Roehampton Film Sound

Here’s a very nice and useful website: a collection of Creative Commons-licensed sound recordings of London places, events and wildlife.

http://www.soundsurvey.org.uk/

Notes:

1. ‘Creative Commons’ licensing means you can download and use these sounds without charge (although you should always check the exact terms of the licence).

2. In downloading, copying and incorporating these sounds into your project, try to keep the wav format rather than mp3 – the former is of higher quality.

Magnolia (1999) by Paul Thomas Anderson

In Film Art (1990), in most sequences, the film sound is clearly able to be divided whether the sound is for the narrative circle or the non narrative circle.  However, some films make the sound vague to distinguish if the sound is for the narrative circle or the non narrative circle.  Films use the audiences’ habits to specify the source of the film sound and play with their expectations, Bordwell, D implies. (p351)

Usually the film with a narrator has both the sounds for the narrative circle and the non narrative circle.  When the narrator is speaking in the film, it makes the audiences out of the narrative story for a while, and when it is off narration, the dialogues and the film sound takes the audiences into the story.

Magnolia is an American human drama.  A successful producer facing to death and his son feuding for a long time, a popular TV emcee having a cancer, his daughter having a grudge against him, and a police officer having crush on her, a generous boy who still relies on his past achievement, the film depicts 24 hours of various people living in LA.

The film sound of Magnolia, however is quite ambiguous for viewers.  In some parts of the film, some characters are shown in various places and sing ‘Save me’ by Aimee Mann quietly.  The song starts from Claudia, even though each character are different places and must not be able to hear Claudia singing, following the cut of Claudia singing, the screen moves to another character singing the following the song.   When Claudia is singling, the viewers may think the song is from off screen, because Claudia has been listening to that song before singing, but later the screen shows each character starts singing in turns.  The sound effect there tells us that these characters are on the similar boundary having an agony.

Magnolia also includes an orchestration of characters’ lines.  In some sequences, the screen shows the cuts with dizzying speed to show each character speaking their lines, which leads they are on the verge of unable to deal with their agony.  The characters in Magnolia severally repeat that even though they forget their past, the past never forgets them.  The film also replies this sentence, and progresses both the past and the present simultaneously.

Bibliography

Bordwell, D. Thompson, K. Film Art : an introduction New York ; London : McGraw-Hill, (1990) pp 351

I have always found that in listening to Bernard Herrmann’s film scores you can pinpoint pioneering ideas that have influenced film scores ever since. Dissonant chords, layering rhythms and being selective in the choice of instruments to create musical tension, have in many ways have become clichés of film scoring. This may indeed look obvious now but matching the emotion of the music to a scene in this way was really pioneered by Herrmann.
In comparing many of the scores Bernard Herrmann created with a very modern film score like the one Angelo Milli created for Seven Pounds (2008, dir: Gabriele Muccino) you can see that many contemporary film scores mirror ideas pioneered by Herrmann. For example, in the track Requiem by Angelo Milli you can hear short reccurring motives, Use of unusual electrical instruments and sounds, most notably a Rhodes sound that was sampled and then played in reverse (sourced from the extras on the Seven Pounds DVD). The use of these techniques for the more reflective moments in Seven Pounds are really scored to perfection, evoking just the right emotion at the right times. These techniques reflect Herrmann’s pioneering techniques of short reccurring motives used in films such as Psycho (1960), his use of obscure and innovative use of electronic sounds such as the mixturautonium on The Birds (1963) and his use of other pioneering electrical instruments scored on the soundtrack for It’s Alive (1974).
Bernard Herrmann should be remembered as someone who has had an incredible impact on film sound and may I suggest not just the horror genre because the way he created tension has ascended [MC: ?] many different genres and as I have began to investigate are still being reflected in contemporary film scores.

In response to queries:

1. Use the template (on the Texts page) and add fairly brief notes to the analysis at the bottom.

2. What counts is detail and accuracy.

3. Either use one of the clips on the DVDs that I handed out in class, OR a clip of your own choosing, but in the latter case, please provide a copy of the clip. (You can check with me first in case I don’t need it.)

