Thesis+Based+Research+Assignment

(This work should be posted on your wiki with the headings as outlined below.) **Rationale for Research / Introduction (5 pts)** **Why did you go down this research path?** I chose to go down this path for research because sound design and Foley really strike an interest with me. They are something I would like to pursue when I get older so I would like to find out more about them to see if its something I would really like to do. **What driving question guided your research?** What emotional and theatrical impact does sound have on movies? **What more specific questions had to be answered before finally answering this driving question?** How sound design and Foley worked needed to be answered before I could really figure out how they impact the audience. **Research (25 pts)** A. Yager, Fred, and Jan Yager. //Career Opportunities in the Film Industry//. 2nd ed. New York: Ferguson, 2009. Print. l. “Under the best conditions, the Sound Designers’ work begins in preproduction, going over the script with the director to determine how sound is involved in the overall creation of the movie.” (148) 2. Ben Burtt- sound designer for Star Wars discovered that sound has a dynamic impact on the film, even the look of the film. (148)  3. Foley Artists- Responsible for synchronizing various sounds that need to be re-created for the film. Many of sounds need to be recreated because the microphones are almost always pointed at the actors to try and get the clearest dialogue possible. Sounds vary from walking on different surfaces to opening and closing doors. (186)  4. “The Supervising Sound Editor oversees the post productions of a film’s sounds, which includes work done by the sound editor and foley artist, dialogue, sound effects (FX), and looping, or ADR, which stands for automated dialogue recording.” (184) B. "Art Of Foley." //Marblehead Publishing Co.// Web. 05 Oct. 2009. . 1. While filming a movie the recordist on set is specifically trying to capture the dialogue as best they can. They position every microphone specifically to capture the dialogue without any background noise from the camera or crew. (Art of Foley) 2. “On film sets nothing is real the sword is made of plastic and the marble floor is panted ply wood. Foley replaces or enhances the live sounds; the result is a sword that rings like metal and floors that echo like marble.” (Art of Foley) 3. ADR (or Advanced Dialogue Replacement) is often used to recapture an actors dialogue during a scene to make it audible. However because this process is done in a controlled environment it sounds fake and other sounds on screen are missing. The Foley artist then goes back and adds all the little sounds that are missing in the scene such as the actor walking or opening a door. (Art of Foley) 4. The irony of Foley is that, if it’s good, when it’s all done the audience shouldn’t be able to tell that it wasn’t real. If the sounds feel to forced or real, then the Foley artist didn’t do a good job. C. Sonnenschein, David. //Sound Design The Expressive Power of Music, Voice and Sound Effects in Cinema//. Boston: Michael Wiese Productions, 2001. Print. 1. “We can manipulate music and other ambiences to make the environment feel lighter and more spacious, or denser and more claustrophobic. These parameters can influence us to feel a space as orderly or chaotic, active or stagnant.” (87) 2. Directionality of sound can be identified by two different methods. The first is Temporal Delay which is the difference in time (normally fractions of seconds) it takes a lower frequency of sound, coming from one side of our head, to reach to other ear. The other method is Sound Shadow which we use to determine the directionality of high frequencies. When a high frequency are coming from one side of our head the shorter sound waves are blocked by the head itself and therefore will have a different timbre for each ear. (85) 3. Movement is also a subjective quality. When watching a movie the sound is constantly changing, as the distance of the sound change so does the intensity, timbre, and reverberation. The reverberation is how long the specific sound can still be heard after the initial sound is finished and is non-directional (unlike an echo which is directional). Timbre is the tone of the sound, it can also be described as the tone color. Intensity is the density of the sound, if its very light or very heavy, generally you get a difference in intensity by using different frequencies of sound. 4. “Another distinction of this perspective is between the type of sound made when a person s facing towards or away from a microphone (which may or may not coincide with the image on screen). The voice will have tone color fluctuations, diminishing the higher frequencies when the person’s back is towards the mike. This can help create a sense of reality in the space, but it must be balanced with the momentary loss of intelligibility.” (163) D. "Sound Ideas - What is Foly? by Skevos Mavros." //Sound Ideas Sound Effects, Royalty Free Music & Production Elements//. Web. 08 Oct. 2009. . 1. “What is it about the sound in many student or amateur films that makes them sound … well … amateur? Even if the fidelity or clarity is good (which it often isn’t), there is often something hollow or thin about the sound – the action lacks aural depth. The answer could be that the film makers did not add Foley to the soundtrack.” (What is Foley) 2. The main reason Foley is used is because it gives the Director control over the environment. So if an actor is walking on gravel in boots then as he enters the shot you can hear his boots on the gravel, but you don’t want to hear him every step. Then when he starts to talk the Director can fade the Foley out so the dialogue is audible. 