Thursday, 18 February 2010
In the film Wall-e, How does sound help to bond the relationship between the audience and the characters on screen?
This is footage from the film Wall-e which shows a lot of what is about to be mentioned:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CghIyKf2sfE
Walter Murch believes that sound is the first sense that the human being experiences. Murch explains that due to our perception of sound before birth, a consciousness is created within us, already generating a clear relationship with our mother’s voice.
“our four and a half month baptism in a sea of sound must have a profound and everlasting effect on us – but from the moment of birth onward, hearing seems to recede into the background of our consciousness and function more as an accompaniment to what we see.”
Murch (2000)
At the first stages of sound recording in film, sound was considered a high priority. Since the invention of the Zoetrope, sound has taken a severe backlash and has been dignified one of the lowest priorities by modern filmmakers. But in the creation of Sound Design in the 1970’s, sound is pulling its way back into the spotlight and is able to enhance our perception of an entire motion picture. Ben Burtt is a very successful sound designer with many fantastic projects in his past. Burtt was given the opportunity to redefine the world of sound in the 2008, sci-fi animation Wall-e. I have been investigating how Burtt’s design has enabled an audience to bond with the characters on screen.
Sound is generally regarded as secondary when it comes to film. We are bombarded with so many ideas for how to work a film visually, that filmmakers tend to forget that the medium of sound is a part of film also. Sound can help to shape surroundings. What we see on the screen may not be the only thing to focus on. The sounds we hear can commonly give us more insight into exactly what we understand about what we are seeing. Klas Dykhoff has the interesting notion that when sound creates the third dimension of film it brings the audience into a more realistic viewing.
“To a large extent it’s the sound that creates the third dimension, the depth, but our minds fool us into believing that we see it”
Dykhoff (2003)
The visual factor of film allows us to investigate with our sight and creates a direct link with what we see on the screen, but the aural factor lets us delve into our consciousness and serves as a distorted communication tool that can sometimes give the audience more than just a film, but a memorable imprint that has a more personal effect. If this technique works well, then the audience should not notice the sound at all initially; it should become a medium with more depth into the human psyche. Burtt uses this knowledge to create sound as a character itself.
“with animated characters … they are two dimensional creatures who make no sound at all unless the illusion is created through sound out of context: sound from one reality transposed to another.”
Murch (2000)
Wall-e is composed of sounds that are taken from the real world and translated into a different reality.
“The basic thing in all films is to create something that sounds believable to everyone, because it’s composed of familiar things that you can not quite recognize immediately”
Burtt (Film Sound Today) no date!
This uses the consciousness of the human mind and allows the animation to have a three dimensional wave that effects the audience and gives the viewer something to grow close to, to have a relationship with. For example, when creating the wind effects of Wall-e, Burtt did not just go out to the street and record the atmosphere of a windy day; he dragged a punch bag across a carpeted floor and used this to signify the toxic wind we hear in the film (1.55). If heard this sound on it’s own is almost unrecognisable due to the intentions that the sound was recorded. In the film, it is narrowed to the toxic wind, which engulfs the Earth. This is all down to a collaboration of different factors of film, which come together to create this world.
When bringing a sound designer onto the production of a film, sound is taken into consideration at very early stages of pre production and is continuously referred to throughout the production process. In the case of Wall-e, director Andrew Stanton took this effort very seriously and considered Burtt, the key player in bringing his characters to life. Even before recruiting Burtt, Stanton had a clear intention of what he wanted to gain from the process of sound design.
“I knew I wanted old fashioned music against space. I knew I loved the idea of the future and past juxtaposed and that on the first frame that would not seem familiar.” - Andrew Stanton
Christianson (2008)
Stanton is referring to the opening scene of Wall-e. The use of the music from “Hello Dolly” instantly gives depth to the film in the first opening frame like Stanton claims. Burtt uses Walter Murch’s technique of Worldization to show Wall-e playing the music as he works away cleaning up the Earth. The audience hears this and there is immediately a connection made between our hero and our audience. Something like a car passing on the street, and the song that is playing, is from our past generation; all sounds that remain in our consciousness until sparked by a certain incident we experience. It becomes something that we have in common with Wall-e and is the obvious connection we make at the early stages of the film.
