This week we focussed on learning how Sound (or lack thereof) can effective the emotion and tone of the scene, as well as how Editing can affect the temporal logic of the scene and effect the audience’s view.
SOUND
There are two main components that sound can be broken into, Diegetic ( sound that exists in the world of the film, things they can hear in the world); and Non-Diegetic ( sounds that don’t exist to the film’s world, acting as supplementing sound that helps the audience understand the tone and mood set, like soundtrack and SFX). We learnt the difference between Sound Design ( creating the sound, Foley artists etc.), and Sound Mixing ( Cuing the sound into the track, matching the action to the sounds, etc).
Then we went and looked at how different clips used sound to convey meaning or to emphasise certain actions.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6G3O60o5U7w
In this Pixar short, the non diegetic follows the intended mood. The rising tempo increases the feeling of excitement and wonder before pausing to highlights the dramatic effect of the action, before rising back up in excitement again. The Diegetic sound is used to add emotion to the inanimate objects, to give them life and personality. The squeaks of the different size lights indicate age and excitement and play into the playful interaction between the characters. The diegetic sound of the first ball is also comedic and strung out for longer than it would be in the natural world to increase the dramatic melancholy of the moment, letting us understand the smaller lamps emotions despite it being unable to emote itself.
This Montage uses sound to and camera to create the tension between the natural and man made world. The initial slow, long shots are of nature, and use non diegetic sound to have this dream-like, repetitive score to highlight the beauty of the natural world. Then when we cut to the man-made world there is fast cuts, this high-pitched fast score that creates this everlasting anxiety (especially when directly contrasting to the slow comfort of nature). The jarring cut between these give the audience stress and tension. Then we return back to the brooding score again to see the buildings destroyed, as if this is the good outcome for the world.
Finally, the sound in this trailer is used to hammer down this horror element in different ways. The main technique used in this, is the inconsistent up and downs, (as most film has ups and then downs etc, this randomness creates and unsettling and jumpy atmosphere). Lots of Sound Editing, sounds are warped to be distorted and unnatural which causes stress in the viewer. The inconsistent editing (non-linear) and this time paired with the sounds of groaning, sharp flash noises, etc creates the constant sense of discourse and distress in the mind of the viewer. The initial flashes at the start are similar to either gunshots or camera flashes, like those at a crime scene which sets the tone to be sinister and creates the initial sense of foreboding threat. The whole piece works together to have this Memory like flashes between them akin to PTSD.
EDITING
With editing we learnt about two main movements, Hollywood style continuity editing (where a consistent flow hides any film making techniques) and Soviet Montage (a form of editing developed in Russia for propaganda, that calls attention to the filmmakers touch for a specific effect and experimentation), also providing a more dramatic provocative approach to cinema. I was also reminded of the Kushov effect, something I learnt when studying film in A level, this idea that you can connect pieces of footage by placing them in a sequence and thus changing the emotion and tone the audience understands despite not changing any mise-en-scene, cinematography or sound.
The above clip is one that uses a lot of small technical nuance, it may not look very impressive but there’s a lot of techniques used to create a beautifully made piece of animation. These techniques include, cross cutting, eyeline matches, match cuts and consistent directions in movements, all workign together to create fluid movements and transitions (even with the more sharp cuts, done in such a way that the emotions connects with the previous scene and flows into the new one). There is a good sense of temporal control in this, time moves through easily but not in real time, montage helps pass the time but in an unobtrusive way. I really enjoyed this short film, not only for the really nice continuity editing but also for its blocking and camera work, it’s really a great piece of animation.
This fluidity is also captured in a more experimental way in this short sequence. The use of montage allows the flow of swinging around the environment to be consistently followed and the momentum and weight to carry between shots ( this wouldn’t work with slow fade transitions or crossfades). There are also this slide fades, likening the cinema screen to a comic book of the characters origin, this brings another sense of creativity and liveliness into the film that works really well.
Using my notes from this lecture, I went ahead and finished off my quick mind map from last week!
READING/WATCHLIST
This week I read and made notes of Chapter 3 of the Study Skills Handbook.
This was a very deep and critical analysis of how animation, and the variety of mediums work to portray quite heavy topics of injustice and personal experiences. I really liked this in-depth discussion as well as learning about a new experimental animated film that interests my personal beliefs.
I found this blog to have a very well structured analysis. Initially the writer focussed on the psychological aspect of the plot and analysing a lot of the style, but I was happy to see the analysis and use of sound to influence the film as well. I think that this article and the way it is formed is a good example of how I can incorporate research and analysis into a flowing piece of analysis. I really enjoyed this and its choice of subject, it is very enlightening.
PRACTICE ANALYSIS
This is just a small portion of what I could have analysed, I am surprised that there is so much that you could take out from these short films. You can also see that I have considered the different ways that I could approach analysing film when scribing it down. This time I tried to separate up my film language by technique, and I definitely found it a bit harder to get the flow of analysis like I use on other pieces. This short film is really amazing in the precise ways it uses sound, cinematography, camera and mise en scene so I may go back and look to write down other elements I picked out at another time for practice of putting analysis in my head onto paper.
