ii. film sound theories
DESCRIPTION
II. Film Sound Theories. 5. Filmic Sound Spaces. Sound Theory Sound Practice Edited by Rick Altman (1992) With essays by James Lastra , Michel Chion , and others. Cinema as Text (Traditional Film Studies). Cinema as Event (Altman’s Model). CINEMA AS EVENT. - PowerPoint PPT PresentationTRANSCRIPT
![Page 1: II. Film Sound Theories](https://reader035.vdocuments.mx/reader035/viewer/2022062520/56815fff550346895dcefe97/html5/thumbnails/1.jpg)
II. Film Sound Theories
5. Filmic Sound Spaces
![Page 2: II. Film Sound Theories](https://reader035.vdocuments.mx/reader035/viewer/2022062520/56815fff550346895dcefe97/html5/thumbnails/2.jpg)
Sound Theory Sound PracticeEdited by Rick Altman (1992)
With essays by James Lastra, Michel Chion, and others
![Page 3: II. Film Sound Theories](https://reader035.vdocuments.mx/reader035/viewer/2022062520/56815fff550346895dcefe97/html5/thumbnails/3.jpg)
The Soundscape of Modernity: Architectural Acoustics and The Culture of Listening in America,
1900-1933
by Emily Thompson (2002)
![Page 4: II. Film Sound Theories](https://reader035.vdocuments.mx/reader035/viewer/2022062520/56815fff550346895dcefe97/html5/thumbnails/4.jpg)
Emily Thompson
![Page 5: II. Film Sound Theories](https://reader035.vdocuments.mx/reader035/viewer/2022062520/56815fff550346895dcefe97/html5/thumbnails/5.jpg)
• Professor of History at Princeton University
• MacArthur Fellow (AKA “genius award”) in 2005
• Her book-in-progress, Sound Effects, will examine the working lives of sound engineers, editors, musicians, projectionists, and other technicians associated with the production and exhibition of films in the U.S.,1925-1933.
![Page 6: II. Film Sound Theories](https://reader035.vdocuments.mx/reader035/viewer/2022062520/56815fff550346895dcefe97/html5/thumbnails/6.jpg)
Cinema as Text (Traditional Film Studies)
![Page 7: II. Film Sound Theories](https://reader035.vdocuments.mx/reader035/viewer/2022062520/56815fff550346895dcefe97/html5/thumbnails/7.jpg)
Cinema as Event (Altman’s Model)
![Page 8: II. Film Sound Theories](https://reader035.vdocuments.mx/reader035/viewer/2022062520/56815fff550346895dcefe97/html5/thumbnails/8.jpg)
![Page 9: II. Film Sound Theories](https://reader035.vdocuments.mx/reader035/viewer/2022062520/56815fff550346895dcefe97/html5/thumbnails/9.jpg)
![Page 10: II. Film Sound Theories](https://reader035.vdocuments.mx/reader035/viewer/2022062520/56815fff550346895dcefe97/html5/thumbnails/10.jpg)
• From production to reception, and vice versa (think flying donuts!)
• Multiplicity• Three-Dimensionality• Materiality• Heterogeneity• Intersection• Performance• Mutli-Discursivity• Instability
CINEMA AS EVENT
![Page 11: II. Film Sound Theories](https://reader035.vdocuments.mx/reader035/viewer/2022062520/56815fff550346895dcefe97/html5/thumbnails/11.jpg)
• Mediation• Choice• Diffusion• Interchange
![Page 12: II. Film Sound Theories](https://reader035.vdocuments.mx/reader035/viewer/2022062520/56815fff550346895dcefe97/html5/thumbnails/12.jpg)
• The production of sound is a material event: vibration, medium, changes in pressure – the composite nature of sound
• The sound narrative: naming of sound, “our ears tell us,” Rashomon phenomenon
• The recording of a sound event: representation, spatial signature, double (recording/reproduction)
SOUND AS EVENT
![Page 13: II. Film Sound Theories](https://reader035.vdocuments.mx/reader035/viewer/2022062520/56815fff550346895dcefe97/html5/thumbnails/13.jpg)
• “…recordings are thus always representations, interpretations, partial narratives that must nevertheless serve as our only access to the sounds of the past” (p.27)
![Page 14: II. Film Sound Theories](https://reader035.vdocuments.mx/reader035/viewer/2022062520/56815fff550346895dcefe97/html5/thumbnails/14.jpg)
