Sound In Cinema: A Brief History
1. We all know that first there was silent film and then there was sound. But that's not the whole story.
Before films talked they still made themselves heard through intertitles and musical accompaniment.
And after the introduction of the microphone, there were still questions about how to use the
technology.
2. Though Edison did not invent film, he always conceived that this visual medium and his phonograph
would mesh to make sound film, and was busy trying to invent sound film almost from the birth of
cinema—from about 1885—more than a third of a century before sound film became commercially
feasible.
3. Inventors and entrepreneurs needed to overcome several problems before sound could be accepted.
First, silent film audiences seemed perfectly happy with silent movies, perhaps because the movies
were never completely silent, almost always accompanied by music of some kind: from a multi
pieced pit orchestra for big openings, to a single piano, or even a guitar if no one in a small town
could play the larger instrument.
4. Early on, when film prints travelled from small town to small town in the American heartland, they
were often narrated by a live raconteur, who would explain the action on-screen to audiences.
"Intertitles"—those cards between moments of action—contained explanations of action, or
important moments of dialogue, or even bits of poetry to set the mood.
5. Also, by the 1920s, silent film writing, acting, photography, and music had reached an aesthetic
pinnacle: very subtle emotional and plot nuances could be conveyed without the use of any
accompanying dialogue. In fact, as the era of sound film drew to a close, filmmakers were able to
convey their stories with a bare minimum of intertitles.
6. The Jazz Singer (1927) was notthe first commercially released sound film. Warner Brothers and
Vitaphone had earlier been releasing "shorts" in which people sang and told jokes, and released a
feature-length film called Don Juan, which contained a musical score, in 1926, the year before Al
Jolson sang "Mammy" on film.
7. More important than audience satisfaction with silence, however, was the technological difficulty of
matching sound and visuals in such a way that everyone in the audience could hear. In other words,
the problems were synchronization and amplification.
8. Unlike the invention of film, the solutions to these problems were largely American, the result of the
work of several American corporations: RCA, Western Electric, AT&T, and Warner Brothers.
9. Other nontechnological problems had to be resolved at the advent of sound: Some actors did not
sound the way they looked on the silent screen.
10. It was difficult for silent scene writers to find the right balance in sound scripts between action and
dialogue. Studios justifiably feared losing the international audience that silent film could
automatically rely on. And so on. However, after these and other early problems with sound were
solved, this technology became another element that filmmakers could play with to make film going
even more pleasurable than it had been.
DIGETIC AND NON DIGETIC SOUNDS:
Diegetic
1. Sound is called diegetic when its source is visible or implied in the world of the film.
2. Common diegetic sounds present in most films are:
❖ actors speaking to each other (dialogue)
❖ sounds originating from any object on the screen, like footsteps and police sirens
❖ music that comes from a sound system or orchestra
3. Diegetic [di-a-JE-tic] comes from the greek word diegesis and it means to recount a story.
4. Diegetic is also known as actual or literal sound.
5. Diegetic sounds can further be categorized as source-connected or source-disconnected depending
on whether the sound source is visible or implied on the screen. A visible source is shown on the
screen, while an implied source is still part of the film world but not shown on the screen.
6. Diegetic music is understood to emanate from a source in the fictional narrative or “diegesis”. Hence
it is also known as “source music”. These sources may include a radio, stereo, speakers, live
musicians, and so on.
7. Whether or not we see the source is unimportant. So long as we understand the music to be coming
from something in the film itself, it qualifies as diegetic music. Thus, the characters in the film are
able to hear this music.
8. Examples:
❖ The cantina scene in the original Star Wars is an example of diegetic music.
❖ The iconic intro of the James Bond movies has a diegetic sound effect because we hear the
gunshot as it happens on the screen
Non-Diegetic
1. Sound is said to be nondiegetic when its source is not present or implied in the narrative universe.
2. Common instances are:
❖ music or score, used to augment emotions
❖ actor’s commentary or narration
❖ any extra sound added for effect
3. Non-diegetic is also known as commentary or nonliteral sound.
4. Conversely, non-diegetic music is understood not to emanate from the film itself, so the characters
do not hear it.
