Chapter 3 Sound and Image 81CHAPTER IN FOCUS
In this chapter you will:
- produce a commercial or promotional short
- classify and utilize the types of audio that make up a sound mix
- evaluate uses of sound in a variety of movies
A Medium of Moving Pictures and Sounds
When people talk about their experiences at the movies, they oft en speak
about moments or scenes in which sound is key: a line of dialogue or funny
exchange, a song or musical sequence, the creak of a door or drops of rain,
the swoosh of a spaceship or comical ping of a machine. On the other hand,
when fi lm educators, critics, and historians discuss cinema, many of them
focus greatly on the concept of fi lm as nearly exclusively a visual medium.
Some talk about “pure cinema” as an art form that is only about the visual
expression of narrative and ideas. However, it is clear that motion picture
media have consistently been experienced as communicative vehicles that
involve both image and sound.
In the fi rst two units of this text, your learning centered on the fundamental
underpinning of fi lm: a series of images that move in front of us, as with our
experience of time itself. When you use motion pictures to record events,
tell stories, and exchange ideas, it is vital to consider the parameters and
possibilities of visual expression and communication. In particular, you
need to think about how to use images to communicate to the viewer and
how to make choices that refl ect what you want to express. Just as you saw
in the fi rst unit of this text, a great deal of the power of motion pictures lies
in their potential as a means of visual communication. Th erefore, it is useful
to begin studies of moving images by developing skills in interpreting and
creating movies from a visual basis.
We are used to speaking in order to communicate, in part because it is
innate to humans—verbal exchange has been described as a fundamental
instinct for our species. Spoken exchange comes quite naturally to the majority
of people and is fundamental to typical interactions. Th is ease of expression
manifests itself in motion pictures: spoken words are oft en used simply to
tell viewers something rather than to show them. However, a great deal of
our thinking processes occur through visual sequences—essentially, images
in our minds. By relying too heavily on spoken words instead of images and
actions in moviemaking, the direct visual expression of stories, emotions,
and ideas can be weakened.Copyright 2010 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved. May not be copied, scanned, or duplicated, in whole or in part. Due to electronic rights, some third party content may be suppressed from the eBook and/or eChapter(s).