A sound editor focuses on selecting, creating, and editing audio elements like dialogue and sound effects, ensuring they fit the project’s narrative and visuals. They prepare the audio for the next stage.

On the other hand, a sound mixer works on the final audio balance. They adjust levels, panning, and effects to create a polished mix that enhances the overall experience. So, while the sound editor sets up the audio, the sound mixer brings it all together for the final presentation.

The Shepard Tone

The Shepard tone is an auditory illusion that creates the impression of a continuously ascending pitch, even though it ultimately doesn’t go anywhere. This effect is achieved by layering several sound waves that are separated by octaves. As one tone fades out, another fades in which maintains the perception of rising sound.

This technique is often used in film and video game soundtracks to build tension and excitement. Hans Zimmer famously employed it in Dunkirk, creating an intense feeling of urgency and momentum throughout the score. The Shepard tone can effectively manipulate the listener’s emotions, making it a powerful tool in sound design.

Diegetic Sound & Non-Diegetic Sound

Diegetic Sound: This is sound that originates from within the story world. Characters can hear it, and it contributes to the environment of the scene. Examples include dialogue, footsteps, sound effects (like a door creaking), and music coming from a radio in the scene.

Nondiegetic Sound: This sound comes from outside the story world and is not heard by the characters. It often serves to enhance the emotional impact or provide context to the audience. Examples include the film’s score, voiceover narration, or sound effects that aren’t tied to the action on screen.

Needle Drop:

•Synchronous sound is sound that is matched with the action and movements being viewed. 

•Asynchronous sound is used when the director wants to create tension as the viewer can hear a sound but cannot see its source. Sometimes the audience can’t hear the sound that the character inside the film can hear.

Sound Effects: They are artificially created or enhanced sounds that are used in artistic works to emphasize or express an action, mood or feeling. Sound effects are initially used in radio dramas, but cam be observed more often today in podcasts, theatre, films and TV shows. A famous sound effect is the lightsabre by Ken Butt.

Foley Artists: They record sound over the film by using props to find the perfect sound that would fit into the movie scene.

Leitmotif: A leitmotif or leitmotiv is a “short, recurring musical phrase” associated with a particular person, place, or idea. Leitmotifs condition the audience emotionally for the intervention, arrival, or actions of a particular character.

Sound Bridge: A sound bridge is a type of sound editing that occurs when sound carries over a visual transition in a film.

Voice Over: A voice over is a sound device wherein one hears the voice of a character and/or narrator speaking but the character in question is not speaking those words on screen. 

Narration can be first person or “voice of god” style – consider the two different effects on the narrative.

Score/Underscore:

•The score for a film is the (theme) music composed especially for it to enhance the mood/themes of the visuals which appear on screen.

•The underscore is music which is played “under” sequences to enhance mood and this is often mixed with dialogue and/or sound effects.

Sound Design:

In films, sound design helps make everything you hear more engaging. Here are the main parts:

Sound Effects: These are sounds added to make actions feel real, like a door slamming or an explosion.

Dialogue: This is the speech of characters. Good sound design ensures you can hear and understand what they’re saying clearly

.Ambience: These are background sounds that create a mood, like city noise or birds chirping.

Foley: This involves making specific sounds to match the action on screen, like footsteps or rustling clothes.

Music: The soundtrack adds emotion and helps tell the story.

Favourite Sound Track

My favourite sound track in a movie is in All Quiet On The Western Front where there is a deep orchestra. The song is called Remains. It is played when a signifying event is happening in the movie. The composer Volker Bertelmann.

Sound Editing and Sound Mixing

A sound mixer is the leader of the production sound crew. They are responsible for recording the high-quality audio on set. Their job is to set up wires, affixing lapel mics, operating the sole boom mic and also mixing on a mobile controller.

Then, the job of a sound editor is to make sure all the sounds that come together in post-production are in sync and run smoothly. This includes stuff like the three primary elements: dialogue, music and other sound effects. They are sometimes known as track layers.

A good sound editor enhances the quality and continuity of the audio, and can really carry the storyline being played out on the screen by raising the tension or the comedic value.

What is a sound effect?

A sound effect is artificially created or enhanced sounds that can be played throughout the film to emphasize artistic or other content of films. For example the creator of the iconic lightsaber sound from Star Wars is Ben Burtt.