This relationship is further enhanced by the sparse use of dialogue between our main character and his love interest Eve. Stanton explained to Burtt that he didn’t want to use dialogue but instead wanted to bring a more realistic approach to things, allowing Burtt to generate a new form of robotic slang.
The sounds that Burtt created would define a character and would set the tone for the entire film. In making these sounds relative to what we understand from our previous experiences with hearing, the characters are able to talk to us, make us laugh, make us cry or even confide in us. They grab the audience so much, that the characters that have no dialogue in the film have a much stronger relationship with the audience than the human characters. Burtt approached this by considering what machines sound like today, then enhancing these sounds to create a communicative voice thus allowing us to experience their emotions and characteristics through their mechanically orchestrated sounds.
“the illusion that these robot characters, the speech and sounds they made were really coming from their functions as machines that these was either a chip on board that synthesized the voice or the squeak of their motor would sound cute and that would indicate how they feel.” – Burtt.
Christianson (2008)
This immediately attaches our characters to our consciousness, allowing us to recognise the sounds we are hearing but to experience them within such an abnormal character allows us to create an unseen relationship with what we already relate the sounds to. To further our connection with the robotic characters, there are almost no humans on screen. The human element remains with the use of Chion's “acousmetre”; the human voices we hear are recordings; we are not introduced to the human element until half way through the film. However, to create the limited robotic vocabulary, voices were recorded and then modulated. This gives the impression of something new, when in fact, our brains analyze voice every second of every day. This again transmits a message to our minds letting us explore the depth of the characters on screen and once again giving another connection to hang onto throughout the film’s progress. The ways the voices are manipulated show exactly what our characters moods and our characters intentions are. Such as Walle’s groans and whistles (0.13) show his childlike personality and his curiosity and longing, and Eve’s smooth, flowing noises (0.23) show her intelligence and superiority, but her laugh also shows kindness and innocence.
In reflection to my research I have been able to identify that it’s not the obvious sounds that allow us to gain a new aspect of a film but it is more likely the sounds that blend together so well that they generally become common in our “hear/see” experience. Each and every individual has a different way of perceiving sound that is personal to the human consciousness in one way or another; it’s the way we are born. This perception allows us to gain a greater knowledge of what we don’t see on the screen, but what we think we see. We fill in the missing pieces and we connect our senses to fully explore what our mind already knows, and that is how Wall-e is able to establish a successful relationship with its audience.
Looking back to our first encounter of our relationship with sound:
“This earliest, most powerful fusion of sound and image sets the tone for all that are to come.”
Murch (2000)
Murch, W., 2000, Stretching Sound to Help the Mind See. New York Times, October 1st – Adapted from: Projection 4: Sound Design: The Dancing Shadow.
http://www.filmsound.org/murch/stretching.htm
Dykhoff, K., 2003, About the perception of sound. University College of Film, Radio, Television and Theatre, Stockholm.
http://www.dramatiskainstitutet.se/web/About_the_perception_of_sound.aspx
Christianson, E., 2008, World According to WALL_E’s Andrew Stanton, Ben Burtt and the Cast. Hollywood.com.
http://www.hollywood.com/content/feature_detail.aspx?id=5266467&p=7
Blake, L., The Sound Design Of Star Wars. Film Sound Today: An anthology of articles from Recording Engineer/Producer. On paperback – articles featured on:
http://www.filmsound.org/starwars/
Weis, E., / Belton, J., 1985, The Sound Design Of Star Wars. Film Sound: Theory and Practice. On paperback – articles featured on:
http://www.filmsound.org/starwars/
Published by “Creativity”, 2009, The 2009 Creativity 50: Ben Burtt and Andrew Stanton.
http://creativity-online.com/news/the-2009-creativity-50-ben-burtt-and-andrew-stanton/134467
Thom, R., 1999, Designing a Movie for Sound. Adapted from Film Sound Theory. Article available on:
http://www.filmsound.org/articles/designing_for_sound.htm
Maynes, C., 2004, Worldizing – take studio recordings to the field and make them sound organic. Adapted from The Editors Guild Magazine Vol. 25, No.2. Article available on:
http://www.filmsound.org/terminology/worldizing.htm
Chion, M., 1994, Audio-Vision. Published by Columbia University Press.