3. “ Without Foley, a film sounds empty and hollow - the actors seem to be talking in a vacuum (not literally possible I know - but you get the idea). 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, furnitures, etc - but we need to control them so they don't obscure any of the dialogue.” (What is Foley) 4. Foley can also be used to bring old soundless film to life. While watching documentary’s directors often deploy little bits of Foley over the old footage to give it a more realistic feel and sound. The slightest sound of footsteps can normally be heard under the narrator when old film is shown in order to make it more real. E. Cercel, Elif, and Allen DeBevoise. "EditorsNet : Interview with Gary Rydstrom, Sound Designer, "Saving Private Ryan"" //Internet Archive: Wayback Machine//. Web. 08 Oct. 2009.  1. In the opening sequence of //Saving Private Ryan// the sound designers had a hard time with matching the chaos of battle visually and sound wise. The trick was to layer the sounds, so you would have background noise of bullets and artillery hitting different things. Then in the foreground the sounds that were right in front of the screen would really pop. This was achieved by the sound designer going out and recording the actually guns used during WWII and there bullets impact on sand, metal, flesh, water, and various other materials. 2. “ You orchestrate sound effects like you do music. You really choose when to play what sounds so that they come through and they are not masked by other sounds going on at the same time. So, high-frequency sounds would be heard over low-frequency sounds. And the rhythm of those sounds is really important, too, so we get a sense of what was happening. It's a hard thing to articulate the sounds but still get the sense of so much stuff going on around you.” (Cercel) 3. During another part of the opening sequence the camera goes underwater. When the camera goes underwater the sound becomes distorted. This gives the viewer a break from the chaos of the battle going on above. After a momentary break bullets start to impact underwater and the sound continues though it is distorted. Once back above the water the full sound of battle returns. These shifts of quality and pitch give the viewer a break from the chaos and a sense of safety while underwater. 4. “ My theory is that sometimes you get a sense of there being more material than there is if you articulate each sound or layer of sounds. There's a law of diminishing returns in sound editing and mixing. If you start putting in too much stuff then it doesn't sound good anymore, it just sounds like mush. I wouldn't say that there's a ton of stuff going on but it's just trying to plan out and to orchestrate the types of sounds that would give you a sense of the cacophony of battle.” (Cercel) F. "History of Phonograph Record Technology - The Edison Cylinder." //The History of Sound Recording Technology//. Web. 22 Sept. 2009. . 1. In 1877 Thomas Edison filed a patent in Great Britain for the Phonograph, the world’s first audio recording device. This was the first step towards where we are today in terms of recording sounds and ultimately music and movies. 2. In the early 1880’s Edison got his first rival, Alexander Graham Bell. He, along with his cousin and assistants, developed the Graphophone. This was an improvement over the phonograph. The Graphophone used wax as the recording medium rather than tin foil. 3. By 1895 a third player had stepped on to the recording scene and it was that of the Berliner Gramophone. The Gramophone used a zinc disc with a wax coating over it to record sound. Once the sound was etched into the wax the disc was then lowered into an acid solution, this ate away the disc under the groove and etched the recording into the surface of the zinc. The zinc disc was then used as a stamper by pressing the zinc into Vulcanite which produced the final mix. Berliner set up the first recording studios in 1896 and 97. 4. Many others rose and fell over the next few decades in the battle for the best recording device. However in the 1930’s and 40’s the Long Playing records were introduced. Soon LP’s swept across the country and Europe and would remain the dominate source of a listening device for years to come. G. Telotte, J.P. "Designing Sounds for Science Fiction.(Book review)." //Extrapolation.// 49. 1 (Spring 2008): 163(5). //Student Resource Center - Gold//. Gale. Springfield Township High School. 9 Oct. 2009 . 1. “going back at least as far as Disney's Fantasia (1940) for which that studio developed the first multi-channel, surround-sound system, Fantasound. That system was designed, as its developers have noted, not simply to create a more realistic sound illusion, but pointedly to allow for the construction and manipulation of the sound environment in precisely the way that the contemporary sound designers quoted extensively throughout this work--people like Walter Murch and Ben Burtt--describe their efforts.” (Telotte) 2. “In the early 1950s the introduction of CinemaScope and other widescreen processes further opened the door to sound design's advance by producing multiple channels of sound that would have to be "hung" in different sections of the theater for best effect.” (Telotte) 3. George Lucas and Steven Spielberg were two of the first film makers to try and use sound as an art form in there movies. Lucas needed to create hundreds of new sounds for //Star Wars.