There is a very interesting scored scene towards the end of Michael Mann’s Last of the Mohicans. This scene begins immediately after Hawkeye (Daniel Day-Lewis) has saved his love interest, Cora (Madeleine Stowe), from sacrificial burning at the hands of the Huron. Unfortuantely the narrative’s villain, Magua (Wes Studi), has taken Cora’s sister with him and so begins the chase to save her.

It is at this point that the film’s title track “I will find you”, by Clannad, kicks in to create an atmospheric chase through the local mountainous terrain. Up to this point this track has been used throughout the film at several points, most notably at a dance scene that forms the turning point in the romance between Hawkeye and Cora. It is in this respect that the use of this song, repeatedly in different situations, becomes interesting.

Normally, within drama, different songs are used to pace scenes differently. A fast paced, thumping song will be used to raise the blood of the audience for dramatic scenes while more mellow music is used for relaxed and slower scenes. Last of the Mohicans, in this regard, uses its music differently. As shown by the the two scenes mentioned earlier, the song “I will find you” is used to add atmosphere to both a slow and romantic scene as well as to the action packed, climactic finale to the film. Yet, it manages to fit perfectly to both situations.

Much of this can be attributed to the cinematography used in the final scene – sweeping vistas of the forest covered mountains. This matches well to the slow and sensual beat of the accompanying track. Indeed, it is this beat that lends itself so well to the situations. This deep and resonant bass line that commands the track, accompanied by a fiddle and soaring strings, creates the atmosphere of an 18th century dance – echoing the romantic scene earlier in the film in which the romance between the main characters Hawkeye and Cora really takes root.

It is the dance-like-aspect that really lends itself well to the natural grandeur of the scene’s setting. In any other location the track wouldn’t be nearly quite as effective.

While very Hollywood and somewhat ridiculous in places Last of the Mohicans is definitely worth watching at least once if only to use up a spare hour or two. It is, I must admit, one of my guilty pleasures in cinema. Michael Mann, I salute you.

This week a long time friend of mine came over from Osaka Japan on vacation and brought with him a large collection of Japanese Anime soundtracks (on vinyl) for me as a gift. I have been interested in Anime music for a couple of years, but have found it to be an inaccessible genre within record stores in the UK.
The collection that I was given is predominantly score recordings for feature film cartoons from the 1980’s and visually it conforms to the style of animation that it hails from; however the scores seem to be influenced by western music and are heavily layered in elements of jazz, funk, soul and rock:
For example ‘Lupin the 3rd ‘ OST (by Takeo Yamashita) could easily be the eastern equivalent of Lalo Schifrin’s score to ‘Dirty Harry’, the fusion of funk drums combined with incidental sounds are dominant throughout the score and create a hyper stylized backdrop for the film to play out against.
The Anime soundtracks also feature foley sounds taken from the films and as you listen through the collection it becomes apparent that the genre of animation, is one in which sound is the link to achieving authenticity; audiences rely on the diegetic sounds of the world in which the characters inhabit to fully immerse themselves into the story, therefore an aural world has to be created to accommodate this.
Within the collection the subject matter on offer (from what I have gathered via sleeve visuals) ranges from robot vigilantes, magic whales and slick career criminals and the scores seem to have the same creative freedom; it seems that the mainstream appreciation for animation in Japan has given studios the freedom to experiment with sound on a number of different levels.
When compared to the scores of western cartoons aimed at children and teenagers, studios such as Disney and Warner Brothers seem to layer their movies with classical and pop music; this seems to have created an orthodox score of animation which is the social norm in the west and I personally feel that the cultural acceptance of animation in Japan has allowed their form to become a rich tapestry of sounds through experimentation.

(Lupin The 3rd)

Following up my previous blog in which I detailed my sound background, here

is a link to the most current record I have released; instrumentally I sampled 11 records to create the beat, as well as incorporating live instrumentation (click here to hear it with MC’s). If you have a ‘record player’ at home and want a free record drop me a comment.