Examples of non-diegetic and diegetic sound

In this scene there is non-diegetic sound. While Arthur walks up the stairs there is a melancholy sounding song in the background.

In this scene the sound is diegetic because you can hear the sound of the rain and the Joker can also hear the same, therefore it exists in the world.

Synchronous and Asynchronous Sound

Synchronous sound is sound that is matched with the action and movements being seen. Such as the sound of a water flow near a bank of water, punching sounds during a fight scene, and also character dialogue.

Whereas Asynchronous sound is sound that is not matched with a visible source of the sound on screen. This type of sound can be used when the director wants to create tension (as the audience can hear the sound but not see it). For example when a character on screen is walking down a hallway and they hear a dog barking, yet there is no sign of a dog in the frame.

“A needle drop” in film refers to when a pre-existing song that is usually quite popular is used in the underscore for a certain scene. An example is “Where is My Mind?” in Fight Club.

The Foley Artist

This is a form of creating sound effects using an arsenal of props. They record in a sound-proof studio to produce a clearer sound, and they then layer it on top of images.

Leitmotif

This is a “short, recurring musical phrase” that is immediately associated with something. For example: setting– the Harry Potter theme, character– the Imperial March for Darth Vader, emotion- The Shire Theme in Lord of the Rings (when the characters are thinking of the Hobbiton), evolutions of character- the infamous Up theme (evolution from young life, to then an older life)

Sound bridges

A sound bridge is a type of sound editing that occurs when sound carries over a visual transition in a film.

Two examples of this is the L-Cut and the J-Cut:

Voice over / Narration

A voice over is a sound device where you can hear the voice of a character and/or narrator speaking but you cannot see them talking while being shown on screen. Narration can be first person, or “voice of god” style. In some cases, this narration and voice over can be unreliable, leading to interesting plot devices.

An example of this in films is The Shawshank Redemption, Taxi Driver and American Psycho.

Score and Underscore

The score of a film is the music specifically made and composed for a certain film. It is designed to match with the story of the film and has to make sense. This defers to a soundtrack which is music from other places chosen to appear in the film.

An underscore is when the music is played “underneath” sequences to enhance the mood of the scene or to dramatize something. Usually it is blended in with dialogue or other sound effects.

Sound Perspective

This refers to the apparent distance of a sound source, so when sound is being heard from a different perspective than what the “main” character can hear. It can be the sound in the foreground, and is a different sound than the one that is dominant.

My favourite soundtrack is from the Harry Potter movies because it is nostalgic and I think it fits really well into the universe of the movies- they all have a fantasy aspect to them and are all instantly recognisable, which is a sign of how iconic it is. In particular, I’m referring to “Hedwig’s Theme” which appears in all eight of the movies. The composer of this theme is John Williams.

The sound editors find the sound sources whereas the sound mixers compile them all together to create a cohesive soundtrack/piece.

The Shepard Tone – Named after Roger Shepard, is a sound consisting of a superposition (a technique where two or more separate images or sequences are layered over each other to create a single frame) of sine waves separated by octaves. When played with the bass pitch of the tone moving upwards and downwards, it’s referred to as the Shepard Scale.

Diegetic Sound – Sounds which the characters on the screen can hear/are aware of.

Non-Diegetic Sound – Sounds which the characters on screen can’t hear but the audience can.

Examples of diegetic/non-diegetic sounds in ‘Joker’:

(diegetic) In this opening scene, we can hear a distant radio chatter playing as Arthur is posing in the mirror at his workplace. This audio is also heard by the characters in this scene, it acts as a narrative device, setting the world which ‘Joker’ is set in.

(non-diegetic) This is a good example of a non-diegetic scene as there’s music playing over the scene as he’s dancing down the stairs.

Sound Effects

Sound effects are artificially created or enhanced sounds that are used in artistic works to emphasize or express at action, emotion or feeling. Sound effects were initially used in radio dramas, but can be observed more often today in podcasts, theatre, films and television shows.

Foley Artist

A Foley Artist adds in (foley)sound effects to the movie in post-production. It is recorded in a sound proof studio, then the audio is layered over top of the images.