Available on Paperback.
Pixar Studio’s, 2008, Wall-e: Creating a world from Sound Up. Available on the special features of “Wall-e” DVD.
This is footage from the film Wall-e which shows a lot of what is about to be mentioned:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CghIyKf2sfE
Walter Murch believes that sound is the first sense that the human being experiences. Murch explains that due to our perception of sound before birth, a consciousness is created within us, already generating a clear relationship with our mother’s voice.
“our four and a half month baptism in a sea of sound must have a profound and everlasting effect on us – but from the moment of birth onward, hearing seems to recede into the background of our consciousness and function more as an accompaniment to what we see.”
Murch (2000)
At the first stages of sound recording in film, sound was considered a high priority. Since the invention of the Zoetrope, sound has taken a severe backlash and has been dignified one of the lowest priorities by modern filmmakers. But in the creation of Sound Design in the 1970’s, sound is pulling its way back into the spotlight and is able to enhance our perception of an entire motion picture. Ben Burtt is a very successful sound designer with many fantastic projects in his past. Burtt was given the opportunity to redefine the world of sound in the 2008, sci-fi animation Wall-e. I have been investigating how Burtt’s design has enabled an audience to bond with the characters on screen.
Sound is generally regarded as secondary when it comes to film. We are bombarded with so many ideas for how to work a film visually, that filmmakers tend to forget that the medium of sound is a part of film also. Sound can help to shape surroundings. What we see on the screen may not be the only thing to focus on. The sounds we hear can commonly give us more insight into exactly what we understand about what we are seeing. Klas Dykhoff has the interesting notion that when sound creates the third dimension of film it brings the audience into a more realistic viewing.
“To a large extent it’s the sound that creates the third dimension, the depth, but our minds fool us into believing that we see it”
Dykhoff (2003)
The visual factor of film allows us to investigate with our sight and creates a direct link with what we see on the screen, but the aural factor lets us delve into our consciousness and serves as a distorted communication tool that can sometimes give the audience more than just a film, but a memorable imprint that has a more personal effect. If this technique works well, then the audience should not notice the sound at all initially; it should become a medium with more depth into the human psyche. Burtt uses this knowledge to create sound as a character itself.
“with animated characters … they are two dimensional creatures who make no sound at all unless the illusion is created through sound out of context: sound from one reality transposed to another.”
Murch (2000)
Wall-e is composed of sounds that are taken from the real world and translated into a different reality.
“The basic thing in all films is to create something that sounds believable to everyone, because it’s composed of familiar things that you can not quite recognize immediately”
Burtt (Film Sound Today) no date!
This uses the consciousness of the human mind and allows the animation to have a three dimensional wave that effects the audience and gives the viewer something to grow close to, to have a relationship with. For example, when creating the wind effects of Wall-e, Burtt did not just go out to the street and record the atmosphere of a windy day; he dragged a punch bag across a carpeted floor and used this to signify the toxic wind we hear in the film (1.55). If heard this sound on it’s own is almost unrecognisable due to the intentions that the sound was recorded. In the film, it is narrowed to the toxic wind, which engulfs the Earth. This is all down to a collaboration of different factors of film, which come together to create this world.
When bringing a sound designer onto the production of a film, sound is taken into consideration at very early stages of pre production and is continuously referred to throughout the production process. In the case of Wall-e, director Andrew Stanton took this effort very seriously and considered Burtt, the key player in bringing his characters to life. Even before recruiting Burtt, Stanton had a clear intention of what he wanted to gain from the process of sound design.
