An Introduction to Film

The quality(also known as timbre, texture, or
color) of a sound includes those characteristics
that enable us to distinguish sounds that have the
same pitch and loudness. In music, the same note
played at the same volume on three different
instruments (say, a piano, violin, and oboe) will pro-
duce tones that are identical in frequency and
amplitude but very different in quality. The sound
produced by each of these instruments has its own
harmonic content, which can be measured as
wavelengths. In talking about movie sounds, how-
ever, we do not need scientific apparatus to meas-
ure the harmonic content because most often we
see what we hear.
In the opening sequence of Francis Ford Cop-
pola’s Apocalypse Now(1979; sound designer: Walter
Murch), the sound comes from many sources—
including helicopters, the fan in a hotel room, explo-
sions, jungle noises, a smashed mirror, the Doors’
recording of “The End,” voice-over narration, and
dialogue—each of which contributes its own quali-
ties to an overall rich texture. Although many of
these sounds are distorted or slowed down to char-
acterize both the dreamlike, otherworldly quality of
the setting and Captain Benjamin L. Willard’s
(Martin Sheen) state of mind, they have been
recorded and played back with such accuracy that
we can easily distinguish among them.

Fidelity

Fidelityis a sound’s faithfulness or unfaithfulness

to its source. Ang Lee’s The Ice Storm(1997; sound-

effects designer: Eugene Gearty) faithfully exploits

the sounds of a violent ice storm to underscore the

tragic lives of two dysfunctional Connecticut fami-

lies, the Hoods and the Carvers. At the climax of

the movie, in the midst of the storm, Lee meticu-

lously observes the phenomena and records the

sounds of icy rain as it falls on the ground or strikes

the windows of houses and cars, icy branches that

crackle in the wind and crash to the ground, and

the crunch of a commuter train’s wheels on the icy

rails. As the marriage of Ben and Elena Hood

(Kevin Kline and Joan Allen), which is already on

the rocks, completely falls apart, the ice storm has

a powerful, even mystical, effect on the lives of

these characters, and its harsh breaking sounds

not only serve as a metaphor for their frail lives,

but also provide an audibly faithful reminder of the

power of nature.

An excellent early example of a sound effect that

is not faithful to its source occurs in Rouben Mamou-

lian’s Love Me Tonight(1932; sound: M. M. Paggi).

During the farcical scene in which “Baron” Courtelin

(Maurice Chevalier) tells Princess Jeanette (Jeanette

MacDonald), whom he is wooing, that he is not

royalty but just an ordinary tailor, pandemonium

breaks out in the royal residence. As family and

guests flutter about the palace singing of this

deception, one of the princess’s old aunts acciden-

tally knocks a vase off a table. As it hits the floor and

shatters, we hear the offscreen sound of a bomb

exploding, as if to suggest that the aristocratic social

order is under attack.

Sources of Film Sound

By source, we mean “the location from which a

sound originates.” Obviously, as mentioned already,

most of the sounds heard in a movie literally origi-

nate from postproduction processes. But when we

talk about source, we’re speaking of the implied ori-

gin of that sound, whether it’s a production sound

or a postproduction sound. For example, the sound

of footsteps that accompany a shot of a character

Nonfaithful soundIn Mean Streets(1973; sound mixer:
Don Johnson), Martin Scorsese uses nonfaithful sound when
Charlie (Harvey Keitel), after making love to Teresa (Amy
Robinson, back to the camera), playfully points his fingers at
her as if they were a gun and pulls the “trigger.” We hear a
gunshot, but there is no danger, for this is just a lovers’
quarrel.

SOURCES OF FILM SOUND 395