Sound in Films

1. Textual Analysis

3.  Sound which comes from the world of the
film (the diegesis).
 Any event which occurs on or off screen
which has a noise audible to the characters.
Includes:
 Dialogue
 Ambient Sounds
▪ Sound Effects

4.  Diegetic sound is a highly effective at
creating a sense of place and the nature of
events (environment).

5.  Scripted speech:
 Moves the story forward
▪ Emphasises events in the scene
 Develops the audience’s sense of character
▪ Creates relationships & tensions

6.  Scripted speech:
 Accent
 Delivery
 Vocabulary

7.  Sound which is not from any source within
the diegesis (world of the film) but is added
as an extra layer of sound in post production.
Includes:
▪ Music
▪ Voiceovers

8. The feel of the film

9.  Interpret (emotionally) a feeling or sensation

10.  Create or enhance audiences’ understanding of
and/or empathy with a key character.

11.  Echoes the nature of the place in which the
film is set:
 Scale
 Culture
 Mystery
 Wonder

12.  Gives a sense of pace to the sequence, allows
the audience to move follow the flow
(climaxes / lulls) of the sequence and the
overall film.

13.  Lyrics can be used in some cases to reflect
the theme(s) of the film.

14.  Position the audience with a particular
character
 Understand their mental state
 Give us narrative information
 Trick us – The untrustworthy narrator

15.  Popular or classical music
 Instrumentation
 Rhythm
 Tempo
 Volume
 Arrangement (Crescendos, Diminuendos)

16.  Parallel (matches emotions / events on
screen).
 Contrapuntal (contrasts / juxtaposes events /
emotions on screen).

17.  Used to link two sequences together and is
employed in conjunction with editing to
move the action in time or place or both.
 Can be diegetic or non diegetic sound.

18.  Character’s signature tune

19.  The quality of the sound changes depending
on the audiences’ positioning in events.
 Diegetic & Non-Diegetic can be made to fade into
the background or fore grounded depending on
the need / impact.