The Importance of sound

Have you ever stopped to consider, when watching a movie or an animation, how important the sound is to the experience you are having. We can only process the one image appearing on the screen in front of us at one time. however, it is possible for us to hear and interpret many different sounds at one time. Consider this quote with regards to animation:

"A truth whispered among animators is that 70% of a show's impact comes from the sound track.” Michel Dougherty

Try watching this stop motion animation short without the sound first, and then with the sound and notice how you respond to it.    

Well? How did you get on. I actually only watched the first 30 seconds without the sound, before returning to the start to watch the whole thing with sound; and doing that reminded me of an interesting point made today. When we sit down to watch a movie, we will often tolerate a slightly poor picture, a reflection on the screen maybe or a corner or side of the frame missing. But if the sound quality is comprimised, muffled or out of sync we can often find it almost impossible to watch.

Different types of sound

The sound that we hear in any text will be either diegetic or non-diagetic sound: and the easiest way to explain the difference is as follows:

Diegeitc Sound: Refers to the sounds that both the charcters on screen and the audience can hear. This might be sounds effects, like the sounds of footsteps or maybe music playing in the scene, in a bar for example.

Non-Diegetic Sound: Refers to sound that only the audience can hear and is commonly refered to as the soundtrack. Usually this would be music (score) but could be sound effects used to build tension or amplify whats happening on the screen.

Sound can be used as a powerful tool to:

• Sychronise our senses; brining together the images and the sound to create a sensory rhythm.
• Direct our attention to a particular part of the scene, e.g the foreground or the background.
• Or maybe misdirect us and create confusion.
• Clarify what we are seeing on the screen e.g a punch or slap connecting.
• And act as cues to create expectations in the audience e.g footsteps increasing in volume creates the expectation of someone getting closer.

The sound of silence. It is also worth rembering that the use of sound will also increase the power of silence in a scene. Writing this, I am recalling watching many a horror movie were silence is used to amazing effect; my breathing paused along with the sound, waiting with gritted teeth for the impending horror that will break the silence!

References:
http://filmsound.org/