My favourite film soundtrack is almost any Star Wars soundtrack but most specifically Duel of the Fates from Episode 1 – The Phantom Menace composed by John Williams, this soundtrack features an orchestra and a choir which rise and fall in volume as we follow the fight between Qui-Gon Jinn, Obi Wan Kenobi and Darth Maul. The choir builds in intensity as the three race around the palace while in the midst of an epic duel and then rapidly diminishes as the three get separated.
“The Good, The Bad and The Ugly” has its main theme, which is used as the leitmotif for all three of its protagonists. Different sections from the song are used for each character, utilizing different instrumentation to represent their characters’ central ideas and the like.
The Sound Editor works alongside the Editor in terms of adding and manipulating sound in concordance with the film itself. Their jobs will lean toward the technical aspects of sound, syncing, ADR, etc.
Fred Brennan, a Sound Editor.
This isn’t the only job involved with sound in film however, as the Sound Mixer does the post-production and creative processing involved with the film’s audio; they will work with blending the score into scenes, and specific effects and processing of sound, like a music producer.
The sound editor is responsible for all of a film’s sound elements, including dialogue, sound effects, and automated dialogue replacement and more. Once this has been done the sound mixer can start to work.
The sound mixer decides how an audience hears everything in a film. The sound mixer must decide what elements to emphasize and which to tone down. Like for example the score getting louder to emphasis an emotion.
In layman’s terms, sound editing is about collecting the sounds needed for a film. Sound mixing refers to what is done after they are collected. The sound editing category used to be known as sound effect editing, which is actually the more apt name.
Donnie Darko is a 2001 psychological thriller by Richard Kelly in which a young boy called Donnie Darko who has mental problems befriends Frank who is a man in a bunny costume, Frank tells Donnie that the world will end in 28 days, 6 hours, 42 minutes, and 12 seconds and Danny has to try stop it.
The film opens with low key light which sets the dark tone for the film, and whenever Frank appears we have a very low key light and he is often lit by moonlight or a faint light source which gives him this eerie and unsettling aura especially when paired with his striking metallic bunny mask and furry costume. As we open the film Donnie is in his pyjamas far from home outside, this is unusual which again helps set the tone for this supernatural film, and Donnie’s lack of any sort of confusion shows how he is used to unnatural occurrences in his day to day life, also the fact that he is in his pyjamas away from home shows how he is out of place both geographically and in society as an outcast.