Film Sound

Sound design is as essential as any other film techniques. Unfortunately, more often than not, sound may go unnoticeable in cinema due to the fact that we are visually more stimulated by the moving images. Albeit, without the use of sound it's almost near impossible to fully understand the meaning of a film. Without sound, a scene might be too ambiguous and thus very likely to lose its significance.

Sound has the power to influence our feelings. Basically having sound completes our cinematic experience as our visual perception is combined with the three forms of sound: music, speech and sound effects.

The effects of sound in cinema is directly linked to the progression of the technology involved in film history where before 'the talkies' arrived the silent films had to improvise by having musicians or actors on the screenings to add the sound. With the arrival of synchronised sound track this all changed as we can see from the film Sunrise (F. W. Murnau, 1927, one of the first films to have a soundtrack of noise and music) where we can experience the transition from the silent cinema to 'the talkies'. The start of the sound era where it's no longer a silent film and it's not a talkie either.

Sunrise has two out of the three forms of sound described in Bordell and Thompson, which are noise or sound effects and music. These forms are roughly of equal importance depending on what scenes are in play. Albeit this film does not include speech, by using titles in every other scene to clarify details of the story, Sunrise has maximised the full effects of having a film score.

For instance, in the scene where the Man was about to drown the Wife and the moment when he realises that he can't do it you hear the off-screen sound of bells and he snaps back to reality would be just as dramatic if we were to change the sound effects with his or her screaming voice. As such, even though dialogue is very significant in order to maintain the flow of the story, we can see that music and background noise can channel the same results.

Music builds atmosphere in films, in the beginning when the Man travels the swamp to meet with the Woman from the City, the music intensifies throughout the long shot until they release their passion. We can feel the sense of dread as the Man contemplates on murdering his wife. We can also sense the tension between the Wife and the Man before and after the boat incident because of the music that plays continuously throughout the film. Considering how different these scenes would be without sound accompanying them, we can definitely say that the arrival of sound in the early cinema has certainly given the industry more freedom and commitment to realism.

Sound effects provide a sense or reality in films. In Sunrise, there are hardly any noise from the cars and people in the streets, instead we have a continuous music which helps blend the scene changes and conveys the emotions of the two main characters. The choice to include or omit some sound effects is so that we are given a simpler world to focus on. Just like how we sometimes ignore background noise when we go about our daily life, every choice a filmmaker make regarding sound effects is to guide our perception of the moving images which in retrospect gives meaning to the actions involved. It does have some unusual sequences where they show footage of trains and ship accompanied by their respective sound effects.

A very vivid example of this is when the Man and