Some Sound Analysis and Tutorial
This American Life ‘Hearing Maps’ – Listening to the background noise of your environment, the speaker listened to his heater in his office and started harmonising with it by humming. He also noticed his computer was humming, brought a tuner into the office and tried to figure out the notes. It turned out to be a major third, traditionally perceived as a happy interval. The Telephone added a higher note, making it an augmented fourth. He researched this interval and identified it as the devils interval deemed so by the catholic church.
Takeaway- Pay attention to room tones, it will help with atmos beds. Pitch bend your atmos, and use major intervals for happy scenes, and minor intervals for sad scenes etc. Through this technique you can subtly influence your audience through atmosphere and room tone.
Parasite- There is use of room tone and atmosphere to differentiate the families in Parasite. The rich family are associated with nature sounds and quiet calming room tones, the poor family are associated with an urban noisy, oppressive environment. The door is an important motif, the foley is very loud and grand, like a castle gate, it’s the heavy barrier between the poor and the rich, emphasising the privacy of the rich. They also used reverb to emphasise the luxuries of wealth, the poor house has a claustrophobic reverb, whereas the rich house has a vast (marble wall type) reverb.
Elephant man- His breathing takes prominence in the mix, even close up shots that isolate another character while they speak. This brings the protagonist and the audiences experience closer together, it also emphasises the claustrophobic and uncomfortable nature of the characters condition. Breath is very important in sound design, it helps connect the audience and character. The elephant man also uses a train station’s atmosphere to reflect the protagonists sense of panic as children start to harass him, remember to use setting as a reflection of character psychology.
Force Majeur- Character analysis, the visuals were telling us they are a happy family, but the sound was ominous and unsettling with awkward silences, this is dramatic irony. They are on Holliday to enjoy themselves, but for most of the time there was no peace in terms of sound, there were a lot of industrial sounds. The atmos added a lot of pressure to the restaurant scene, raising the tension until the turning point of act 1, the avalanche. The only non diegetic music in the film is summer by Vivaldi, adding to the sense of irony as it’s a negative take on an otherwise ‘happy’ time. The family isn’t working, and the sound makes this very clear, its uncomfortable all the way through even though, visually, there is no reason why the audience would feel this way.
Tutorial- I need to keep in mind that I am telling a story, the audience need to be able to identify the perspective, and remain connected to the character comfortably. This can be done through use of breath and foley, to tether the audiences focus and create a constant throughout the cutting back and forth from different times and environments. I also need to soften the atmospheres, the visual jumps around a lot, cutting from one environment to another. This coupled with my contrasting atmospheres results in feeling of being chucked around, it’s hard for the audience to be grounded in the story when this is the case.