“I knew I wanted old fashioned music against space. I knew I loved the idea of the future and past juxtaposed and that on the first frame that would not seem familiar.” - Andrew Stanton
Christianson (2008)
Stanton is referring to the opening scene of Wall-e. The use of the music from “Hello Dolly” instantly gives depth to the film in the first opening frame like Stanton claims. Burtt uses Walter Murch’s technique of Worldization to show Wall-e playing the music as he works away cleaning up the Earth. The audience hears this and there is immediately a connection made between our hero and our audience. Something like a car passing on the street, and the song that is playing, is from our past generation; all sounds that remain in our consciousness until sparked by a certain incident we experience. It becomes something that we have in common with Wall-e and is the obvious connection we make at the early stages of the film.
This relationship is further enhanced by the sparse use of dialogue between our main character and his love interest Eve. Stanton explained to Burtt that he didn’t want to use dialogue but instead wanted to bring a more realistic approach to things, allowing Burtt to generate a new form of robotic slang.
The sounds that Burtt created would define a character and would set the tone for the entire film. In making these sounds relative to what we understand from our previous experiences with hearing, the characters are able to talk to us, make us laugh, make us cry or even confide in us. They grab the audience so much, that the characters that have no dialogue in the film have a much stronger relationship with the audience than the human characters. Burtt approached this by considering what machines sound like today, then enhancing these sounds to create a communicative voice thus allowing us to experience their emotions and characteristics through their mechanically orchestrated sounds.
“the illusion that these robot characters, the speech and sounds they made were really coming from their functions as machines that these was either a chip on board that synthesized the voice or the squeak of their motor would sound cute and that would indicate how they feel.” – Burtt.
Christianson (2008)
This immediately attaches our characters to our consciousness, allowing us to recognise the sounds we are hearing but to experience them within such an abnormal character allows us to create an unseen relationship with what we already relate the sounds to. To further our connection with the robotic characters, there are almost no humans on screen. The human element remains with the use of Chion's “acousmetre”; the human voices we hear are recordings; we are not introduced to the human element until half way through the film. However, to create the limited robotic vocabulary, voices were recorded and then modulated. This gives the impression of something new, when in fact, our brains analyze voice every second of every day. This again transmits a message to our minds letting us explore the depth of the characters on screen and once again giving another connection to hang onto throughout the film’s progress. The ways the voices are manipulated show exactly what our characters moods and our characters intentions are. Such as Walle’s groans and whistles (0.13) show his childlike personality and his curiosity and longing, and Eve’s smooth, flowing noises (0.23) show her intelligence and superiority, but her laugh also shows kindness and innocence.
In reflection to my research I have been able to identify that it’s not the obvious sounds that allow us to gain a new aspect of a film but it is more likely the sounds that blend together so well that they generally become common in our “hear/see” experience. Each and every individual has a different way of perceiving sound that is personal to the human consciousness in one way or another; it’s the way we are born. This perception allows us to gain a greater knowledge of what we don’t see on the screen, but what we think we see. We fill in the missing pieces and we connect our senses to fully explore what our mind already knows, and that is how Wall-e is able to establish a successful relationship with its audience.
Looking back to our first encounter of our relationship with sound:
“This earliest, most powerful fusion of sound and image sets the tone for all that are to come.”
Murch (2000)
Murch, W., 2000, Stretching Sound to Help the Mind See. New York Times, October 1st – Adapted from: Projection 4: Sound Design: The Dancing Shadow.
http://www.filmsound.org/murch/stretching.htm
Dykhoff, K., 2003, About the perception of sound. University College of Film, Radio, Television and Theatre, Stockholm.
http://www.dramatiskainstitutet.se/web/About_the_perception_of_sound.aspx
Christianson, E., 2008, World According to WALL_E’s Andrew Stanton, Ben Burtt and the Cast. Hollywood.com.