Leitmotif

A leitmotif/leitmotiv is a short, recurring musical phrase associated with a particular person, place, evolution of a character or idea. It conditions the audience to subconsciously recognise a character/idea/place even when it’s not in frame, solely due to a specific sound.

“Leitmotifs are guides to feelings” – Richard Wagner

For example, leitmotifs can be used to demonstrate a characters evolution, as shown in Star Wars with Anakin Skywalker, and his descent into evil as he becomes Darth Vader – the theme song is automatically linked with his character whenever the audience hears it.

As for setting, an example of this leitmotif can be found in Lord of the Rings, specific musical pieces are assigned accordingly to certain settings and how they’re supposed to make us feel.

For a particular person/thing, Jaws successfully represents the shark with a simple theme song, so we know it’s there before we even see it (which we hardly do) – the music makes its presence known, which is effectively unsettling.

Sound Bridge

A sound bridge is a technique which aids the seamless transition between two clips/scenes. This is done by using L-Cuts (the audio from the 1st clip carries over to the 2nd clip) and J-Cuts (the audio from the 2nd clip begins near the end of the 1st clip).

Films that use voiceover: Lolita (1997). I think it was used a lot in this film to emphasize the fact the Humbert is a very unreliable narrator.

Voice overs are typically used to narrate what is occurring, but it’s often only from one perspective – therefore, may be unreliable.

Score/Underscore

A score is the theme music composed especially for it to enhance the mood/themes of the visuals that appear on screen.

Underscores is the music which plays beneath the dialogue in the scene.

Synchronous/Asynchronous Sound

synchronous sound is sound that is matched to the action being viewed.

asynchronous sound is sound which is not matched to the actions and movements being viewed.

Needle Drop: when a pre-existing song is used in a film to underscore a particular scene.

Sound Perspective

The apparent distance of a sound source, evidenced by its volume, timbre, and pitch. In the clip from Spielberg’s ‘Munich’, where you can hear Daniel Craig’s character singing even though he’s not in the shot (yet), this automatically puts the audience in a perspective.

Film Score

My favourite film score is from Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me, composed by Angelo Badalamenti, and being co-written by David Lynch himself, is a jazz/ambient soundtrack. I love this one because of its ominous and beautiful composition, which is very fitting for a David Lynch psychological horror film; it manages to lure in the audience into the world of Twin peaks, and in this case, especially the character of Laura Palmer, adding to the haunting storyline of her character, as we already know what happened to her in Twin Peaks (TV show).

Week 6 Power Point – Sound

Thursday: Sound Mixer vs Sound Designer notes complete

Friday:

Shepherd Tone (3 min vid)

Activity 2: Diegetic vs Non Diegetic Sounds (17 min vid)

Find 1 example of both from ‘Joker’

Activity 3: Needle Drop (all complete)

HOMEWORK:

Watch Sound effects slide You Tube:

Activity 4: Foley Artist video and answer

Sound Editors systematically work through films checking the sound of each sequence – dialogue, music and sound effects – and ensuring it all comes together perfectly in sync.

Sound designers collect, edit, and create sound effects, ambient effects, and even music for video games, applications, or any other form of interactive media.

Sound editors are responsible for handling the dialogue, sound effects, ADR, foley effects, and music. Simply put, the sound editor decides what you hear in the movies. They aren’t concerned with how they should sound but only what they would like on their own

The sound mixer is responsible for taking all the individual tracks and mixing them to be balanced. The mixing process can be a little tedious depending on the size of the library, but all the little tweaks made benefit the overall sound picture.

Sound editors pick the sounds that the sound mixers perfect.

Joker – Diegetic vs Non-Diegetic Sound

Diegetic: This sound is diegetic as it is the theme playing over Joker’s entrance to the show

Non-Diegetic: While Joker is dancing through this scene, there’s no way for him to hear the music, so it’s non-diegetic

Synchronous/Asynchronous Sound

Synchronous sound is sound that is matched with the action and movements being viewed, and asynchronous sound is not matched with a visible source of the sound on screen. 

Needle Drop

A needle drop is when a pre-existing song is used in a film to underscore a particular scene. This can be a powerful tool for filmmakers, as the emotions and associations that we have with a particular song can enhance the emotions and associations that we have with a particular scene.

