Introduction
Since the invention of “talkies”, music, dialogues, and sound effects have become a crucial part to a film viewing experience. Even the earliest silent films were often shown with live musical accompaniment. Let’s explore the different aspects of music and sound in films.
Film Music
The difference between other genres of music and film music is that songs and music pieces follow a certain structure and laid out in sections of verse, pre-chorus, chorus, verse, pre-chorus, chorus, bridge, verse, and then chorus. Film music on the other hand is composed of sound effects, and background music, all synchronized to the moving images in a scene to give depth, establish characters and environment, introduce a new scene, cue the viewer to important information, and enhances the imaginary world for the audience.
Film Scores and Soundtracks
There are two types of music found in films, the musical score and the soundtrack. Although the word soundtrack loosely refers to both score and track of a film, there is a difference.
A film score is designed to create a theme, represent ideas, locations, and characters. A score is usually instrumentals, reinforcing the moods in the scene without competing with the dialogue. For example, in 2014’s Guardians of the Galaxy movie, the scene where Peter Quill lands on planet Morag is accompanied by a short piece of music. This piece of music acts as a backdrop to the scene and gives it a sense of wonder, mystery and danger.
A sound track is typically a commercial commodity that can include a popular song or music that may or may not be original to the movie. A movie’s Original Soundtracks (OST) CD is commonly released to the public as part of a film’s promotion and that may include dialogues and scores from scenes in the film. An example from the same Guardians of the Galaxy movie scene is when the instrumental piece stops as Peter Quill enters the abandoned temple, he then puts on his headphones, then listens and dances along to the 1974 hit single “ Come and Get Your Love” by rock band Redbone. This song is now a sound track of the film and creates a huge contrast to the dark setting in that scene. It works as an effective opening and really kicked off the happy tone of the film after the emotional part that came before it. Soundtracks can be played in the film and some played for the film’s trailer.
Film composers
A film composer’s work normally starts when he meets with the director and movie producers to discuss the music needs for the film after the film has been shot and is being edited. Everyone involved then takes part in the spotting session with the director to decide where each piece of music should start and stop, how it should sound and why it should be included. “Spotting” is theoretically the first stage in sound editing process. It involves going through each second of the film and taking note of every sound that will be added, replaced, or augmented. The composer then writes the score which would be a compilation of all the musical sections that is needed for the film. A film score is normally around half the length of the film. Most if not all the sounds we hear in films are added on after shooting the film. With the time constraints in film score production, composers may allocate responsibilities to other people like the sound designer, the film conductor, the orchestrator, the music editor etc.
This process doesn’t always follow the same order. Film producers and directors tend to build long working relationships with composers who score their films and would prefer to use the same composer for most if not all their films. In 1982 Steven Spielberg notably took the film E.T. off the screen after a few failed attempts to match the score to the film. He then encouraged John Williams to conduct the orchestra the way he would at a concert. Spielberg slightly re-edited the film to match the musical score which was unusual as it’s normally the music that gets edited to match the film. Speilberg however, made the right call with Williams winning the 1982 Academy Award for Best Original Film Score for E.T.
Orchestrator
In the film industry, orchestrators would have varied jobs depending on which composer they work with. For trained composers like Jerry Goldsmith and John Williams who write all the notes for their musical score along with the assigning of instruments, all the orchestrator needs to do is prepare the composition by taking the short score and putting it on a page for the full orchestra. Some composers don’t write a single note and instead use computer sequencer software. The orchestrator will be required to turn the sequenced MIDI file into notation and ensure the music is playable by the chosen instruments. There are times when a composer only has a tune or melody that’s either sung or written down. The orchestrator then works with the composer to arrange the music, notes, instruments, and rhythm to be performed by full orchestra.
Guide tracks
Guide tracks may be recordings that help in timing actions, lip synchronizations, time for when musicians appear on camera, to give the illusion of a live performance.
Technology in music and sound composition and production
Composers will have their own preference of what type of technology they use to achieve the music or sound that they visualize for the film. Technology is utilised by music composers and sound designers to create film sound. For example, John Carpenter, director for Halloween and Dark Star, almost single-handedly composed the score for both films using mostly synthesizers created on a Moog console.
The advancement of technology has helped composers and sound designers produce film score and design sounds faster and on a smaller budget. Composers and musicians now use software like Sibelius, Reason, Logic Pro, Cubase among others, to compose, write notation, make music with sounds of different instruments and even imitate the sound of a full orchestra, and then edit and master it all on a computer. This enables the composer/director to save time and money.
