Relationship between Music and Film - PowerPoint Presentation

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Relationship between Music and Film

By Hayden Collins 13p1Slide2

Brief History

Before the 1930s, film often used compiled tracks and other pieces of music from famous composers in order to accompany the film that was being showed on the screen. The music that went alongside film at this time was live (performed under the screen), and only near the end of the 30’s did film makers produce their own scores.

In

the 1940s, composers refined their expertise even more. One of the most important and influential composers was Bernard Herrmann, who broke many barriers and traditions to create music that greatly enhanced the films for which he wrote.

During the 1960s, emerging music such as rock was being accepted and incorporated into the film scores of the time to fit certain genres, for example ‘INSERT TITLE HERE’ was the first film score to use a rock track.

Nowadays we have synthesized music tracks that are create through digital and software expertise – for example star wars and LOTR used digitally created tracks.Slide3

General Effects of Movie

S

ound

The aim of film music is so that the people watching the film have another medium that allows them to be immersed in the atmosphere and emotions of the film – i.e. LOTR the music track accurately reflects each emotion in each scene and thus make the film more believable because people are focused on the emotion and characters.

The music score that accompanies the film is designed so that even if you cant see the film you can understand what is going on due to the tone of each piece of music.

It can also help a director or producer convey a certain, hidden emotion that is not easily put across in the acting or plot.Slide4

Genre (impact on music)

There are many different genres within film and each aims to try and achieve a wide range of emotions for the audience for the film- i.e. Action, Romance, Adventure, Horro

r and Thriller to name a few.

Each genre has a certain impact and limitations within the genre itself and the sound track reflects what the director feels for example in thriller film the music is usually very calm and then builds up to a climax whereas In an adventure film the track would be loud and constantly climactic after a quick build up.

The film/music tracks don

’

t just cover musical pieces but a film score also looks at the sound effects that are used in the film to build a character, emotion or environment. i.e. wind, bats, or gun shots Slide5

Foley Sound

Foley sound is the use of sound within a film that is not created by a computer or composed by a large group of musicians that sit and have a sound recorded.

For example to create the sound of the movement of a horse when out off shot, someone would use hollow coconuts to provide the hoof sounds and to create the breaking of leaves under feet someone off camera would cut some leaves to create the same shot but at a lower cost.

Often it can be a quicker process to create sound without using the actual object that could cost a lot of time to use, pay for and maintain its set up.Slide6

Impact of Foley Sound

Foley sound effects are designed to simulate everyday as well as extreme sounds for synchronization and audio sound replacement in motion pictures and television productions. Without the magic of Foley, you would never hear someone's footsteps in a film - these and many other sounds must be dubbed in again on the film's soundtrack in order to be heard by the audience

.

Without Foley, a film sounds empty and hollow - the actors seem to be talking in a vacuum. The sound

recordist

, if they did a good job, has given us the dialogue and excluded everything else, but our films needs more than this for the picture to come alive. We need to hear the little sounds of clothes, furniture,

etc

- but we need to control those sound effects so they don't obscure any of the

dialogue

.Slide7

Progression of Film –Impact on Movie AudioSlide8

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