Preliminary Exercise 14: Sound Case Study

 Introduction

"Sound Design is the alchemy that turns noise into art." - Walter Murch

To go more in depth of sound design, I wanted to dedicate this post about a great movie called Apocalypse Now. The cinematography, the direction, everything was top notch. Apocalypses Now portrays the horror and absurdity of War; The chaos and madness that follows behind it. This movie is about a U.S army officer in Vietnam trying to assassinate a Special Forces Colonel whos has gone completely mad. It also greatly portrays the journey of war and how, in the face of war, darkness and destructions descends. On the topic of sound, Walter Murch was the genius behind the sounds and effects of this movie. He did a great job trying to insert the true works of horror and war into this movie and it caused him to be nominated for the Academy award.

(Walter Murch 1943)

    One of the greatest sound designers of all time is Walter Murch. Walter Murch was born on July 12, 1943 in New York City, New York. His father is Walter Tandy Murch, who was a Canadian-born painter. Even as a young boy, Murch has taken a great interest to sound. He would usually experiment with sound recording, taping and layering the sounds to create a new combination. But now, he is considered, not only an American sound designer, but also a film editor, writer, and director. He has worked with countless movies, including 'THX 1138', 'Apocalypse Now' and 'American Graffiti'. He won three Academy Awards in 1974. (From nine nominations; he got six for picture editing and 3 for sound). Murch went to USC school of Cinematic arts to continue his studies.

    Murch was the first person to ever receive credit as a "Sound Designer," after his work on 'Apocalypse Now'. Then, he became the editor of "Apocalypse Now Redux." After his tremendous works, he wrote a book about being an editor, called "In the Blink of an Eye" which soon became really popular. People, such as Roger Ebert and David Thomson, grew a lot of respect for Walter Murch and his works. He has been called 'a suburb craftsman of modern film' and 'the most respected film editor and sound designer.'

(Apocalypse Now Redux- August 3, 2001 *Production Company: American Zoetrope*)

Work Cited

IMDb (no date) Walter Murch - Biography, IMDb. Available at: https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0004555/bio/?ref_=nm_ov_bio_sm (Accessed: 18 December 2023).

The top 10 famous sound designers of all time (2023) Musical Theatre. Available at: https://robsummers.co.uk/the-top-10-famous-sound-designers-of-all-time/ (Accessed: 18 December 2023).

Walter Murch (2023) Wikipedia. Available at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walter_Murch (Accessed: 18 December 2023).

Preliminary Exercise 13: Introduction to Sound in Film (Be a Sound Engineer)

 Introduction

      Sound in film is many things that the audience can hear. These things include music, dialogue, sound effects etc. And is used to engage the audience with the film even more. It could also deliver information and heighten the nature of the production. Sound can support a genre, setting and characters by giving an audience a feeling that easily helps them determine what type of genre, setting and character that the film represents. For example, in a horror film, the audience could easily dictate that the film is scary based on the slow ambient music, the unsettling sounds, and the character's hasty dialogue. The atmosphere could be viewed differently based on what the audience hears. Compared to using something light and cheerful, it could make the audience think that the film represents the joyful and feel-good genres while something eerie and scary could cause the audience to think that the film is most likely horror or thriller. Sound can also be captivating to the audience. The more the sound matches the scenes, the more the audience will be more in tuned with the scene.

Reflection

I learned many things about sound in films during this assignment. The things I learned was that sound could cause the audience to be more engaged with your film and that different sounds contributes to different genres. In this assignment we had to do research on different genres and scenes and find their designated sounds that goes with them. Evan was in charge of Music, Joshua and Woodson was in charge of sound, and I was in charge of dialogue. In this assignment we had to put our minds together to find what sound goes with what and what was the best-known sound used in that certain genre and scene. 

Work Cited

Reich, J. (2017) 8. what is sound?, Exploring Movie Construction and Production. Available at: https://milnepublishing.geneseo.edu/exploring-movie-construction-and-production/chapter/8-what-is-sound/ (Accessed: 11 December 2023). 

Preliminary Exercise 12: Camera Movement Videos

 Introduction

    Now, in this assignment, we bring our ideas to life. After creating the storyboard, we move on to the hard part of the assignment which is to create a video containing the elements of camera movement. We needed props, such as our books, a camera to film and a tripod. The camera movements techniques we decided to use for this project is trucking shot, static, zoom in, tilt, camera roll, and boom shot. We chose these techniques because we found it easier to illustrate the making of our videos and would fit our ideas the best.

Videos

Video 1 (trucking)

• Action Line: Evan is walking to the vending machines.

• Shot size: Full

• Camera angle: Shoulder level

• Framing:  Single

• Composition: Deep focus

Video 2 (static)

• Action Line: Evan is trying to choose which item he should buy.

• Shot size: Medium full

• Camera angle: Knee level

• Framing: Single

• Composition: Shallow

Video 3 (zoom in)

• Action Line: Evan is looking at the last sprite in the machine.

• Shot size: Close up

• Camera angle: Over the shoulder

• Framing: Insert shot

• Composition: Color

Video 4 (tilt)

• Action Line: Joshua and Woodson are working on math homework.

• Shot size: Establishing shot

• Camera angle: High

• Framing: Two

• Composition: Deep Focus

Video 5 (Camera roll)

• Action Line: Joshua and Woodson realizes that the homework is confusing.

• Shot size: Master Shot

• Camera angle: High

• Framing: Single 

• Composition: Shapes

Video 6 (Boom)

• Action Line: Joshua and Woodson are now talking about the work.

• Shot size: Master shot

• Camera angle: Shoulder

• Framing: Two shot

• Composition: balance

Reflection

We learned how each of these techniques worked and how they are composed. Evan was a camera man, I created the ideas and Woodson and Joshua were the actors. For the first 3 though, I had to become the camera man since Evan was going to be a character. Our team had different responsibilities and we all were helping each other out by giving orders and setting things right for the video. I needed help composing one of the techniques and usually Evan or Woodson would help. The team did a great job during this assignment; they were all so determined to get the job done perfectly.

Work Cited

(No date) Video production: A beginner’s guide | adobe. Available at: https://www.adobe.com/creativecloud/video/discover/video-production.html (Accessed: 12 December 2023). 

Preliminary Exercise 11: Camera Movement Storyboard

 Introduction

    Camera movement is the way a camera moves with a subject and give your ideas life. But before we do, we need a story idea and planning first. Me and my team has picked 9 camera movement concepts and planned on what our videos were going to be like with those 9 concepts. And also, how we were going to bring them to life. When story boarding videos, you use arrows to show what the camera is going to do. To complete the assignment we needed: a camera, subjects, a setting and props. Joshua and Woodson were the two main actors for the videos while me and Evan planned. I made the action lines and contributed my ideas to the story board. It is important to create a storyboard because you want to organize and remember the concrete of your project; how it was created and what to use again to make that concept come to life again. 

Storyboard

Reflection

I learned in this exercise what is the root of making video ideas and how to be organized with them. With this storyboard, we will be using it to finish Preliminary exercise 12, which is the actual video. Now the next step to finally bring our ideas to life.

Work Cited

Santa Monica (2023) Storyboard arrows - how to storyboard camera moves, StudioBinder. Available at: https://www.studiobinder.com/blog/storyboard-arrows-meaning/ (Accessed: 05 December 2023).