Intro to Film - Lesson 2 Image and Sound

[music] Okay. So, welcome back to Intro to Film. Uh, this is Professor Noah Nang here for your second week of learning about film.

Uh so last week we talked about cinema language about how cinema grammar works together in conjunction with a shot with an edit. Uh how a shot movement can convey a feeling how an edit can convey a psychological uh conclusion about uh a desire um a fear etc etc. Um, so I hope that was uh nice and easy and fun for you guys and enjoy do the right thing as a movie.

This week we will talk about image and sound. Um, and the movie for this week is Scott Pilgrim versus the world by Edgar Wright made in the year 2010. Uh, okay.

So let's talk about sound. >> [snorts] >> Now we often see film as a visual medium. Film being a image, a picture, uh something you see.

Now is this necessarily true? [snorts] We'd like to make the case today that sound is just an in just as much of an integral part of the film making experience and process. So is sound an ugly child of film?

Often we kind of forget about sound. I mean look at this experience now. You are listening to me talk.

Of course you are seeing me but how much does sound change what we are seeing. So we'd like to say that sound an image or two sticks supporting each other in the house of cinema. One cannot exist without the other.

So let's just see this thought experiment out. Okay. So let's do a sound and image exercise.

So let us see a image of a person running. This is a movie called 400 blows by France Trufo. Very famous uh movie and very famous scene of running boy.

Okay. So now let's have a kind of a sentimental song and see what it does to the image. [music] [music] >> [music] >> So now we get a very sentimental mood which [music] is the name of the song.

Uh but now it feels as if uh the boy just went through something heavy [music] or maybe even something u tragic has happened to him. You can feel his heart, the weight of the emotions he is running, carrying. Maybe he is headed somewhere.

Maybe he [music] is running from somewhere. See how the song itself evokes an emotion. And not only that, but invites you to consider what is going on within the boy himself.

Uh this is uh from the movie A Trip to the Moon by Melier. And listen to this sweet and beautiful romantic song. Suddenly the boy is running to somewhere.

See how the [music] boy is headed to maybe his lover. Um someone he is after. See the boy running for them and feel the kind of a bright and happy emotion that [music] you might feel.

Ah something is going to happen for him. [music] Something is now okay. Beautiful.

Yes. Now let's uh listen to another one. Suddenly if romantic music may feel as if he is running towards something.

See how a scary song makes him feel like he is running away from something. Suddenly uh we are now anxious feeling at the edge of some danger coming and fear has entered the room. So see only the sound evokes within you an emotion but see how romantic music can put a object of desire in front of the person and see how this the uh scary music can put something behind the character.

So music not only changes what the image is but changes what's even outside of the image. See how sound can show make us feel ah the character is running towards someone and see how sound can make you feel ah the character is running away from someone. So we'd like to say sound changes the image effects.

Uh what fully and sound effects are are sounds that are created after the filming of the film made in what we call post-prouction or in the editing process. So sound effects are just often to either one enliven diagetic sound. So, if the character is eating in the scene, maybe the clinking that was recorded is not clearly done or maybe they want to add a little flare to the clinking or they don't like the tone of the clinking or whatever.

So, they reddo, re-record the sound somewhere else and add on top of what is in the scene so that the sound is slightly different, maybe more clear, maybe with a brighter tone, etc. Um, same with like for instance a fighting scene where people are punching they'll add sounds. So you'll see this often often and often it's for a diagetic sound to enliven the world of the film to give it more of a feeling of a punch of a impact.

Okay. Uh so here's some clips and maybe you've seen this uh these clips but uh these are some wonderful clips of how sound effects and foley are working. [music] [music] >> [music] [music] [music] >> Now we will talk about silence.

Now silence in in a tactical sense is the absence of sound like this. But silence is also a mode of sound. For instance, uh if we were to be quiet for five seconds, let's just Did you hear that?

We could say that because there is no sound, we don't hear something. But silence can evoke something like a sound. a the sound of contemplation, the impact of an emotion.

Uh for instance, if uh a character says to another person um something mean and the person uses silence to create an impact of their reaction. This use of silence can effect sound itself. So for instance, I would just say, "Hey, I don't like you.

