Sound

Sound

By Josh Clarke

Sound was first introduced to silent films by adding live music to go with the mood of the film. This was usually done by a piano or organ but was sometimes done by an orchestra for highly rated film.

This all changed with the next film released with a soundtrack, 'Lights of New York' in 1928. This film was such a success that this created a rapid conversion to sound films.

Things of this world fall into the diegetic category. Films use on screen and off screen diegetic. The use of off screen diegetic gives the film a more real feel as it adds the extra dimension as we may not see the person, but we can hear them talking. This is off screen diegetic.

They give the film a sense of linking two scenes together. Sound bridges are when we hear sound from one scene, while the pictures move into another.

Parallel sound is when the sound we hear matches the mood of the images we see. e.g a happy song for happy images.

This is when a sound has been changed or manipulated to sound different or unusual to the viewer.

The introduction of sound to film

The first feature film to have a soundtrack was 'The Jazz Singer' starring Al Jolson and was a Warner Bros Production

Before this time, soundtracks were possible, but companies refused to pay large amounts of money for equipment when the silent movie industry was making great cash anyway.

Sound Bridges

DIEGETIC AND NON-DIEGETIC SOUND

However, films of today and their sound have drastically improved since then with the inclusion of dialouge and theb abilty to build sounds on top of each other.

This adds to a part of the films continuity and keeps the viewer focused

PARALLEL AND CONTRAPUNTAL SOUND

Contrapuntal sound is often called, ‘asynchronous’ sound.

disorientated sound

Contrapuntal sound is the opposite of this. This is when the mood of the music contrasts or portrays another mood to the images.

This can change the mood of the film or tell us something about the persons mood or feelings.