Film Sound
Singin' in the Rain (Stanley Donen and Gene Kelly, 1952)
History of the Hollywood Musical
- Al Jolson in The Jazz Singer (the first "talkie," 1927)
- Busby Berkeley (1930s)
- Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers (later 1930s)
- MGM: the Arthur Freed unit (1940s and 1950s)
- Dancers: Fred Astaire, Gene Kelly, Cyd Charisse
- Directors: Vincente Minnelli, Stanley Donen
- Lavish production values, in Technicolor
- Integration of musical numbers into plot and character development
- Nonetheless, there are also standalone quasi-narrative dance sequences
- Decline of the musical in the 1960s and 1970s
- Recent revival of the genre (Moulin Rouge, Chicago, Dreamgirls)
Singin' in the Rain: Celebrating Film Sound
- A meta-musical, about the coming of sound to Hollywood
- Sound isn't just something added to the images...
- Rather, sound changes the very nature of the film.
- The Dueling Cavalier is ludicrously stilted
- Dialogue that made sense on title cards sounds ridiculous when spoken
- The actors' gestures seem exaggerated and unbelievable
- Miking problems -- noises and special effects gone awry
- Trouble when sound and image go out of sync ("Yes yes yes" and "no no no")
- In contrast, The Dancing Cavalier is sweepingly fluid
- Elaborate technicolor sets (which didn't actually exist in 1928)
- Fluid dance movements synchronized to the music
- Dialogue filled with fast, witty repartee
Singin' in the Rain: Techniques of the Musical
- Visibility of the technologies of sound reproduction
- Where to hide the microphone?
- Need to capture sound from all directions
- Early technical problems with film sound
- Dubbing, synchronization, etc.
- Re-recording in the studio, matching lips to sounds
- Lina (Jean Hagen) up front, Kathy (Debbie Reynolds) behind the curtain
- Multiple levels of the relation between sound and image
- Relation of sound to motion (the dance numbers)
Singin' in the Rain: Spectacle and Themes
- Problem of the voice: Jean Hagen's comic performance as Lina Lamont
- Contrapuntal sound: initial narration by Don Lockwood (Gene Kelly), accompanied by flashback
- Soundstage artifice: when Don woos Kathy Selden (Debbie Reynolds)
- Performance as artifice: Cosmo Brown (Donald O'Connor), "Make 'Em Laugh"
- Body as expression (Gene Kelly, "Singin' in the Rain" number)
- Ballet: the "Broadway Melody" number (Gene Kelly and Cyd Charisse)
Basic Elements of Film Sound
- Speech and the Human Voice
- Onscreen Dialogue
- Offscreen voices
- Voiceover, Narration, etc.
- Music
- Diegetic Music
- Background Music (non-diegetic)
- Use of music in Musicals
- Noise and Sound Effects
Relations of Sound and Image
- How does sound relate to image?
- Does the sound merely accompany, or support, the image?
- Or are sound and image of equal weight?
- Continuity of sounds and continuity of images
- How do sounds and images relate to their sources?
- The image is a (2D) copy, separate from the (3D) thing of which it is an image
- But, even when we listen to a recording, we hear actual sounds, rather than just copies of the sounds
Sources of Film Sound
- Synchronous (onscreen) vs.asynchronous (offscreen) sound (relates to the use of offscreen space)
- Parallelism vs.counterpoint of sound to image
- Diegetic vs. nondiegetic sound
- DIEGESIS = the world of the film's story, the world of the narrative
- DIEGETIC = existing in the world of the film's story
- Most movie music is nondiegetic, because we hear it but the characters in the world of the film don't
- Ambiguity regarding the source of the sound (e.g. the trumpets of the Cavalry in Stagecoach first seem to be non-diegetic, but then turn out to be diegetic)
- Intermediate cases: semi-diegetic, or internal diegetic sound
- Are voiceovers spoken by a character in the film diegetic or not? (are they internal monologue? or narration to audience?)