// Ben Burtt his sound designer spent hours playing around with different things to try and make the laser sound, and he finally got it by smashing a hammer onto an old TV antenna. 4. “lays out how that process of construction has been institutionalized in the film industry, describes in great detail the nature of that process, and demonstrates how a knowledge of that process of sound design might benefit our reading of films, particularly those that have perhaps made the most complex use of sound design --our science fiction films.” (Telotte) H. Wolff, Karen F. "Drawing with Sound." //Leonardo// 24.1 (1991): 23-29. //JSTOR//. Web. 9 Oct. 2009. . 1. A new wave of artist are arising that don’t draw with pens and paper, but sound and objects. They use the objects to draw lines with the sounds. 2. In the displays objects move around by using a timer, this changes the way one would perceive the sounds and space around them. 3. Sound Designers can use these concepts to help the audience perceive the visual space differently. 4. People tend to think of sound as a linear thing, moving in straight lines. When in fact it is quite the opposite. Sound moves in many different shapes, many of which are determined by the environment they are in. In close spaces sounds will reverb more and bounce around, where in wide-open spaces the sound will just carry and displace very fast. **//Thesis (15 pts)//** **Based on this research what is your specific stance on this topic?** My stance on the topic is that sound plays largely in the development of a film. It starts in pre-production where a sound designer can start to gather sounds to use in a movie and continues all the way to the very end were sound editors can balance the sound effects and the score of a film. Sound also plays an important part in the emotional impact a specific scene will have on the audience. In //Saving Private Ryan// the opening battle sequence used many combinations of foreground and background sounds. Along with changes of high to low frequencies and varies other switches (such as pitch, tone, timbre). By using different techniques like these the sound designer can help illustrate what is happening on screen and beyond the visual display of the screen. **What is your initial thesis?** Sound Design and Foley give the director a more realistic environment and captures the audience’s emotions by creating more depth then just the visual field in a film. **//Findings (15 pts) & Support for Findings (25 pts)//** 1. Sound is used in movies to add more depth then just a visual image. a. Support: C1, C2, C3, C4, D3, E1, E3, E4  2. Foley is an important part in the process of crafting a film because it gives the audience a more realistic feeling when watching a film. a. Support: B2, B4, D1, D2, D3 3. Sound is a way for a director to set the mood of a particular scene in a film. a. Support: B2, C3, E3, E4 4. Technologic advancements in sound recording and play back have played an important role in how we create movies today. a. Support: F1, F4, G1, G2, G3, G4 5. ADR gives directors a more controlled environment to record dialogue and balance sound effects with them. a. Support: B1, B3, D2, D4 **//Process Reflection (5 pts)//** **What did you learn from conducting this research?** I learned a lot about the dynamics of sound and how they impact different aspects of sound and our emotions. **What higher-order thinking skills did you employ?** I really had to think hard about what I was reading and how I can use any given source to back up by thesis and help me write a good paper. I also had to think real hard about what I was looking for. I had a pretty broad topic of Foley and Sound Design and I really needed to focus on certain aspects of them and how they are used to emotionally bring the audience into the world of the film. **What research skills do you still need to improve?** I really think I would use help with the over all research process. I believe I am a good researcher but I had a lot of trouble with this topic. Maybe its because there isn’t a whole lot of information on the topic out there or maybe I was just searching the wrong terms. But after completing this process I believe I could really use some help with thinking outside the box when researching. **What information did you think you knew before researching that turned out to be either incorrect or incomplete knowledge of your topic?** I learned a lot about the different techniques used by sound designers and how they work. I thought I knew pretty much all there is to Foley but I was wrong about that. Foley is a lot more then just walking around and recording it, there are different paces, different emotions you can display through each step and much more to it. **//Connections to the Overall Project (5 pts)//** **So what? How do your findings fit back into the big picture of your project?** My findings help me determine how I am going to film my final project and what I am really going to focus on. They also help me figure out what is important and what isn’t. **How will this research help you move forward with your project?** This research gave me some ideas on what I can do with my project and how to do it. It also showed me different ways to manipulate sound to give different impacts and depths to the film.
 * //Senior Seminar Thesis-based Research//**