5. Other names for this type of music include “underscore”, “accompanimental music”, “commentary
music”, “interpolated music”, and perhaps most commonly, “background music”.
6. Most film music is non-diegetic music, one of the most familiar instances being the music for the
shower scene in Psycho.
A Third Category: Source Scoring
1. While the difference between diegetic and non-diegetic music is clear, some film music cannot be
described as entirely one or the other. In his book, Scoring for Films, Earle Hagen argues for a third
category of film music he calls source scoring, a combination of source music and dramatic
scoring (or non-diegetic music).
2. Most often literal and nonliteral sounds are combined in the same scene. Assume that we see a
mother and her son walking along the beach. We hear their dialogue (literal, source-connected), the
pounding of the surf (literal, source-disconnected). When their conversation turns to the recent
funeral of Gradma, music comes in to underscore the sad memories (nonliteral). Such a mixture of
literal and nonliteral sounds communicates what the event is all about and also how it feels. It
“shows” the outside and the inside of the event simultaneously.
3. This kind of music is like source in its content, but tailored to meet scoring requirements. … This kind
of cue can start as pure source music and change over to source scoring. … The main difference
between Source and Source Scoring is that source scoring takes on a much closer relationship to the
film. It follows the framework of the scene more critically and matches the nuances of the scene
musically.
SYNC SOUND:
1. Sound design is the process of specifying, acquiring, manipulating or generating audio elements. It is
employed in a variety of disciplines including filmmaking, television production, theatre, sound
recording and reproduction, live performance, sound art, post-production, and video game software
development.
2. Dialogue is big part of the narrative and the actor’s performance. It is the dialogue, unlike music and
sound effects that hooks the audience and carry the story forward, so a lot of emphasis and money is
placed in getting the audio recorded in optimal quality.
3. The common flaws with the unedited, raw audio captured during principal photography:
Story-relevant dialogue is not clear
Unwanted background noises, like wind and cars, can overwhelm audio
Inconsistent audio levels, varying according to mic proximity, can be obnoxious.
Some sounds lack weight. Hence the need for foley.
4. Some sound elements that are exclusive to post-production are:
Foley sounds: sounds created in post-production to mimic an action in the footage.
music: scores used to augment emotions
sound editing: the process of editing and mixing several sound components to form the final
soundtrack of a film.
5. Music is one of the elements of a film’s sound design. It is different from dialogue and sound effects
in that usually it does not have its source as part of the filmic space. Gunshots and door slamming,
for instance, are heard when they happen on the screen (diegetic sound).
But music, on the other hand, is often an “additional” component of sound design, written by a composer
during post-production. Like most elements of filmmaking, the goal of music is to augment emotions
and manipulate viewers. More often than not, the source of music, or score, is not produces by a
source in the filmic space (non-diegetic sound).
6. Perhaps the most interesting use of sound in a movie is the very absence of it: silence. Directors may
use silence in much the same way that they would use a freeze frame. Both tend to arrest the
audience’s attention to highlight some action or change in story direction. Silence can be used to
build up a scene’s intensity or to foreshadow impending doom.
7. There are two large categories of sound: synchronous and nonsynchronous. These two categories
define all possible film sounds.
Synchronous sound can be either ambient (sound recorded during the filming of a sequence and
retained in the final cut) or a sound effect, the product of a Foley or ADR (Automated Dialog
Replacement) technicians. In other words, that dialogue you hear could have been live, or it could
have been dubbed if the filmmakers were not satisfied with the sound on-screen. For example, in
one sequence of Spartacus (1960), Los Angeles traffic noise could be heard in the background.
Filmmakers had the dialogue dubbed over the ambient soundtrack so that audiences would not
wonder what the purr of a '57 Chevy was doing in ancient Rome.
Nonsynchronous sound can also be ambient: While we watch children at play, a mother calls them
home just off screen. While the camera captures the exterior of Fort Anxiety, we hear the
pony-soldier captain ask for a parlay as we see the white truce flag go up. More frequently, however,
nonsynchronous sound is the product of postproduction technicians determining the emotional and
intellectual impact of a certain scene through sound. At the simplest level, music is used to
determine how the audience's response to a particular moment. The violins swell as the two leads
pucker up for the climactic kiss.