Live musicians
Live musicians are widely used and remain almost a staple sound in films. A full orchestra will be hired by a composer looking to introduce certain emotions into a scene, John Williams uses orchestral music to evoke a sense of grandness and wonderment for his film scores like the Star Wars Darth Vader theme and the Harry Potter musical scores. Certain instruments also provides different emotions in the characters and scenes. Examples are how high string melodies give a romantic sound, and the powerful trumpet music give that sense of heroic theme.
Leitmotif
Leitmotif is derived from the German word “leitmotiv” which means leading motif. Leitmotif is a short recurring musical idea associated with a character, emotion, object or place. German composer Wilhelm Richard Wagner is the earliest known composer to apply leitmotif in his operas.
A leitmotif has three features: it is generally short, distinctive, and consistent. It helps in creating a sense of continuity in films. It is an effective technique used to indicate the presence of something or someone that is not visible in the frame. The two-note leitmotif for the film Jaws often implies the shark’s presence with this music. The notes F and F sharp playing on the low register of the cello implies the presence of danger getting closer and closer. Another clever function for leitmotif is when it suggests an idea, or a character that is not actually present in the scene, but has an impact or is being thought of in that current scene. A good example for this is the scene from The Godfather where a severed horse’s head is found in the film director’s bed, the leitmotif for the Godfather plays in the background suggesting that the Godfather ordered the deed. Composers use leitmotifs to signify romance, suspense and comedy in films. In the 1970’s the resurgence in popularity of leitmotifs has had composers seeking out unusual sounds to create their leitmotifs. For the character of Joker in the film The Dark Knight, Hans Zimmer composed a buzzy metallic sound of two tones, one that stays the same and the other gradually slides up creating an eerie sound that relates to the twisted mind-set of the character.
Tonality and Cadence
Cadences are formed by two chords that help mark the end of a section or passage of music. The different types of cadences used in music serve as musical punctuations and cab deliver different effects. The basic type is the Authentic Cadence which comes in two varieties; the Perfect Cadence where the dominant chord moves to the tonic. From V to I signifying a sense of finality and resolve, like a full stop punctuation. And the Imperfect Cadence, which end on chord V and sounds unfinished as though the music is going to carry.
Tonal music/tonality is the system of major and minor keys predominantly used in Western music. It is the actual presence of a musical key in a composition. Atonal music has no sense of key and is not related to a tonic note. A good example for atonal music in films is Jerry Goldsmiths’ film score for the 1968 film “Planet of The Apes” where the astronauts are searching the planet. Goldsmith uses 12-note music with the violin part using all 12 chromatic notes one after the other making the music feel like it is in no key (atonal) and gives the scenes an eerie, alien feel.
3. Film Sound
Sound Effects
Synchronous sounds includes all noises whose origin can be seen on the screen. It can be a scene of two people talking and you see their lips moving. In post-production, the dialogue (ADR) will be synchronized to the movement of the characters and match the voices according to genders, age or accents etc. of the characters in that scene. Synchronous sounds can be ambient music, for example a busy traffic scene where the sound has to match moving traffic. It can be a person playing an instrument in a scene, the same instrument will be recorded and synchronized to the scene.
Non-synchronous sounds are noises whose origin you can’t see in the frame. It associates sounds from one source with the visuals from another, such as intense argument with only a man walking alone visible, or the sounds of a rooster accompanying visuals of a classroom lecturer.
Asynchronous sound effects is when a soundtrack is deliberately out of sync to the scene in the frame. This gives the audience the emotional nuance and add to the realism of a scene in a film.
Foley sounds
Foley sounds are movements added on to a film during post production. They are basically sounds that can be heard in real life that recordists normally avoid recording during the shoot. Foley sounds include, footsteps, the rustling of clothes, doors opening, punches, paper folding, glass breaking etc.
Foley artists recreate the real life sounds and work in a foley studio. Foley artists would have a variety of equipment and use anything that can imitate a certain sound. They can punch slabs of meat for fight scenes, they will walk in different surfaces to make hollow footsteps sounds of walking up and down the stairs or walking in mud. Foley artists use a lot of creativity to effectively recreate a foley sound.