http://www.hollywood.com/content/feature_detail.aspx?id=5266467&p=7
Blake, L., The Sound Design Of Star Wars. Film Sound Today: An anthology of articles from Recording Engineer/Producer. On paperback – articles featured on:
http://www.filmsound.org/starwars/
Weis, E., / Belton, J., 1985, The Sound Design Of Star Wars. Film Sound: Theory and Practice. On paperback – articles featured on:
http://www.filmsound.org/starwars/
Published by “Creativity”, 2009, The 2009 Creativity 50: Ben Burtt and Andrew Stanton.
http://creativity-online.com/news/the-2009-creativity-50-ben-burtt-and-andrew-stanton/134467
Thom, R., 1999, Designing a Movie for Sound. Adapted from Film Sound Theory. Article available on:
http://www.filmsound.org/articles/designing_for_sound.htm
Maynes, C., 2004, Worldizing – take studio recordings to the field and make them sound organic. Adapted from The Editors Guild Magazine Vol. 25, No.2. Article available on:
http://www.filmsound.org/terminology/worldizing.htm
Chion, M., 1994, Audio-Vision. Published by Columbia University Press.
Available on Paperback.
Pixar Studio’s, 2008, Wall-e: Creating a world from Sound Up. Available on the special features of “Wall-e” DVD.
Tuesday, 16 February 2010
Justification!
Now what kind of student would I be if i didn't justify my attraction to these two elements of film making.
Starting with Sound, the original aspiration to my career in film. I found myself attracted to the idea of completely creating a world based purely on sound. By changing one sound in an orchestrated soundtrack full of effects, music, and dialogue, we can completely change the mood of a film, either for the better or for the worse. It is a full art form in itself and can assist a film in ways in which no one can fully imagine. The potential is massive, to just go out and create something out of nothing, using sounds that we hear every day and using them to create excitment, or suspense. Every day noises being turned against you to create something which you fear, yet you hear every day while you walk home, go to work, sit down and do nothing. Even just the many ways in which silence can be used is unbelievable. When you think of silence, think how many different effects and moods you can create by having absolutely nothing to hear, just sheer silence.
When thinking of cinematography the same aspiration appears of creating a world that can be altered in the ways the film is shot. Hand held can give a sense of realism, fast paced close ups and uncomfortable shots can convey great suspense and excitement. Again anything is possible in this world and it is all up to the way the film looks to create this world in order to give the correct image to the audience. If the shot is in any way altered the film could have a completely different effect on an audience. An edgy noir thriller could be turned into a dottery romcom and the change of a stop.
I suppose it all relies on creativity and the majority of my decision. I am fully prepared to put in the labour and work on set and am completely ready to put myself on the firing line during a production, but creativity will constantly stock my mind.
I guess thats exactly what the academy wants from us. I guess i'm on the right tracks, but which right tracks; thats the question. There are many different paths you can choose, just need to find the right one.
Starting with Sound, the original aspiration to my career in film. I found myself attracted to the idea of completely creating a world based purely on sound. By changing one sound in an orchestrated soundtrack full of effects, music, and dialogue, we can completely change the mood of a film, either for the better or for the worse. It is a full art form in itself and can assist a film in ways in which no one can fully imagine. The potential is massive, to just go out and create something out of nothing, using sounds that we hear every day and using them to create excitment, or suspense. Every day noises being turned against you to create something which you fear, yet you hear every day while you walk home, go to work, sit down and do nothing. Even just the many ways in which silence can be used is unbelievable. When you think of silence, think how many different effects and moods you can create by having absolutely nothing to hear, just sheer silence.
When thinking of cinematography the same aspiration appears of creating a world that can be altered in the ways the film is shot. Hand held can give a sense of realism, fast paced close ups and uncomfortable shots can convey great suspense and excitement. Again anything is possible in this world and it is all up to the way the film looks to create this world in order to give the correct image to the audience. If the shot is in any way altered the film could have a completely different effect on an audience. An edgy noir thriller could be turned into a dottery romcom and the change of a stop.
I suppose it all relies on creativity and the majority of my decision. I am fully prepared to put in the labour and work on set and am completely ready to put myself on the firing line during a production, but creativity will constantly stock my mind.