" Cut and you think I care something like this, you know? I [laughter] uh But see how silence can really punctuate the sound that comes after. For instance, um silence can also bring to light what is going internally, not only maybe in a character, but also within the audience member itself, within you watching something.

And then there's quiet. Something inside begins to speak. So I'd like to propose that si silence is also a mode of sound.

Okay. So uh I will show a very short film by a pichapong who is a Thai filmmaker, one of my personal favorite filmmakers. Um and this is a short film called mobile men.

And though there is sound, you know, you'll hear wind and um you know, actually mostly you'll hear wind. Uh even though there is sound, there is a great deal of silence because the characters don't speak. And you know, maybe this is a little bit maybe weird or left or center for some of you.

But I would really encourage you to open your mind and consider one that this is a certain kind of movie, maybe experimental or outside of the norm of a normal traditional film. And also consider how silence works to create an emotion. Look at that.

Heat. Heat. Heat.

Heat. >> [laughter] >> Suck it up, BOY. [screaming] RELAX.

Did you enjoy the film? Yes. Um, it's a very boyish film.

A kind of amateurs film almost. there is a rawness, a rough and tumble kind of uh quality to it. Um, you know, the film making isn't necessarily clean or trying to be professional.

And these actors, if you can call them that, [snorts] seem to just be ordinary people. And uh the screaming at the end, it's very funny, maybe a little bit provocative uh because it's kind of a engrossed kind of gesture to scream this is for the girls and you know, it would be her so much. It's a little um maybe crazy to some of you, but for me, what I love about this film is this pure expression, pure expression of the camera.

The kind of very curious change of image movements going from one image to going close to this part to that part to taking the shirt off to then changing. Oh, and see the other boy filming and then the other one over there and now he's talking a little bit and and you hear laughing and it's a very kind of natural film but also very strange and some in some sense also very unnatural film but what I wanted to uh illustrate with this film is how silence can be a impactful mode. See how silence invites us into the mystery of the internal world of the boys.

When the boy first come here and the camera comes and points to this and then that and then the third you are a bit curious at least I was about what the purpose was. Why do they want me to see that? What could they possibly mean by it?

And because there is no explanation of it, I am left to wonder, to guess, to fill in the gaps of what could be. And to me, this is a very beautiful mode in film. That film invites us to wonder about another person's life, another person's internal world, and resonate with our very own lives.

Suddenly me and him have joined our hearts and our minds together with the movement and air of wind. And another part is that a sound and and its uh relationship to the camera also become very apparent because what you are hearing is not just pure sound of wind but the blown out sound of wind onto the camera. It's not pure clean sound.

It's peing. In other words, that the sound is distorted because the wind is so loud the ca the uh camera and the microphone cannot capture all of the sound. So because of the limited information, we hear a distortion.

Yes. Uh what about this relationship with sound and camera? Uh we can say here that the artificial nature of film comes to light and you even see the microphone a microphone like this and you suddenly peel back the layer that oh this is not just some kind of like a natural sound.

There's a level of a production quality to it. They have a nice microphone. Anyways, going a little bit uh on a tangent, but witness here, contemplate here about how sound works in film.

Since we're making the case that sound is an integral part of film, let's argue the opposite. For instance, you could say, "Hey, Professor Noah, what about silent film? Those films don't have sound, right?

" Well, we can say for instance from the silence cinema masters like Erns Lubich and FW, they actually were so against words and text and dialogue within film that they wanted to make a purely visual medium. So in a silent film um maybe some of you know that you know there is like a movement of the image and then there's text. So for instance a character is going ah you like this talking to someone and then you'll see text that says uh what they would be saying.

Uh so this intertitle is to supplement the lack of sound by giving the context to the audience about what they are saying. [snorts] And filmmakers like Erns Nubish or FW Mau or Chaplain or Buster Keaton were very keen on thinking of a way to purely show a story, purely tell a story only through what is seen and not what is heard or seen via text, a purely visual medium. So they were interested in the idea of cinema as a universal language.

So what about this you could say? So we accept this. Yes, silent film existed.

There is the aspiration of filmmakers like this to make a universal language through visual medium. So how can we say then the sound is integral to film? We could say for instance in silent film more often than not there is the accompaniment of music.