• Historical• Ontological• Reproduction• Nominalism• Cinema as index
Fallacies In Film Sound Theory:
![Page 15: II. Film Sound Theories](https://reader035.vdocuments.mx/reader035/viewer/2022062520/56815fff550346895dcefe97/html5/thumbnails/15.jpg)
SYMPHONY HALL, BOSTON
![Page 16: II. Film Sound Theories](https://reader035.vdocuments.mx/reader035/viewer/2022062520/56815fff550346895dcefe97/html5/thumbnails/16.jpg)
![Page 17: II. Film Sound Theories](https://reader035.vdocuments.mx/reader035/viewer/2022062520/56815fff550346895dcefe97/html5/thumbnails/17.jpg)
RADIO CITY MUSIC HALL, NEW YORK
![Page 18: II. Film Sound Theories](https://reader035.vdocuments.mx/reader035/viewer/2022062520/56815fff550346895dcefe97/html5/thumbnails/18.jpg)
HOLLYWOOD BOWL, LOS ANGELES
![Page 19: II. Film Sound Theories](https://reader035.vdocuments.mx/reader035/viewer/2022062520/56815fff550346895dcefe97/html5/thumbnails/19.jpg)
![Page 20: II. Film Sound Theories](https://reader035.vdocuments.mx/reader035/viewer/2022062520/56815fff550346895dcefe97/html5/thumbnails/20.jpg)
• The merging of architectural acoustics and electrical acoustics
• Telephone, radio, public address system, phonograph, motion pictures
• The development of synchronized and
amplified sound for film exhibition
The Electroacoustic Soundscape:
![Page 21: II. Film Sound Theories](https://reader035.vdocuments.mx/reader035/viewer/2022062520/56815fff550346895dcefe97/html5/thumbnails/21.jpg)
• Wiring “silent” movie theaters for sound
• Recording studios
• Motion picture studios • Motion picture sound: from The Jazz Singer to
Singin’ in The Rain
![Page 22: II. Film Sound Theories](https://reader035.vdocuments.mx/reader035/viewer/2022062520/56815fff550346895dcefe97/html5/thumbnails/22.jpg)
Edison Recording Studio in New York, 1904
![Page 23: II. Film Sound Theories](https://reader035.vdocuments.mx/reader035/viewer/2022062520/56815fff550346895dcefe97/html5/thumbnails/23.jpg)
KDKA Broadcast Studio in Pittsburgh, 1924
![Page 24: II. Film Sound Theories](https://reader035.vdocuments.mx/reader035/viewer/2022062520/56815fff550346895dcefe97/html5/thumbnails/24.jpg)
Bell Laboratories Sound Picture Studio at 151 Bank Street, New York; opened in 1929
![Page 25: II. Film Sound Theories](https://reader035.vdocuments.mx/reader035/viewer/2022062520/56815fff550346895dcefe97/html5/thumbnails/25.jpg)
The making of The Voice from the Screen (1926), in Vitaphone’s Manhattan Opera House studio
![Page 26: II. Film Sound Theories](https://reader035.vdocuments.mx/reader035/viewer/2022062520/56815fff550346895dcefe97/html5/thumbnails/26.jpg)
![Page 27: II. Film Sound Theories](https://reader035.vdocuments.mx/reader035/viewer/2022062520/56815fff550346895dcefe97/html5/thumbnails/27.jpg)
• 1926-28 – mainly film version of staged musicals
• Late 1920s to early ‘30s – the moved from shooting in mic-ed sets (immobile microphones) to the use of boom mics
• “…by 1930 the sound track ‘came to be seen more as
an ensemble constructed in postproduction rather than as a record of an acoustical performance’” (Donald Crafton quoted p. 279)
• Focus on recording uniformly “close-up” sound, use of sound concentrators, ribbon microphones, etc.
Motion Picture Sound:
![Page 28: II. Film Sound Theories](https://reader035.vdocuments.mx/reader035/viewer/2022062520/56815fff550346895dcefe97/html5/thumbnails/28.jpg)
• The use of reverberant chamber and “noise machines” to produce a simulated sense of space and place.
• Vococentrism of sound engineers
• “In its commodified nature, in its direct and nonreverberant quality, in its emphasis on the signal and its freedom from noise, and its ability to transcend traditional constraints of time and space, the sound of the sound track was just another constituent of the modern soundscape. Indeed, the sound track epitomized the sound of modern America.” (p. 284)