Formalist and Realist Sound Effects
Sounds which serve for images
Table of Contents
1) Sounds in the film
2) Film Realism and Sound
3) Formalist Sound Effects
Sounds in the Film
Cinematic sound is that which does not
simply add to, but multiplies, two or three
times, the effect of the image.
Akira Kurosawa
Sounds in the Film
Sound Unit
or Sound Recording Unit
Production Recordist
Sound mixer
Boom operator
Third man
Sounds in the Film
Sounds in the Film
Sound Editor
Recording Mixer
Sounds in the Film
• SOUND EDITING AND
SOUND MIXING
• ‘Automated
dialogue
replacement’
(ADR)
Dubbing or Looping
• Creation
and
finding
sound effects and adding
them to a film
• Composing and/or finding
music and adding it to a
film
Sounds in the Film
• Each voice, effects and music occupies a
separate track
• A final mixing session puts dozens of such
separate tracks together into a single master
track on 35 mm magnetic film.
Film Realism and Sound
• The introduction of synchronous sound
recording (1928) and colour film (1950s) the two major technological changes which
contribute the development of film realism
• The arrival of sound leads to the birth of
naturalistic acting on screen.
Film Realism and Sound
• Alfred Hitchcock’s
Blackmail (1929)
• Started as a silent film
and re-shot as a talkie.
• Silent film acting and
static camera work
• Alfred Hitchcock’s
The Lady Vanishes
(1938)
• Naturalistic sound and
acting and naturalistic
sound
Film Realism and Sound
• In most of realist films, the process of
producing the sound track is simplified and
minimized.
• Direct synchronous sound recording with
little or no effect, music and no dubbing or
looping.
• Post-shooting sound editing is the
manipulation of reality and must be avoided.
Film Realism and Sound
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Eric Rohmer’s films (Le Femme de l’aviateur)
Direct synchronous sound recording
No dubbing (looping)
No sound effect
No music
No editing (microphone picks up every environmental
sound and the sound editor does not clean up noises)
Film Realism and Sound
• Filmmakers normally edit the sound.
• Background noises picked up during the shooting
are either erased or reduced so that dialogue can
be heard better.
• Dialogue and background noises are balanced.
Film Realism and Sound
• Satyajit Ray’s Pather
Panchali (Song of the
Little Road, 1955)
• Direct synchronous
sound recording with
minimum music from
Rabi Shankar
Formalist Sound Effects
• Sound can actively shape how we perceive
and interpret the image of reality and help
heightened the viewer’s sense of reality.
• Film realism or formalism?
• Sound can help us understand what images
cannot show us – inner feeling and
psychology of a character. Sound also
emphasizes them.
• Film realism or formalism?
Formalist Sound Effects
• Sound effects are added to enhance the mood of
a scene.
• Alan Parker’s Midnight Express (1978) A man
tries to smuggle drag out of Turkey. His heart
beats are exaggerated during passing the
immigration.
Formalist Sound Effects
• Heightened sounds
• Roman Polanski’s Repulsion
(1965)
• Carol, a Belgian manicurist
living in London, intensely
dislikes men, any men
commits a murder while her
roommate sister is away on
holiday.
Formalist Sound Effects
• Kurosawa Akira’s Seven Samurai (1954)
• Exaggerated natural sounds and the increase
of tension in the film
Formalist Sound Effects
• Use of silence
• Kurosawa Akira’s
Ikiru (Living, 1952)
• The shock and
blankness of the
protagonist is
expressed by silence.
Formalist Sound Effects
• Like noise or sound effect, music can shape
and emphasize the meaning of images.
• Sorts of music
• Source music, music specially composed
for a film, and existing recorded music
Formalist Sound Effects
• Woody Allen’s use
of sound and music
• The way in which
his choice of music
emphasises the
meanings of the
images he creates.
Formalist Sound Effects
• Francis Ford Coppola’s
use of Richard Wagner
in his Apocalypse Now
• Aggression, bellicosity,
and megalomania
Formalist Sound Effects
• Ironic use of music
• Stanley Kubrick’s Dr.
Strangelove (1964)
• A nuclear war started
between US and
USSR, nuclear
missiles are about to
hit their targets. Vera
Lynn’s 50s hit ‘We’ll
Meet Again’ is played
against nuclear
explosions.
Formalist Sound Effects • Is every music used for
formalist purpose?
• Any realist music?
• Ermanno Olmi’s Albero
degli zoccoli , 1978)
• Use of J.S. Bach’s
organ Choral.
• Subtle and unobtrusive
- underlying the dignity
of the lives and labour
of peasants.