sound transition I picked up on time after time was the 'sound anticipating picture' transition.

The first time I noticed it happen was in the scene where the teacher, Will, was talking to a coworker about meeting up with an old fellow student, April. Right at the end of the scene, a doorbell sounds, and it's only a few seconds later that the scene cuts to Will at the door of April's house, waiting for her to answer.

The second time I noticed the 'sound anticipating picture' transition was later on in the episode, when the scene showed a teacher and a student conversing early in the day. However, before the scene was over, the voice of the principal could be heard introducing the Glee club at the Invitational that was taking place later on in the evening. A few seconds later the scene cuts and we see the principal standing in front of a microphone on stage, introducing the Glee club.

As I continued watching episodes, I noticed this type of transition multiple times. I think it's so great that after one class my ear is already picking up on little details that are unnoticeable to many. I can't wait to learn more, and, in turn, hear more as the semester goes on.

Blog Topics

General: how has / is the course expanding or changing your knowledge of the movie soundtrack in terms of its history and overall scope?

Technical: what technical points regarding soundtrack production have / are you picking up through the lectures and otherwise?

Analytical: how is your deeper understanding of the soundtrack’s functions and contributions to narrative discourse as well as abstract, experimental and performance-based explorations developing over the semester?