8. Few Important Steps:
The first step to take towards recording good sound is to use an external microphone and plug it into
your camcorder's microphone input.
In order to record sound separately, you'll need an audio recorder of some kind. This could be
a model with built-in mics or XLR inputs; either will probably better the recording quality of your
camera. Using a separate recorder will allow you to plug in a directional shotgun mic, which can be
mounted on a boom pole in order for a sound person to get closer to the action. Even if you aren't
using a sound person, having a separate recorder capturing the sound via a camera-mounted
shotgun mic is usually a step up from using on-camera sound
To synchronise three cameras and sound, all you need is a clapperboard. If you don't have one, you
don't really need the 'per board' part: all you need is a simple handclap, captured on all three
cameras and all of the mics. Suppose you have a one camera, or any number of cameras, and
a separate sound recording system: all you have to do is put everything into record, confirm that all is
rolling, and clap once in view of all the cameras and range of the recorder.
9. Sync Tanks:
Theoretically, the first stage of sound editing is "spotting," where the editor(s) and possibly the
director go through each second of the film with the supervising sound editor in order to generate a
list of every sound that needs to be added, augmented, or replaced. This practice has fallen prey to
demands for early previews, which have wreaked havoc on postproduction schedules.
Dialog editing is mostly a matter of cleaning up production sound. Some of the dialog heard in the
completed film was not recorded on location. Shooting silent (MOS) is much easier than having to
achieve perfect quiet from the crew, the crowd watching the film, or airplanes and birds passing
overhead. Even with the compliance of onlookers, nature, and ubiquitous car alarms, however, miked
dialog may be unusable because it picked up extraneous noises such as a squeaky camera dolly or
clothing rustle.
Despite these difficulties, directors almost always prefer production dialog, which is an integral part
of the actors' performances, to looping (rerecording speech in post-production). Although there is a
trend in looping sessions toward using booms and the original microphones to mimic the situation
on the set, it is nearly impossible to duplicate all the conditions of the shoot. It is tough, however, for
actors to match later the emotional level they achieved on the set.
Dialog can also be edited to affect characterization. Suppose the director wants to make an
arch-villain more domineering. A mixer could raise the volume of his voice and adjust the tonal
qualities to make him sound larger than life. It's the aural equivalent of someone invading our space
by standing too close to us. The picture editor could enhance the villain's sense of menace by
regularly cutting to his voice before we see him. Because he seems to lurk just beyond the edges of
the frame, the viewer will feel uneasy about his potential reappearance whenever he is not present.
Dialog that cannot be salvaged from production tracks must be rerecorded in a process called
looping or ADR (which is variously said to stand for "automated" or "automatic" dialog replacement).
Looping originally involved recording an actor who spoke lines in sync to "loops" of the image which
were played over and over along with matching lengths of recording tape. ADR, though faster, is still
painstaking work. An actor watches the image repeatedly while listening to the original production
track on headphones as a guide. The actor then re performs each line to match the wording and lip
movements. Actors vary in their ability to achieve sync and to recapture the emotional tone of their
performance.
. Sound is very subjective and dependent upon the visual context and the mood set up in the image.
The soundtrack of real life is too dense for film. In the real world, our minds select certain noises and
filter out others. For instance, we mentally foreground the person speaking to us even if the
background is louder. On film, the sound effects editors and rerecording mixers have to focus for us.
Focusing on selected sounds can create tension, atmosphere, and emotion. It can also impart
personality to film characters. Walter Murch (the doyen of sound designers) once described the
character sounds (in a film he directed) as "coronas" which can magnify each character' s screen
space. A figure who is associated with a particular sound (often suggested by his or her clothing), has
"a real presence that is pervasive even when the scene is about something else or the character is
off-screen."
The climactic moment of postproduction sound is called the "mix" in New York and the "dub" in L.A.
On the screen the credit goes to a rerecording mixer, but that term is rarely heard in daily parlance.
