Blog Post15-Why is sound important in a film?

Why is sound important in a film?

The sound in a film has many important purposes such as:

• Establishing the tone and atmosphere
• Giving clues to the audience about the plot
• Helping with the identification of the genre
• Creating realism
• Heightening their experience of the film

However, films use more than just sound to create an enjoyable and engaging film. 

They use soundscape, which is a piece of music/sound considering in terms of its component sounds. For instance, the sound of waves and seagulls paints soundscape of a summery, beachy theme and setting.

Suspending disbelief is also important, as it's a semi-concious decision, in which the viewer puts their disbeliefs aside and makes them accept that what is going on is real for the duration of the story. This usually works well for Fantasy and Horror genres. An example is "Avatar".

Some important sound terms include:

• Wild track-A film soundtrack recorded for motion picture where the audio elements are not recorded in sync with the picture, e.g. narration, phone conversations
• Ambient sound-Natural sound left in the original footage. e.g. wind,water,birds
• Diegetic- A sound whose source is visible on the screen or whose source is implied to be present by the action of the film, e.g. the character's voice
• Non-diegetic-A sound whose source is not visible on the screen, e.g. narration 
• Score- A specifically composed orchestral 
• Voiceover-Recording over original footage
• Dialogue-Two or more people having a conversation
• Dubbing-Adding new voices, e.g. recording the dialogues in a different language
• Foley-Extra sounds that are added, e.g. footsteps
• Synchronous-Music matches the mood
• Asynchronous-Music doesn't match the mood
• Sound bridge-Links two scenes together
• Sound motif-A sound that tells you that a character is about to appear