Class11

I watched the animated film “Up” recently. What struck me as the best joke in the film was the “broken” voice of one of the talking dogs. The leader of the talking dogs, who talk thanks to the translating collars they wear, is some kind of a German Sheppard-looking dog with a very menacing personality. Yet when is in introduced, his collar is broken, rendering his voice similar to that of Alvin from Alvin and the Chipmunks. Having an evil character with such a paradoxically silly little voice was extremely amusing. Later on in the film his collar is fixed and his voice changes from chipmunk, to Darth Vader. All of a sudden the dog seemed much more threatening. This reminded me of just how important voice casting for animated films is. A voice can completely change the perception of a character.

Class10

I watched the documentary "We Live in Public" yesterday. The film covers the life story of .com entrepreneur John Harris and his ability to predict internet trends, and his obsession with the virtual world and its destruction of privacy.

At the end of the film the song that plays over the credits is "Virtual Insanity" by Jamiroqai. While the lyrics of this song, which say "virtual insanity", are appropriate enough, the melody, which is extremely happy and upbeat, does not fit at all with the tone of the film. At the end of the film I was left with an eerie sense of caution about the virtual world, and felt as though I needed to go through a lot of deep thought. This feeling completely disappeared as the credits rolled and "virtual insanity" began to play. It was a very wrong song choice that did not go at all with the film, and actually played against the message the film was trying to relay by replacing any pensive feelings with a happy, upbeat vibe that makes you wanna get up and dance.

I don't know if the filmmaker underestimated the power of an end credit song, or if I just totally missed the point of the movie...

Class9

I’ve never been a fan of horror films. I’ve always found them much too scary. Ever since I was very young I would always cover my eyes or look away whenever even a preview for a horror film would appear on screen. Yet I later discovered that covering my ears instead of my eyes renders the horror films much less terrifying.
I find that it is above all else, the soundtrack in horror films that makes them scary. The heart stopping way the music swells and then falls into silence then swells again makes me jump in my seat much more than the appearance of a scary looking monster. The sounds of heartbeats, low drones, and eerie melodies manipulate audiences far more than audiences realize. I remember listening to the soundtrack of “The Matrix” as my sisters watched it from another room. The scene where Neo loses his mouth scared me to death and I hadn’t even been watching it! The sounds of him shrieking wordlessly and the nervous tone of the music were enough to provide me with a clear enough image of the scene to elicit fear.
Next time I watch a scary movie I’ll mute it and see if it manages to scare me at all. I doubt it will.

Class8

I watched two documentaries earlier this week. Both were about hurricane Katrina’s devastation of New Orleans. Though both documentaries covered the disaster in much the same way; with interviews of survivor’s accounts, the films had a very different feel to them. I believe that this difference in mood was due to the two completely different soundtracks that were used. The first film used a lot of traditional New Olean funeral procession music that involves big band instruments. This gave the film a reminiscent quality. I made me think of the many generations of people that grew up in New Orleans, and how they had become a displaced people. The second film used rap music composed by one of the poor black women whose story is followed throughout the film. The tone of her voice, lyrics, and the mood of the music spoke much more of the poor quality of life in New Orleans, even before Katrina, than it did about history. This is yet another example of how different soundtrack choices can completely change the perception of a film.

Class7

I watched the documentary Capturing the Freidman’s yesterday in my documentary film class and was surprised at the effect the soundtrack had on the film. My professor told me that the main theme song that plays throughout the film was performed and recorded in Italy by a professional big bang. This is unusual in documentary film, where the budgets are usually small and the soundtracks often seem homemade. The big band score in Capturing the Freidman’s made it seem less like a documentary and more like a Hollywood fiction film. For my class, this brought up questions of authenticity in documentary; for when a documentary starts to feel like a fictitious Hollywood film, the truth of it is questioned, and documentary is supposed to be based on truth. It seems almost unfair that a theme song can have the power to completely change our perspective on a film.

Class 6

I've been watching a lot of science fiction films lately for my English class on science fiction and one thing I can't help but notice is how important the soundtrack is. Science fiction tries to get the audience to believe in an alternate reality, and a lot of the time it is the soundtrack that allows this to happen. The various beeps and that ficticious technical instruments make helps the audience believe that these instruments are indeed doing something. Sound effects give the ficticious technology more of an impact. The light sabers in Star Wars for example, would not have been nearly as effective as a believable weapon without their signature sound effects.

Class5

The other day in one of my classes we watched a clip from the reality TV show Trading Spaces that aired on TLC from 2000 to 2008. I used to watch it every week with my dad and his girlfriend before they passed away in 2007. When my teacher put on a clip from the show and I heard the familiar Trading Spaces theme song, I was filled with nostalgia. Hearing that theme music brought me right back in time to all those evenings I used to spend watching the show with my dad and his girlfriend.
I’ve always found smell to be an incredibly powerful for triggering of memories and feelings of nostalgia. Music and sound can also bring back moments from the past. The theme song of a television show or a movie associates itself so strongly with that show or movie that it flips a switch in our brains reminding us of where we first heard it and how we felt at the time. The Titanic theme song for example, will always remind me of Leonardo and Kate with their arms open wide, leaning into the wind as they ride the Titanic across the ocean.

Class4

Yesterday in my Documentary Film class we watched a segment of a documentary about anti-feminism in Iran. The documentary was shot in a car using only two cameras; one camera captures the driver, the other camera captures the front passenger. During the first ten minutes of the film only the passenger, a young boy, can be seen. He spends the entire ten minutes talking with the driver, his mother, whom we do not see.
After watching this clip we had a class discussion and I noticed that the majority of the class had formed an opinion of the mother even though no one had actually seen her. The sound of her voice created an image of her in our minds, just as the sounds of birds chirping allows us to know there are birds nearby without actually having to see them. We didn’t need to see her face to know when she was angry; her tone of voice was enough.

Class3

Last night I watched one of the Star Treck movies from the original series. Towards the end of the film the crew discovers an uncharted planet that they believe to be Eden. They land on it, and as they descend from their space craft and take in their surroundings they seem quite pleased with themselves. They decide to further explore their wondrous discovery, and for a moment I thought to myself “Wow! They really have discovered Eden!” Then I noticed the eerie music that began to play and immediately knew that the crew was in fact in danger.
If the sound designers had not included that little bit of music I would have had absolutely no idea that the crew was in danger. It amazes me that one simple little melody can say so much. The meaning of that scene would have been completely different if the music had been a grand celebratory composition of joy. However that particular piece of eerie music, used as a kind of warning for danger, was chosen in order to create suspense in the viewer. It gives the audience a bit of insight that the characters on screen do not have. If it hadn’t been for the music I would have been just as clueless about the planet as Captain Kirk was.

Class2

I went to see the new Sherlock Holmes movie for the second time the other night. This time I paid much more attention to the soundtrack and I noticed some things I hadn’t picked up on the first time around. All the talk about motif music we did in our last class helped me to notice the motif music in Sherlock Holmes. Throughout the movie there are certain bits of theme music that link together the mysteries of the film. These motifs give the audience hints about how Holmes is going to solve the problems at hand. Every time Holmes finds a new piece of the puzzle, the theme music plays. It is similar to the motifs used in The Manchurian Candidate which link pieces of a different mystery together.
There are also different motifs for each character. The main villain has a theme that plays every time he appears on screen, but also to suggest to the audience his connection with a certain crime.
Holmes and Watson also have a theme song that plays whenever they are about to launch into a mystery. Their theme music however touches the audience on a much more emotional level. The Holmes and Watson song is played to excite the audience, and in anticipation of the action packed adventure to come.

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.