Aoife Brown and Shona Rooney

ARE AUDIENCES IMPACTED MORE BY THE SOUND, OR

THE VISUALS OF A FILM TEXT?

Silent films are the perfect medium for artistic expression due to its importance solely on visuals. The visuals bring out more creative expressiveness to express feelings, mood, thoughts and concepts to an audience. This style of fi lm is most commonly known as German Expressionism cinema.

In the early 1920’s, silent films used lighting, shadows and unusual camera angles to create the mood and atmosphere they wished to convey. Themes that most films of the1920’s expressed the culture and mentality of the period.

VISUALS IN FILM

1920 1990

A famous German Expressionist f i lm is The Cabinet of Dr Caligari (Robert Wiene); i t inspired a lot of f i lmmakers and directors for decades later. This fi lm used a lot of painted sets with harsh angular forms to express the narrative regarding mental i l lness, fear and horror. All visuals express the i l lusion of Dr Caligari’s ‘sick mind’.

The use of a variety of camera angles and techniques it helps engage its audience through the puzzling journey expressed.

Musical scores where engaged into silentfi lms to heighten emotions of charactersand create an atmosphere for its audience to perceive.

VISUAL FILM EXAMPLE

Tim Crooks found that the f irst sound heard in early cinema was music, performed live on acoustic instruments. He states although musical composit ion is a subject that cannot be contained in a short chapter, it has aesthetic properties that blend strongly in the mix with dialogic speech, narration, sound effects and ambience.

“Herrmann (1999) argues that ‘any f i lm could not ‘come to l ife’ without the assistance of a musical track.” Crook, Tim; The Sound Handbook Chapter 6, pg 171

Crook states “Film music must supply what actors cannot say” meaning music delivers what the actual word can’t.

"Our response to certain kinds of noise is something so profound in us that we can't switch it off," 

SOUND IN FILM

"Film composers know that and use it to shortcut the logical part of our brain and get straight to the emotional centers.“ (Science writer Philip Ball, author of The Music Instinct)A profound example of how filmmakers create fear; low frequency sounds called infrasound are created to induce anxiety, extreme sorrow, heart palpitations and shivering. Infrasound has been associated with areas of ‘supernatural activity’, they have also been produced prior to natural disasters, for example earthquakes.

In the 2007 horror Paranormal Activity , audiences also reported toweringly high fear levels despite a lack of action onscreen. Producer admit this was caused by the use of infrasound.

EXAMPLE OF SOUND IN FILM

“Sight and sound are equally crucial to our understanding of the world, yet the visual has dominated discussions of cultural experience. The very way we relate to, and think about, our everyday world has been influenced by this emphasis on sight over sound” – Michael Bull & Les Black, The Auditory Culture Reader

How sound can completely change a scene:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7acI5z9vyok

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5tMqcARKRSE

VISUALS AND SOUND

“Sound for film and television is an aural experience constructed to support the story of a narrative, documentary or commercial film or television programme” Tomlinson Holman (sound for film and tv)

“When you dedicate attention to every element that comprises the whole soundtrack – dialogue, sound effects and music – your story will hold more meaning to the audience, and you’ll deliver your message in a more memorable way” Jeffrey P Fisher.

SOUND EXAMPLES

The Cabinet of Dr Caligari, Attack scene.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KgHQa2V8yC8

E.g. An ECU heightens Cesare’s actions along with intensifying musical score, this makes us feel uneasy to what will happen. Here both sound and visuals are just as important.

VISUALS EXAMPLES

To conclude our seminar intervention, with gathering your research we hope to develop the hypothesis “Are audiences impacted more by the sound, or the visuals

of a film text?” to a firmer understanding.

CONCLUSION

We wou ld l i ke you to s i t a t tab le A i f you th ink v isua ls a re more impor tan t than sound in a f i lm and tab le B i f you th ink sound is more impor tan t than v isua ls in a f i lm.

I wou ld now l i ke to s ta r t a debate on your own fac ts and op in ions. tab le A s tudent , why d id you choose v isua ls ra ther than sound. . . . . Tab le B s tudent do u d isagree? And Why?

[5 min debate recorded by D ic taphone]

Thanks fo r your par t i c ipa t ion , we can now use th is l i ve debate o f in fo rmat ion to capture da ta regard ing our p roposed hypothes is /a rgument .

Whi le s i t t i ng in these two groups I wou ld l i ke to ask s ix qu ick ques t ions to ge t more ar t i cu la te data . 1. L is t a f i lm you wou ld descr ibe to have a h igh s tandard o f sound? 2. L is t a f i lm you wou ld descr ibe to have a bad s tandard o f sound? 3. L is t a f i lm you wou ld descr ibe to have a h igh s tandard o f v i sua ls? 4. L is t a f i lm you wou ld descr ibe to have a bad s tandard o f v isua ls? 5. Have u ever watched f i lm/spor t / tv p rogramme wi th no sound? I f so what was i t . . . . On a sca le o f 1 to 5 , how enter ta in ing was th is? 6. Have u ever watched f i lm/spor t / tv p rogramme wi th sound on ly? I f so what was i t . . . . On a sca le o f 1 to 5 , how enter ta in ing was th is?

ACTIVITY

Bull, M. and Back, L. (2003). The auditory culture reader . Oxford, UK: Berg.

http://www.ozsilentfi lmfestival.com.au/cms/uploads/movies/the_cabinet_of_dr_caligari.pdfCrook, Tim; The Sound Handbook Chapter 6, pg 171http://www.bbc.co.uk/arts/0/24083243 Quote - Science writer Philip Ball, author of The Music Instinct

Fisher, J. (2009). Soundtrack success . Boston, Mass.: Course.Holman, T. (1997). Sound for fi lm and television . Boston, Mass.: Focal Press.

REFERENCES