- Cf. the case of William Holden in Sunset Boulevard, telling us his story even though he is dead
History of Film Sound
- Traditions of musical theater, from ancient Greek drama through 19th-century opera, melodrama, and vaudeville
- Musical accompaniments to "silent" film
- Introduction of sound film: The Jazz Singer (Warner Bros., October 1927)
- Period of transition (1927-1931)
- Early sound effects, influence of radio (Orson Welles, Citizen Kane, 1941)
- Stereophonic sound (1950s)
- Dolby sound, surround sound, multi-channel sound (1970s)
- Multi-track recording: Robert Altman, Nashville (1975)
- Multiple speakers in theater: Francis Ford Coppola, Apocalypse Now (1979)
\item Digital sound (1990s)
Techniques of Film Sound
- Importance of sound design
- Sound recording on the set, simultaneous with shooting
- Postproduction sound editing, along with image editing
- Introduction of sound effects (foley), music, etc.
- Postsynchronous sound (as opposed to natural sound)
- Looping, re-recording, automated dialogue replacement
- Final sound mixing, once the image track is complete
- Our sense of the scene is largely guided by the sound (example: Jim Jarmusch, Stranger than Paradise, 1984)
Voice in Film
- Importance of human speech and dialogue
- Sound perspective: apparent distance of the sound source
- Most film dialogue remains close -- even when the visuals are not close-ups
- Alternative: use of overlapping dialogue, at various distances (e.g. Robert Altman, Nashville, 1975)
- Uncanny, inhuman voices (e.g. HAL in Stanley Kubrick, 2001: A Space Odyssey, 1968)
- Voice-off: offscreen, but within the diegesis (e.g. Robert Aldrich, Kiss Me Deadly, 1955)
- Voiceover: not heard within the diegesis -- often used for narration
- Synchronization: it appears ``natural,'' but it is in fact manufactured in the editing room
- Most natural-sounding dialogue is in fact post-synchronized
Music in Film
- Musical accompaniment for silent film
- Source music, music within the diegesis
- Non-diegetic narrative music: background music, underscoring
- Pre-recorded music (e.g. popular songs on soundtracks)
- Cue: music designed for a particular spot in the film
- Motives: musical themes associated with particular characters or situations, and repeated throughout the film
- Uses of Narrative Music (from Claudia Gorbman, Unheard Melodies)
- Invisibility: we do not see the source of the music
- Inaudibility: we hear it without paying it conscious attention
- Signifier of Emotion: the music guides our emotional responses to what we see
- Narrative Cueing: the music points out, focuses our attention upon, important aspects of the plot
- Continuity: the music covers over discontinuities
- Unity: the music for the entire film works as a unified composition
- Counterexample: music that sets the "wrong" mood: Takeshi Kitano, The Violent Cop, 1989
Sound Effects
- Sound effects usually seem `"natural" or "realistic"...
- ...But they are among the most carefully manufactured elements of film: constructed, rather than reproduced
- Density of sound effects in recent Hollywood films, compared to older films
- Sound effects help to give an impression of depth (three-dimensionality)
- Deliberate exaggerations of various sonic elements (traffic, gunshots, etc.)
Film Sound: Examples
Akira Kurosawa, Seven Samurai (1954)
The final battle scene
- Constant background noise of wind and rain
- Conversation and preparations, interrupted by pauses
- Sound perspective: approaching horses' hooves; bandits' battle cries
- The battle itself: abrupt sounds punctuating the action
- Gunshot
Film Sound: Examples
Psycho, shower scene
- Without the sound, how intelligible is the image editing?
- Diegetic sound (toilet, shower) at start and end of sequence
- The attack: Bernard Herrmann’s score
- Shrieking, staccato violins, overwhelming the diegetic sound of Marion’s screams
- Change to low bass after attacker leaves
- Diegetic sound only, during the concluding camera movements
Film Sound: Examples
Jacques Tati, Playtime, 1967
- Sound and material objects
- Walking on various surfaces
- Everyday objects (chairs, household appliances; cf. also the silent slammed door at the trade show)
- Ambient sound (traffic and other sounds of the city, as well as speech)
- Sound and gadgetry (the intercom system, the trade show)
- Buzzing of neon signs (e.g. outside the restaurant)
- Sound and space
- Sound and distance (Hulot waits for man to approach down corridor)
- Significance of glass (muffling sound; separating sound from sight; misleading reflections; Hulot breaks glass door)
- Role of diegetic music in remolding space (in the restaurant)