At the mix all the tracks--singly called elements--are adjusted in volume and tonal quality relative to
each other and the image. The mixer also has to equalize, blend, and balance the tracks for the
seamless, invisible style that characterizes Hollywood style cutting. Thus, at a minimum, the mixer
must match sounds created by dozens of technicians in different times and places. Mixers have a
number of tools. Equalizers and filters, for example, can boost or decrease the intensity of low,
middle, or high frequencies in order to make dialog or sound effects match those that came from
microphones and sources with different characteristics. Filters are also used to eliminate unwanted
steady frequencies, such as the buzz of an air conditioner. In dealing with image size, the mixer
adjusts perspective (determined mainly by the ratio of direct to indirect or reflected sound), which
can be manipulated through the addition of artificial reverberation.
Great rerecording mixers are artists as much as technicians. The mixers' console is their palette: they
have an infinite number of choices for blending. Their tools can be used in expressive ways. For
example, an annoying voice can be adjusted to sound more screechy, or the roar of an approaching
truck can be made more ominous. At the mix some of the many sound effects are heightened and
others are lowered or eliminated.
Technology has inevitably affected the aesthetics of the mix. A few decades ago, merely pausing to
make a correction would create an audible click, so an entire reel had to be mixed in one pass or
started over. Then, with the advent of "rock 'n' roll" systems, mixers were able to move back and
forth inch by inch.
OFFSCREEN SOUND:
1. Acousmatic sound is sound one hears without seeing their originating cause - a invisible sound
source. Radio, phonograph and telephone, all which transmit sounds without showing their emitter
are acousmatic media
2. Off screen sound in film is sound that is acousmatic, relative to what is shown in the shot. In a film an
acousmatic situation can develop along two different scenarios: either a sound is visualised first, or
subsequently acousmatized or it is an acousmatic to start with, and is visualized only afterward.
The first cause associates a sound with a precise image from the outset. This Image can the reappear
in the audience mind each time the sound is heard off screen
The second case, common to moody mystery films, keeps the sound´s cause a secret before revealing
all. (De-acousmatization)
3. Opposite of Acousmatic sound is Visualized sound - a sound accompanied by the sight of its source
or cause. In film a onscreen sound whose source appears in the image, and belongs to the reality
represented therein.
COLOUR AS A STYLISTIC ELEMENT:
1. We often watch movies, rarely paying attention to the color symbolism depicted in them. But if you
study the history of movies, you will find that all great directors have consciously used color
symbolism and psychology to effectively communicate with their audiences. Colors convey emotions.
And they usually convey emotions in a very subtle way, but also in a very uncontrolled manner.
Colors are undoubtedly an important aesthetic component in any artistic creation. This component
can be consciously used or not, depending on the artist and on the process. But it is always there.
2. In the beginning, color in films was only applied using manual tinting. This was a time consuming and
expensive project where every object in the scene had to be tinted manually.
3. The best examples of earliest films using hand tinting in this manner include the The Great Train
Robbery (1903) and The Last Days of Pompeii(1926).
4. By 1915, Kalmus’s Technicolor came into being, solving the problem of time needed in tinting objects
in films. His process helped capture natural colors of objects. It involved using two films along with
dye transferring to create a single film but it still had many color limitations.
5. Therefore, by 1930, Depression Era, most directors gave up making colored films due to expense and
other difficulties (and the fact that most audiences were just not bothered by lack of colors. They
simply did not mind watching movies in Black and White).
6. By 1932, luckily, Technicolor solved the expense problems by using the 3 films and 3 cameras
technique of tinting objects. The audiences by then were thirsty for colored films and Walt Disney
further explored and revolutionized these processes.
7. Critics however started paying attention to color symbolism in the movies by this era. For example,
the overuse of certain colors was frowned upon, especially colors like Blue etc.
8. Today, design experts are all aware of the impact of colors while using them in media. The movies
posters themselves show several layers of information through color symbolism; if stripped of colors,
they will not convey the message in a powerful manner as they normally do.
9. Naturally, age, culture, political views and geographical locations all impact how color symbolism in
the movies is interpreted. Each genre of movies: be it romantic, Sci-Fi, Action etc uses certain favored
colors to create individual identity for each movie.
10. Take the example of the movie Kill Bill- the yellow color posters were used to grab attention but they
also depicted Uma Thurman’s character’s madness and instability.