Film sound designers
Film sound designers practice the art of sound design. Ben Burtt is a famous example of a sound designer who created the humming sound of the lightsaber in Star Wars by blending the sounds of his TV set and an old 35 mm projector. Sound designers use any manner of instruments and tools and creativity to create sounds that has never even been heard of.
Diegesis
Diegetic and Non-diegetic sounds are sounds that exist in the film. Diegetic sounds include speech and movement sounds. Non Diegetic sounds include the music or a narrator’s commentary.
ADR (Automated Dialogue Replace)
ADR is the dialogue heard in films. It can be recorded during film set but it is now common practice to record ADR post production to produce dialogue with a higher quality and intelligibility which is sometimes a problem when filming on set and dealing with background noises that can interrupt or drown out the voices. Background noises can include things like traffic noise, windy weather, rain etc.
4. Delivery formats of video and sound
Dolby Digital is a 6-channel digitally-encoded surround sound format compression format widely used to provide digital sound in cinemas. This is also the Industry standard format for DVD-Video, game consoles etc. today.
DTS Digital Surround or just simply DTS is a 6 channel digitally-encoded surround format encoded on an external CD-ROM. The timing and other information is then encoded on the film release print. DTS has higher data rates than Dolby Digital and in turn has richer and more detailed sound quality than Dolby Digital format. The down side is that a DTS soundtrack will take up a lot of disk space hence there are limited DVD software licensed to DTS sound surround.
DTS VS DD Verdict : DTS wins over DD on sound quality and data capacity but until they increase availability on audio CD’s and DVD’s, it will remain more of an optional choice rather than something that can seriously compete with Dolby Digital in the consumers market.
DVD (digital versatile disc” or “digital video disc) is an optical digital storage disc storage format invented for recording and distributing digitally encoded films. Like its analogue storage predecessor, it comes on a standard 120 mm optical disc. Single sided DVD’s can have a capacity of 4.7 GB as standard and some are designed to have up to 8.7 GB. The double-sided/double layered DVD’s can store 9.4 GB of data. Some can store up to 17.08 GB but they are rare.
Blue-ray is another optical digital disc storage format which was designed to surpass the DVD format’s storage capability. Single layer Blu-rays store up to 25 GB of data, while dual layered Blu-rays have a 50-100 GB data capacity.
A standard DVD is made up of 576 horizontal lines while Blu-ray has a high definition (HD) of 1080. This extra resolution makes Blu-ray look sharper and more realistic because there is more detail.
Sources:
Introduction
http://www.bbc.co.uk/arts/0/24083243
http://filmsound.org/terminology/diegetic.htm
http://filmsound.org/marshall/
Film Music
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soundtrack
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Film_score
http://movies.stackexchange.com/questions/26376/what-is-the-difference-between-a-movies-soundtrack-and-its-score
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guardians_of_the_Galaxy_%28soundtrack%29
http://entertainment.howstuffworks.com/film-composer1.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guide_track
http://bachtrack.com/feb-2014-technology-composition
http://noisey.vice.com/blog/we-talked-to-legendary-horror-director-john-carpenter-about-gear
http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424052970203893404577098730827733806
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orchestration
http://gettingthescore.com/?p=10
Leitmotif
http://www.filmmusicnotes.com/what-is-a-leitmotif-and-how-does-it-work-in-films/
http://www.bbc.co.uk/schools/gcsebitesize/music/popular_music/film_music3.shtml
http://www.mfiles.co.uk/horror-in-music.htm
Tonality and Cadence
http://www.mtosmt.org/issues/mto.13.19.4/mto.13.19.4.lehman.html
http://www.bbc.co.uk/schools/gcsebitesize/music/elements_of_music/harmony_and_tonality2.shtml
file:///C:/Users/Allan/AppData/Local/Temp/Apes%20Composing%20techniques.pdf
Film Sound
Sound Effects
http://www.infoplease.com/cig/movies-flicks-film/bring-da-noise-synchronous-nonsynchronous-sound.html
http://www.psu.edu/dept/inart10_110/inart10/film.html
http://filmsound.org/marshall/
Foley
http://www.sound-ideas.com/what-is-foley.html
http://filmsound.org/terminology/foley.htm
Delivery Formats of Video and Sound
http://filmsound.org/AudiopostFAQ/audiopostfaq.htm
http://www.timefordvd.com/tutorial/SurroundSound.shtml
http://www.audioholics.com/audio-technologies/dolby-digital-vs-dts-a-guide-to-the-strengths-of-the-formats
The World of Music Technology 