Initial+Proposal

Evan Robinson Herr Martin Senior Seminar 9/28/09

Initial Proposal My driving question is: What emotional and theatrical impact does sound have on movies. I am asking this question because I feel that sound makes more then half the movie. Not just sound effects but music as well. Some scores (such as the jaws theme) have gone down in history and are always associated with times just like in the movie they were meant for. As for sound effects I feel that they enhance the actors performance and give them more chances to act. Take a war scene; if there were no gunshots or bullet noises then they wouldn’t be even half as intense as they are. I want to do this project so I can get a better sense of what sound really does for a film and the trick behind it. I wish to make a quick thirty-second short that I can show to the class three different times. Once with no sound at all, then with certain selected sounds and finally with all the sounds put together. This will show the class physically what I have learned by researching sound and its impact. I hope to have the short done by December after I have concluded the research needed to answer my driving question and write my paper. Some possible areas of research are the dynamics of sound and how it physical works in our everyday world. The art of sound design and Foley, and how they are used in films to give them the impact the director wants. Also how Foley and sound design work. The sources that may provide me with some key incite on Foley and sound effects are: “ Engineering the Performance: Recording Engineers, Tacit Knowledge and the Art of Controlling Sound” a journal from JSTOR. Another key resource is “Art of Foley” an article written by an actual Foley artist about his job. “Foley Props” can give me an overview of props and techniques used by Foley artists to do their work and how they use different props to make sounds. My mentor and topic expert will help me by keeping me on task and making sure I'm on top of everything, such as my video. They can also help me with my video and watch it for me to make sure it works and makes sense. The problems I think I will have with this topic is research and time. Researching may be a problem but if I work hard at it then I can find everything I need. Also time may be an issue, I will try to avoid that by managing my time well and staying on task as much as possible.