Sound Effects

Sound effects are artificially created or enhanced sounds that are used in artistic works to emphasize or express an action, mood, or feeling. Sound effects were initially used in radio dramas, but can be observed more often today in podcasts, theatre, films, and television shows

Foley Artists

Foley Artists are tasked with producing realistic sound effects to match what’s happening on screen in post-production. Examples of Foley are the sound of breaking bones, creaking floors, squeaking doors, footsteps, falling bodies, fire, and basically any sound that is not dialogue or music.

Leitmotif

Leitmotifs are musical tracks synonymous with a character, setting, emotion, or character arc. They are used to guide an audience towards understanding the meaning and tone of the thing it represents.

Character: Dewey’s Theme – Scream franchise

Setting: The Shire Theme – Lord Of The Rings franchise

Emotion: Married Life – Up

Character Arc: The Imperial March – Star Wars franchise

Sound Bridges

L-cuts and J-cuts are both examples of sound bridges. Sound bridges are used to seamlessly link 2 unrelated scenes together through sound.

Voice-Over

A voice that narrates over the events of a movie. Usually from the perspective of a character central to the story, or from a “god-like” perspective.

Score/Under-Score

The score for a film is the (theme) music composed especially for it to enhance the mood/themes of the visuals which appear on screen. The underscore is music which is played “under” sequences to enhance mood and this is often mixed with dialogue and/or sound effects.

Sound Perspective

The apparent distance of a sound source, evidenced by its volume, timbre, and pitch.

Film Score

My favourite film score is Scott Pilgrim Vs The World because of how music is incorporated into the film and its story. Almost all of the music in the movie comes from the characters or the settings that each scene is set in, and it really helps to give the film verisimilitude. The score also helps to convey character emotion throughout the film. For example, at the end of the film, Scott goes through the same fight twice, and approaches both differently. In the first fight, Scott approaches with a selfish and entitled approach, and when his band is asked to play before the fight begins, the song they play is less enthusiastic and buried, whereas in the second fight, his selfless and appreciative approach changes the bands feelings towards the fight, causing them to play much more energetically and excitedly.

Sound.  

Diegetic and non-diegetic 

Diegetic is any sound which the character is aware of, non-diegetic is the sound which the audience can hear but characters cannot.  

Explain the difference between the role of a Sound Editor and a Sound Mixer.  

Sound editing is about collecting sounds that fit the scene, a mixer is choosing the moments which fit into the scene. 

Sound effects  

Sound effects are artificially created sounds, to enhance elements of a movie. They are often made and then recorded and placed onto a scene. 

Ken Burt designed the sound for the lightsaber in Star Wars. 

Foley artist  

 An artist who creates sound effects postproduction in unison with the movement in a scene. They record in a soundproof studio which is then layered on the top of the video. They often use creative ideas to match the sound within the scene. 

Leitmotif 

A leitmotif is a short recurring sound which is associated with a person or idea in a movie. Leitmotifs can be used as guides to help viewers understand a place or character’s feelings in a deeper level. In the movie UP when carl is showing his feelings about Ellie or memories the same musical phrase plays stirring feelings in the viewer and helping his emotions seem more intense.  

Jcut and Lcut  

They act as a sound bridge blending the two scenes together, bridges a visual transition.  

Voice over is where you hear a narrator/character talk to the audience, however sometimes in story lines there can be an unreliable narrator  

The score for a film is the music created especially for it to enhance the mood/visuals which appear on screen.  

Synchronous  

Sound which matches the actions and movements being viewed. 

Asynchronous  

Sound which is not matched with a visible source of the sound on screen, this can be used to create tension as the viewer cannot see where its coming from  

Needle Drop  

Needle drop is when a song goes into a scene to create a powerful moment, for example American psycho, when upbeat music plays in the background of a bloody scene. 

Sound Perspective  

Sound Perspective is the distance that you are listening to the sound from, and the effect that the distance creates for the viewer. An example is from the movie Munich, where they wanted to show a young girl, small footsteps sound where held and a small female voice was heard mainly in the scene conveying that to the viewer.  

Name your favorite film soundtrack.  

Mamma Mia, I enjoy the music soundtrack as it features ABBA which has upbeat music which follows the environment of the film. The music often represents a character’s feelings or a situation which has happened, making it very lively to watch.