Research: The importance of sound in films

When looking into sound for horror films, we first looked at Bernard Herman. Herman was responsible for the orchestral score of the "shower" scene in Psycho. The reason it was so memorable wasn't just to do with clever use of the intense screech of violins, but it was cleverly built up to through the use of increasing volume and quickening pace of the violins. These aided and complemented the use of editing within the film that added to the atmosphere. We first watched this scene without sound to begin with, and found that it created a shrouded ambience. This was most likely due to the lack of non-diegetic sound in the scene. However when the scene had non-diegetic sound playing over it, a added factor of mystery was added early, and the enhanced the emotions felt.

     













Mitchell and Webb radio clip was played so that we could listen to the difference non-diegetic sound made to everyday life. It was a rough experiment piece that helped show how background music can enhance emotions felt in common routines carried out in an normal day. An example of this is when the woman in the clip is asked to accompany the man somewhere. Without conveying to the audience the emotion felt in the scene, the non-diegetic sound heightens the felt emotions of love in the scene.
                                                                
We then looked at Pulp Fiction's at a scene called 'Mia's House'. The clip begins with a sound bridge of a car door closing from the previous scene. This transitions the sound of the car door closing to end the previous scene, straight to Mia's house which helps to stress the connection between both scenes. The sound of sequoias is incorporated to add to the perception of night time. Though small, it further sells the idea of the scene being set late in the evening as it can be identified with. The final instance in which sound is significant, is when the song 'Son of a preacher man' starts playing in Mia's apartment. The song starts playing subtly in the background as the male character enters, and adds to the mood of flirtation that begins. The scene is then made more memorable when the song turned out to be diegetic sound towards the end of the clip and tricks the audience.   



 We looked at the term of a Foley in the terms of film making to begin with, We found out that foley is the reproduction of everyday sound effects that are added to film, video, and other media in post-production to enhance audio quality. These reproduced sounds can be anything from audio made by animals, to the sound of footsteps on different terrain. The foley artists usually go unnoticed by the audience. Foley helps to create a sense of reality with a scene by emphasising smaller sounds not heard without foley otherwise.