Class1

As a third year student of the Communication Studies department who has taken several film classes, I am familiar with the importance of the film soundtrack. In the Communication Studies program, students are asked to pick a specialization from the four following topics: video, film, sound, and intermedia. The specialization I chose was film.
Having the chance to create our own films also gave us the chance to discover the value of the soundtrack. Sounds, whether they are vocal, musical or special effects change what is happening on screen. For example, during a screening last year in one of my film classes, the professor showed us a film clip made by students in which the characters are walking down the hallway of a old, dirty, and quite creepy building. The professor went on to explain how this hallway was in fact perfectly clean and quite new; it was the sound effects that made it seem dirty and old. We watched the clip again and I listened more closely this time. I noticed the sounds of creaking floorboards, squeaking rodents, flies buzzing, and water dripping. It was these sounds that had made the hallway seem dirty, old, and creepy when it was in fact new and clean. However I only noticed this after it had been pointed out to me by the professor.
My goal over the next few weeks is to further develop my knowledge of how the soundtrack affects a film. I hope that by the end of this class my ear will be finely tuned to the power of the movie soundtrack.