Often there is some kind of live music being played underneath the film. [clears throat] And if you look at a silent film today online more often than not you will see music underneath it. Now, of course, there are some films you could say that don't have any sound that weren't uh used for entertainment purposes like news by Zigga Vertov or something like this Kinoi um that don't necessarily have sound or need sound to evoke what is going on.

Okay, we'll take this point. But in reality, how often do we encounter a film that has no sound at all? uh it's very rare and mostly often re relegated to experimental cinema.

More often than not, we are watching movies that have sound. So sound maybe is not necessarily an integral part of what makes a film defined as a film. But we have to acknowledge the fact that sound has one an important part of the cinematic medium and two that sound isn't just a tangential object in film but it is a factor in changing the image.

We witness just ourselves see how sound can change the meaning of an image. So sound is not just something mutually exclusive from what we see. Actually sound informs us of what we see and how to feel about what we see.

Okay. So we tried a counterargument for why sound. So we tried a counterargument for why sound might not be an essential part of cinema.

Um but maybe uh this push back is enough to convince you. So we're going to talk about Lucricia Martell who is a filmmaker from Argentina known for her use of sound. Uh one time she came to a class I was teaching and she did this exercise that I'd like to do with you.

So, please come out with a piece of paper, something to draw with, and try to draw a woman uh looking at an alarm clock going off. And you have to evoke this uh idea, transmit this idea only by drawing. And if I or the judge cannot tell what this drawing is of, you go to jail.

So try drawing a little bit of this and pause the video. [snorts] Okay. Now, I'd like you to draw a a picture of a woman listening to the sound of an alarm going off.

Okay. Do you have both drawings? So, look at both drawings and see that.

Uh, well, I don't know what you drew, but usually when people draw looking at the alarm clock, they show some kind of line going from the eye to the alarm clock. When they draw usually the sound of an alarm clock being heard, they see that the sound from the alarm clock, some kind of waves or something like this go into the ear of the woman. So what does this illustrate?

Lucricia Martell makes a sort of uh philosophical point about sound that the mode of seeing is a mode of imposing. I put something onto the object. So like lines going from the eye into the clock.

Seeing is a mode of imposing on something, putting a meaning onto something. as opposed to listening. Listening as a mode.

She says listening is more like uh receiving humbly accepting, taking in. She finds and characterizes the mode of listening to be a more humble one to be a more anti-intellectual and more visceral more uh dare I say human mode. So Lucricia Martell feels that sound in film has this quality of eliciting in its viewer and listener a mode that puts down maybe their ego, puts down their ideas and becomes a recipient of something strong sensorial out of body.

Actually, she also likes to mention that sound is a mode of body. That the body is what receives sound, not the brain. That the body is the one that listens.

You may agree or disagree with this, but this is just one filmmaker's idea of the power of sound. But the thing that you can feel very clear it's sound. If if there is a an earthquake or something you will feel this in your stomach in your blood in your in your body.

If there is a a very very high frequency you we have pain. So sound is something that we are immersed in sound in cinema but imag it's it's something flat. Why we don't pay attention to the thing that is more in contact with our body.

We don't pay we don't pay attention to that in cinema when when if you if you say to your parents I want to do cinema. Ah, maybe we have to buy a camera for our kid or you say I need a camera because I have to make cinema and some it's like I don't know it's happened and so now we can conclude time it has to do with this the idea >> for instance a long time ago I used to watch a movie all the time called national treasure 2 with um Nicholas cage and I used to watch this movie all the time uh alone or outside just wherever I thought I'd watch this movie. So, I knew this movie by heart and recently, not so long ago, out of curiosity, I wanted to see this film again, see how I would uh kind of react to this film that I hadn't seen in years.

And what I remembered was not just lines of dialogue or scenes or the story line or things like this. Actually, what I remembered the most was the sound. I could hear the crinkling of keys, the typing on a keyboard, the car shutting, the sound of a car door shutting, and I remembered every little detail of [snorts] the sound.

I then realize that I do not remember a film with my brain but I remember the film with my body. The sound of the film is remembered by my body. [snorts] Uh now this is just my uh personal experience but maybe you can feel the same.