I guess thats exactly what the academy wants from us. I guess i'm on the right tracks, but which right tracks; thats the question. There are many different paths you can choose, just need to find the right one.
Spoilt For Choice!
How exactly does one outway the choices of one specialism for another?
No, seriously i'm actually asking this question to anyone who may have any hint of an answer. When i look back on the year and a half i have been in the course and see that most of the work i have done on every production seems to be sound related in one way or another. This came to my attention a couple of months ago and i feel like its been bugging me ever since. Of coarse it is my fault for volenteering myself for the position and role of sound operator for most of these films, but it has now become a regular fact among the class that i am the guy to do sound for any production. This is not exactly how i imagined doing the course, although with every other factor in the academy i seem to be enjoying every minute of it. The only problem seems to be the position i have put myself in isn't exactly ideal for the aspirations that I have been feeling lately for the likes of cinematography.
It's hard to judge on either of my choices considering i have had no experience in the field as a cinematographer, and the kind of sound work i am interested in pursuing is that of design, in which i have also had no experience.
I suppose it's time to start climbing out of that whole and getting myself onto jobs that allow me to test my abilities and assist my judgment of what i want to choose in a couple of months time.
Fingers crossed my classmates overlook the original concept of sound and give me a chance to see what i can do in the role of cinematographer.
Only one way to be sure...
No, seriously i'm actually asking this question to anyone who may have any hint of an answer. When i look back on the year and a half i have been in the course and see that most of the work i have done on every production seems to be sound related in one way or another. This came to my attention a couple of months ago and i feel like its been bugging me ever since. Of coarse it is my fault for volenteering myself for the position and role of sound operator for most of these films, but it has now become a regular fact among the class that i am the guy to do sound for any production. This is not exactly how i imagined doing the course, although with every other factor in the academy i seem to be enjoying every minute of it. The only problem seems to be the position i have put myself in isn't exactly ideal for the aspirations that I have been feeling lately for the likes of cinematography.
It's hard to judge on either of my choices considering i have had no experience in the field as a cinematographer, and the kind of sound work i am interested in pursuing is that of design, in which i have also had no experience.
I suppose it's time to start climbing out of that whole and getting myself onto jobs that allow me to test my abilities and assist my judgment of what i want to choose in a couple of months time.
Fingers crossed my classmates overlook the original concept of sound and give me a chance to see what i can do in the role of cinematographer.
Only one way to be sure...
Tuesday, 2 February 2010
Ch-ch-ch-ch-changes!
It's hard to look back on first year for me now. That seems a long way away, the after the life of playing pranks on my mates with a tiny hard rive camcorder and trying to edit together my own fake trailers made from copyrighted pictures and video's, not to mention copyrighted music.
I look at things differently now. I talk differently, i act differently and i seem to respond differently to life in general nowadays. For the better? Who really knows but me? And i just dont know yet. The good news it that i think for the moment that i'm starting to grow up into the business and starting to feed my imagination into my intelligence (what little of it i have) and it would seem that i am trying to justify the old decisions for liking my top five films from last year and it just isnt working.
I'm starting to see films for what they really are, the combination of many different workloads all thrust into the production pot to create a masterpiece of art. Therefore my decision is starting to change and i am slowly but surely rebuilding myself and my top five, shaping it into my views of enjoyment, passion and respect.
So far i have only been able to patch two together at the moment and that seems to be down to the cinematography of both.
First has to be a film which i have always admired but not so much as i do now, after studying the filmmaker i have learned to respect and even come to love his style of shooting, as he regards himself as both the DP and director.
This film is the 2002 adaption of Lem's Solaris.
The second of my choices has to be Michael Mann's greatest film by a long stretch.
Heat is true art in my eyes, a film which is composed completely of it's characters. Throughout the whole film the frame always compliments its characters and it just seems to fit perfectly. In my opinion Heat is just the right length to suck you into the story and to keep you full of anticipation right up until the final sequence where we are suddenly fulfilled by the inevitable ending.
Nothing set in stone. And theres a lot more thought to be put into this before I completely crack whats going on up there just yet.
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