Unit 38.1

UNIT 7.1 

INTRODUCTION

In any form of moving image productions, sound is a key and essential part of production as it becomes a clear indicator to audiences as to what is going on in the scene and helps to emphasise and tell a narrative on screen. Sound can often range in many forms in media including dialogue, music and sound effects. In this essay I’ll be taking a look at three scenes/episodes from three forms of moving media in particular animation film and a documentary. I’ll be also analysing how each form of media uses sound to help them to get their respective messages across to the audience.

CASE STUDY 1 CHILDREN OF MEN OPENING SCENE (2006)

 Firstly, I will be analysing is the opening scene to the movie Children of Men (2006). In the opening moments of the scene there are no forms of background music, in fact to compliment the setting, the movie uses ambiance, being the base use of sound to give off a sense of realism such as bus noises, people talking and so on so forth. These sounds were used to indicate that the city of London, is still busy. The scene mixed with the ambiance of the city also includes dialogue to add more and more realism as well as life into the character, for example the news headlines that we hear at the beginning of the scene, is a good example of how functional dialogue works, using short sentences that mainly informs the audience of anything, with a powerful meaning that gets the audience feel something. This scene also uses Hyper realism, towards the end of the scene, when the explosion occurs the sound is exaggerated by the use of ringing noises and the ricochet of the bomb's impacts, to the point where all other sounds such as the aforementioned ambiance, and dialogue are met with faces of shock and drowning screams layered into, the ringing sounds, that are heavily exaggerated mainly to suggest that an important event has occurred. Another implication of this could simply be the way the character is feeling and what they may be hearing giving us as an audience an involvement in the story as to what may be going on, putting us in the protagonist's shoes, this mixed with the use of a camera following the perspective of the protagonist helps us as the audience, see the scene in a more clear perspective and helps us develops more of an understanding of what happens on screen. 

The purpose of a scene in a movie is to create a mood, and as a result of this scene’s musical score overall, has given it the result of a scene that’s considered dull at first, we know this because of the ambiance used a little before the explosion occurs we can hear, talking and city noises, that can be seen as naturalistic to the audience, as it’s something that would be expected to be heard in a setting as dull as this one. Making for an example of a “calming before the storm” type scene. However, hear we also have a good example of having a disruption in the scene, where we have the bomb part of the scene occur. Both of these examples are good examples of synchronous sound, which for the scene is a bonus as it allows it to clearly tell and show the story as it unfolds in the opening scenes. 

CASE STUDY 2 CHILDREN OF MEN ENDING SCENE (2006)

The next example that I'll be analysing is the final scene of from the movie “Children of Men” from the scene “We’re safe" and how sound mainly effects the way the scene is portrayed. 

Firstly, there's a slight use of music towards Theo's death to indicate that something's sad or melancholy is about to occur, the music used is a sad choir type of music. By using this type of music, it gives this scene a sense of emotional realism, being symbolic to the build-up towards Theo’s death, by doing so it’s gives off the implication that something has occurred, as the scene progresses the music gets louder and becomes an indication of the boat, almost giving the boat its own motif, in the movie to help signify safety or the assurance that something good will happen, by giving the boat this track or “motif” it’s helping give the scene more life as well as characteristic as well. This is all non-diegetic forms of sound that helped developed a freedom type mood for the audience to experience whilst being melancholy as well. Sound effects also work well in this scene, the use of ambiance, in this scene such as the lighthouse or even the rolling of the waves too. 

Both scenes from the movie can be found here on YouTube for further reference.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wCTgUq6hzUk (Opening scene)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SMJqQ3VrcCA (Ending scene)

 CASE STUDY 3 STACEY DOOLEY INVESTIGATES ONLINE DRUGS:

Unlike the previous case study being a movie, this case study differs as it’s now a documentary that was based in 2016 about Drug dealers, and how the trades are done online now using social media.

Music in a documentary is often used as a form of non-diegetic sound that's used to create the mood and overall meaning of the documentary and mainly what it's about. The way that the documentary does this is mainly through using eerie music during scenes with meetings of the drug dealers to emphasise a suspicious and tense atmosphere, as dealing with people with such shady backgrounds could lead to anything sinister, an example of this would be around the 18:39 mark just when Stacey is about to meet the first drug dealer Tye, what makes it work, is as the music is playing connoting something sinister, Stacey also exclaims that she's "scared" and doesn't really know what to expect from a situation, which adds to the scene more and creates further tension.

By doing so it makes the scene as well as the documentary more intriguing to watch. Other examples of music contrast with other scenes where it could be argued that a motif is used to indicate a certain scene involving an encounter with drug dealers as such. In contrast to the dialogue as well as sound effects there are instances where the music sounds as if it's drowning other aspects of the score. Overall this could make the noise distorted.

SOUND EFFECTS:

In terms of sound effects, they range between the non-diegetic as well as diegetic realms of noise in this documentary in particular. In terms of diegetic noise, the most prominent example would be the use of ambience, being any background noises that could be heard throughout the documentary as most of it is filmed outside a massive example of this would be around the 25-minute mark of the video where a scene takes place between a snapchat employee (interviewee) and Stacey. As this conversation is going on we can also hear cars and other vehicles, in the background as well as other forms of ambient noises that exaggerate any forms of life in the city. Overall however the sound effects that are utilised in this documentary are also really synchronous overall, the reason for this is to match the documentary visually with what’s being expressed in terms of audio. 

