RESEARCH-Why is sound so important in a film?

Why is sound so important in a film?


George Lukas, director of the Star Wars franchise, argues that sound is 50% of a film. I don’t know if I completely believe that statement but it definitely contributes a lot to the atmosphere to a film and should be carefully selected in our film opening as well as visuals to create a full opening clearly showing our genre of horror.


In class we all watched the opening sequence to the film, The taking of Pelham 123, without any sound. I felt there was something missing and I couldn’t believe that the action was taking place without the sound. Towards the middle of the opening I lost interest and I could focus on the visuals without sound. We then viewed the opening again but for the second time we watched it normally with bot sound and visuals. With sound the opening flowed more than without and the transitions were smoother with a whoosh motif as the text move into each other which heightened the portrayal of the genre of action. The opening with sound also made me engage more with the story and made me want to see what was going to happen next.


Sound in film covers a wide spectrum of ways that creates different effects on the audience. It’s important to know and understand all the sound that is within a film to be able to select the right to show the message that we want to show to our audience in our film opening.


Wild track is a piece of audio that is recorded separately from the film but is used to replace audio in post-production that isn’t quite how it was intended to sound like. For instance if the scene is in a calm forest and there is a sound of a noisy car engine in the background the wild track of the calm forest that was recorded earlier in the forest can replace the original audio.


Ambient sound is background noise that is use to create atmosphere. For instance in a horror movie the ambient sound might be some eerie sound to create a scary atmosphere.


Diegetic sound is sound that is within the video or film’s world like a sound effect. However non-diegetic sound is sound added on top of the video or film which is not within the world of the film like music.


The score of the film is the original music that was written for the film. 


A voiceover is a piece of narration over in a film for example in Shawshank Redemption Morgan Freeman narrates a voiceover this can be used to move on the story of a film.


Dialogue is the speech or conversation of two or more people in the film.


Dubbing is mixing or re-recording sound in post-production mixed with original sound to enhance it. For example in most action films the sound of a punch is edited to sound more impactful to the audience.


Foley is the additional sound effects after the recording of the film is finished.


Synchronous sound is sound that is matched to movements that is occurring in a scene. For example if someone is walking in a scene. Whereas Asynchronous sound is sound that isn’t matched to certain movements in a scene.


A sound bridge is a common way of smoothly transitioning into another scene. A sound bridge is when sound that follows in to the next scene of the film is heard before the visual has move from the previous scene into the next.


A sound motif is a sound effect or piece of sound that is associated with a particular characters, setting, situation or idea through the film. Iconic sound motifs include Darth Vader’s death march music in Star Wars and the sinking ship music in Titanic.