11. Colors are used not just for aesthetic purposes in movies but also for highlighting dramatic
developments, or for giving a movie a certain look and feel . , the best example of color symbolism
that depicts transition in movies is seen in the film The Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon. Jen, the
leading character is always shown in white; however, once she falls in love, she is shown in red.
12. Color Symbolism for expressions: In 2001’s Amelie, which again won many Academy awards, the
director used colors to show the inner reality of the characters. The cinematographer used
green-gold-red palette to depict her fairy tale view of the world.
13. Color symbolism to give a clue: M.Night Shyamalan is known to use red to leave certain ‘clues’ in his
films. For example in The Sixth Sense, he used red to depict objects that were touched by the other
worldly beings. He also used red in the Village.
14. Color symbolism to transport viewers to another time and place: Directors Joel and Ethan Cohen
have also used color symbolism to transport viewers to another era and place. They used dry and
dusty color palettes to take viewers back to the post- Depression era in the film, O, Brother Where
Art Thou? (2006)
15. All colors mean something on an emotional level and they can help add new visual layers to your
film. For example: warm colors (such as red, yellow, or orange) wake us up and get us moving while
cool colours (such as blue, green, white) have a calming effect on us.
RED – anger, passion, rage, desire, excitement, energy, speed, strength, power, heat, love, aggression,
danger, fire, blood, war, violence.
GREEN – healing, soothing, perseverance, tenacity, self-awareness, proud, unchanging nature,
environment, healthy, good luck, renewal, youth, vigour, spring, generosity, fertility, jealousy,
inexperience, envy
BLUE – faith, spirituality, contentment, loyalty, fulfillment peace, tranquility, calm, stability, harmony,
unity, trust, truth, confidence, conservatism, security, cleanliness, order, sky, water, cold, technology,
depression.
BLACK – No, power, sexuality, sophistication, formality, elegance, wealth, mystery, fear, anonymity,
unhappiness, depth, style, evil, sadness, remorse, anger
WHITE – Yes, protection, love, reverence, purity, simplicity, cleanliness, peace, humility, precision,
innocence, youth, birth, winter, snow, good, sterility, marriage (Western cultures), death (Eastern
cultures), cold, clinical, sterile.
16. Cinematographers often kind of use of flares or any photographic flaws – have purpose and drive
the story and scene in which they’re used. The audience may not be consciously aware, but they feel
it has meaning. In the back of everyone’s mind, they feel that its given use is right.
17. Light affects the audience’s feeling and emotions of scenes based on how it’s used. Next time you
watch a film, pay close attention, be aware of the light of the given scene. Also, recall from your own
life how you feel during certain moments of the day; afternoon – when the sun is directly above you,
harshly bright, mid-afternoon – when they light becomes less harsh, the magic/golden hour – when
the sun casts a beautiful warm glow to everything… Try to think how you feel during these moments
of the day, or when you’re in a brightly lit room as opposed to a minimally lit room; how do you feel ?
Directors and DP’s exploit light to make the audience feel what they want them to feel in any given
scene. Most of the time, none of this is left to chance – it’s planned, and executed to drive the story.
Everything in film in essence is guided by the story and its themes. The first aim of lighting is to make
things on stage visible. But the second aim, as important as the first, is to create an appropriate
mood for each moment of the story.
18. But light is not the only choice connected to colors in the elaboration of a show. Every choice relative
to the set, props, costumes also has an impact on the general color perception. And in the end, it is
the combination of the two (the elements on stage and the lighting) that provides the audience with
an emotional experience, partly impacted by the color perception.
19. The way directors approach colors is very different from one director to another. There are some
color theories that can be used as guidelines. Some directors follow them, or at least make their
choices being aware of them, and some directors have their own personal approach to color, which
may or may not be different from what these color theories propose. The way directors choose
colors is based, in my opinion, on several things, and the influence of these things can vary greatly
along their careers: what they know about colors, their culture, their experience in using colors, the
questions they ask themselves about colors, the possibility of them having a dialog about colors with
their lighting designer or their cinematographer, the show or the film they are directing and its needs
in terms of color, etc.