After watching a clip from ‘The Conversation’ (dir. Francis Ford Coppola, 1974), it clearly shows that soundtracks can often be misinterpreted as in where they are coming from. At the beginning of ‘The Conversation’ it starts with a high shot of a park, and over the top of this shot is an upbeat soundtrack or what we believe is the soundtrack, but a few minutes later into the shot we can clearly see that it is actually a band playing in the park. Also analysing the diegetic sound in this shot, we can clearly hear that there is a lot going on. A few minutes into the shot, we hear a dog bark and we can see it run across the shot, but then we hear a kind of digital, futuristic noise and it puzzles us as we can’t see where it is coming from. The clever use of sound in this film shows that even with sound you can leave an audience on the edge of their seats wondering what and where these noises came from.

Talking about films which use sound to capture an audience, I recently watched a 1999 French film called ‘Beau Travail’ directed by Clare Denis. This film doesn’t use a large amount of sound but what it does use is very effective. There are lots of prolonged still shots of just scenery and backgrounds, but with the soft, subtle soundtrack over the top it captures the audiences minds and makes the shot feel very realistic. The way in which these soundtracks are used over the top of these prolonged shots are very clever.

Sound was never something I really concentrated on when I watched a film. It was always what I could see on screen rather than what I could hear. It was also something I struggled to get right in my first year when doing production. I struggled to get the volume levels correct and certain other elements of the sound, and realised this when it was shown in class and the sound just wasn’t quite right.

After the first few classes of Film Sound, I have watched a few films and paid close attention to the sound. It surprised me how many elements of sound there are in a film, and also how they are used to give the images on the screen different meanings.

The hand-in date for the Film Analysis (Assessment 1) will now be Monday 16 November. 

You can find an example of the layout, and the clip that corresponds to the example, on the Texts page, where there’s also a template which you can download and use.

To be completely honest when I watch a film I rarely take much notice to its soundtrack. I find myself drawn more to its narrative and the path of its characters.

When asked to do this blog I tried to listen more to the music of each film I watched to see if anything could inspire me. I found myself re-watching Walt Disney’s Bambi for the first time in years a few weeks ago, I had forgotten just how important sound was to the success of its release. I remember reading somewhere that throughout the entire film approximatley only one thousand words of dialogue was used and this made me realise that the film must have relied heavily on its use of sound. In fact Walt Disney’s Bambi is one of the very few full feature Disney animations that does not include a musical number by one of its characters and when re-watching it I asked myself how could this film possibly be appealing (especially, in my opinion, with one of the saddest scenes in cinema history)

The answer has to be the films brilliant use of non-diegetic sound. One scene in particular that is very distinctive is when it starts raining and the famous “Little April Showers” begins. I find it so amazing how a scene that has no dialouge and its basic purpose is to show that winter is on its way can have such an impact and how its use of musical instruments to represent the different sounds heard in a storm can have such an interesting effect.

My favourite thing about the scene is its graduation from just one sound to more and more sounds coming in and then finally back to the one particular sound.

The scene begins with just a few drops of rain hitting the floor with the usual sound effects you have that are there for realism. We then have silence while Bambi lies down to go to sleep. Suddenly a raindrop hits a leaf and the non-diegetic sounds kick in. First we have an instrument that may be an oboe imitating the sound of the rain falling on objects creating a beat and as the rain gets heavier the faster the beat goes. Then we hear the sound of a small bell or tiny symbols representing the smaller, more light rain. At this point the famous song starts and the sound of the rain is used as the background music to the song. It’s interesting that the choir’s voice is also used as the sound of the wind just as the dramatic clash of symbols is used to represent the climatic moment of the thunder and lightning. As the storm passes the choir return to the singing and the music begins to slow down and as it gets slower the singers slow down and eventually fade out with the other sounds until we are left with the original beat which too slows down to an eventual stop.

I think it is fair to say that this scene deserves praise for its interesting use of non-diegetic sound and how a film that is part of a franchise that is famous for its use of musical scores can substitute a musical number with just a dramatic use of instruments to represent real sounds and make it work is to me beyond brilliance.

The submission date for the Film Analysis is being postponed, since I haven’t yet circulated the briefing. This will be posted up here before Monday’s class with a new submission date, and we’ll discuss it on Monday.