In terms of non-diegetic sound is found throughout the entirety of the documentary, an example of this is, the meet up scenes (as aforementioned) especially the texting scenes, each time an animated graphic appears with the texts on screen we can hear little pings as well as typing noises, to emphasise activity between both people, as well as to emphasise and exaggerate realism with the drug dealer before they meet. Often examples of hyper real noises as their exaggerated by, using realistic noises to display an action or interaction that occurs. By doing this the documentary keeps it less boring, and more enjoyable to watch as the documentary isn't just giving us a static long shot, of Stacey standing there with background music which would deem to become boring as it's not very appealing for the audience to watch. Also, by using this example of hyper realism the documentary also helps to dictate any form emotional realism overall, as it helps by giving us insight in what is going on with both a mix of visuals and sound effects to help that scene stand out in particular.

DIALOGUE/SPOKEN WORD:

Interview techniques: In interviews, both between the interviewer and interviewee, it's often clear to understand what's being said from Stacey as her accent is easy to understand and that she's loud and clear whereas, when it came to the interviewees, there are instances where there is an issue that nothing is being understood so in order to breach that gap between the audience and character the the documentary visually uses subtitles to help the audience understand what's being said, as there are some accents/dialects that may not be understood by the audience or the person is too quiet. A prominent example is around the 14:03 mark and further, the interviewees have a strong accent that is hard to understand, and with the use of a face mask it's harder to hear what's being said as in some instances they may seem quiet or the dialect is confusing, and strong. The Questions that is asked by Stacey helps us to further understand what's going on in the minds of these people as they're always asked deeper questions that get the people she speaks to for them to be open and honest, such as asking for views and their ages etc.

Voice Over:

Voice overs used in this documentary were done by Stacey herself and was dubbed over the entire documentary, in points to help dictate to the audience what direction the documentary is going, or even used to help tell a story or exaggerate any dynamic effects, such as at the beginning of the documentary where Stacey, opens with facts and statistics with a stern tone of voice helps with the audience to get hooked into the facts and figures of the entire thing and get them understanding, with what the program is about. The dialect she has is again easy to understand and with a loud projected voice helps to understand what is being said in the documentary. 

OVERALL:

In conclusion, the sound mix used in this documentary in particular is a good example of how sound works all together to help produce a piece of media overall. Music is used to help set the theme and the setting for what the documentary overall has to offer to audiences giving them expectations. Sound effects allow for more exaggerated sound, more hyper realism and more so making the scene work.

CASE STUDY 4 POKEMON SUN AND MOON EPISODE 140 (2019)

Animation is a very popular form of moving image production that’s been consumed by many audiences, 

Music-- in this episode is a form of non-diegetic music, used to build tension between fights, considering that the fight scenes in this mirror a major fight. Music used is to mirror the way the scene is and dictates the scene as well as gives audiences an idea of what the emotion behind the scene is like. Used in a synchronous fashion especially between the final scenes of the episode. The music often in this scene dictates the way the scene goes on if it's upbeat it represents a positive moment or battle scene, otherwise if we have a form of melancholy music it references some form of sad scene, or a loss in the episode.

 Sound effects in this scene often go between smaller assets such as voice clips that include grunts or the cries of other characters in the scene mixing well with the score of the scene overall, by doing so it gives the episode's score a fixed feeling and atmosphere as all the sound effects and music in this scene are all synchronous. By doing so, it helps everything link towards one another.  Prominent examples of any clear sound effects are as aforementioned, being any grunts or battle cries as well as any environmental noises such as the waves crashing, to emphasise any further tension, or destruction showing a fight or battle scene by using things such as building destruction sounds as well. Showing any negative signs to the scene making it a double-edged sword for the audience and scene overall.  Some sounds are extremely exaggerated giving a sense of hyper realism overall. Other instances of Sound effects, that were used included motives or indications that something big was going to occur in the episode for example, when the same sound effect would play in the mix for an "Ultra hole" the same bit of sound would play to simply to indicate and let the audience know that something such as this portal is going to open or a something big is coming. Sound effects really are a powerful way of showing and indicating any forms of importance in a scene, in this scene not only did it help with the score being synchronous, it also helped with the audio being recognisable by audiences. The use of ambiance in the scene as well as some realism to the environments shown such as waves 

Dialogue/Spoken word:

Dialogue or spoken word in an animation is a crucial aspect in a form of moving media, as it helps to dictate what’s going on in the episode. Overall as the scene is full with action and fight aspects in a scene we can simply expect there to be a lot of functional dialogue, small snappy and short commands or strings of dialogue. By using functional dialogue throughout tense scenes, it adds more towards the concept of emotional realism, giving the scene more to work with and making it overall something entertaining to watch as well overall. Another key aspect with the dialogue is that like other sound aspects in this episode such as effects and music the dialogue, also comes underneath being synchronous, as the dialogue in the scene is and follows up to what happens on screen, if that wasn’t the case then the scene would end up on being distorted and everything would seem out of place, making the episode fall apart. Something else that evens out the dialogue is also narration in these episodes that can be heard at the beginning and ending of each episodes, helps to dictate what’s going on in the episode, also giving the audience some form of story or assurance as to what’s happening in the scene.