Uh maybe you watch a movie from long time ago and see what remembers this movie. Maybe it's your brain, but maybe it's your body. Okay, think about this.

Okay, so that's Lucricia Martell. Okay, we'll talk a little bit about Scott Pilgrim Versus the World. Scott Pilgrim Versus the World is a movie that sets in Toronto, Canada, following Mr Scott Pilgrim, a young man who is a part of a band who is trying to win the love of a girl he likes.

Actually, they're already dating. But the girl says, Ramona is her name. She says to him that uh to ensure our relationship, you have to fight seven of my exes.

And so the film is really uh the spine of the film is really just uh the different battles that uh Scott Pilgrim encounters uh to uh win Ramona as his true love. Now, why I picked this film? I mean if you've seen this film maybe you know or saw the film before this lecture you can surmise that sound in the film is a really big part of the experience.

Uh for one uh Scott Pilgrim is in a band and a big part of the film is about music, about the band, about the playing of the songs and of kind of animating this music into becoming a really sensorial experience that really interlaces sound and visuals together. Uh and second, the fighting scenes for instance also all have very animated sounds and sometimes they'll put on text the sound wham bam ring ding things like this. And so you'll see um from this film a lot of rich sound even for scenes that maybe are not so necessarily overtly showing you how sound is working in the film.

You can see how sound is used to shift a mood from a high stakes intense moment to something casual maybe even funny. Uh this film likes to use sound as a way to create a great dynamic, great range of emotions. And so you can uh uh see this for yourself.

I'd like you to one pay attention to something uh technical diagetic and non-diioetic sound. Uh number two, [snorts] number two is to pay attention to how sound changes the mood of the film. And number three, just to enjoy the film.

Also, you should pay attention a little bit to film language. How do the things that we talked about last time, shot sizes, um, influence the feeling in the film? You can all kind of take this film as a fun exercise into looking into sound and cinema language.

Okay. So, for instance, let's think about the very beginning uh of this film. >> Not so long ago, in the mysterious land of Toronto, Canada, Scott Pilgrim was dating a high schooler.

>> Scott Pilgrim is dating a high schooler. >> Really? Is she hot?

>> First thing, Yui, we get a nondiioetic sound. We get a voice over. Voiceover is a very classic use of nondiioetic sound.

Then you get this sound effect like this to transition us from narration into the scene. And then you'll hear something a little subtle. It's a boom of the cabinet.

Very, you know, casual sound but pronounced. And you'll see how it goes. Boom.

Into the scene. It rhythmically enters us into the scene itself. >> Scott Pilgrim is dating a high schooler.

>> Really? >> So you can see how sound it just from the beginning is wrapping us into the film. Okay.

So the second scene is a mix of nondiioetic and diioetic sound within the the scene itself. So you hear the song the kind of sad longing song about Ramona guitar which is non diioetic sound and the diagetic sound of Scott Pilgrim bumping his head onto the pole and you see the worst dunk dunk dunk. Oh my.

[music] [singing] Oh, [music] [music] Scott. Was she really the one? to what >> I mean did you really see a future with this girl >> like with jetpacks?

>> So you can see here how nondiioetic and diioetic sound can work together then nondiioetic sound evokes the mood. how Scott Pilgrim is feeling and who he is longing for Ramona and also the diagetic sound dunk dunk dunk is just uh part of his character a part of his action and part of eliciting evoking this state of the character in despair articulated by this action head on p >> [snorts] >> Then the scene after or the moment right after we cut into him and his sister talking to each other and this is a moment of the sister trying to assure her brother that things will be okay. Now of course there's no music or anything like this but listen carefully.

You will hear the silent whisper of a winter night. This evokes intimacy, closeness, a serious mood. And cold often makes us want to be closer to something warm, like the consoling words of a sister.

So see how even such a subtle sound is doing a great deal of work on moving us. moving us. Okay.

So I hope you guys enjoy this week's movie. It's a little whimsical and childish in some ways, but I think it's fun. So and and most importantly, it's very overt in its use of sound.

So hopefully this will really bring into light how sound can not only evoke an emotion but change the image itself. Okay. So thank you very much for this week's class for coming to this week's class.

Um and I'll see you next time. >> [music] [music] >> doo doo doo doo.