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Week 3 - Instructor Guidance

The focus this week is sound design and the use of aesthetic choices.

Begin your week reading Chapters 7 and 8 in your textbook.

Chapter 7 focuses on Editing while Chapter 8 encompasses Sound and Music.

The Editor

The editor is the individual responsible for editing the film. Many times, this job can encompass as much creative input as the job of the director. A good editor can take mediocre footage and, by artful cutting, intercutting and with the addition of a moving soundtrack, can turn it into an exciting piece of film. It is not uncommon, these days, for an editor and assistant editor to begin work on a picture during pre-production and to begin assembling dailies during production. If the picture is not complicated, a rough cut can be completed within four to six weeks after principal photography ends.

Editing is the process of selecting, arranging and assembling a film and its sound track into a logical, rhythmic story progression. The stages of editing are: rough cut (the first logical assembly of the chosen footage), fine cut (a more intricately worked version), final cut (the version to which the negative will be conformed and from which release prints will be struck). However, it should be noted that the editing process evolves rather than being comprised of finite stages.

As you read about the Editor and begin to apply the information to film, ask yourself:

Which types of shots did they use?

In what order do the shots appear?

How long are the shots on the screen?

This is a good way to begin your analysis.

Figure 7.1 Editing Transitions Chart is a wonderful, condensed chart defining direct-cuts, fade-outs and fade-ins, dissolves, wipes, irises and jump-cuts. These are terms you will want to use in Discussion 1.

Discussion 1:

To successfully complete this week’s discussion “Cinematography and Editing Options,” explore movie clips from the Movieclips website or IMDB. Choose a clip that you wish to analyze. The clip you choose must be from a film (preferably from a film with which you are familiar) – not a film trailer or a mash-up. After you have chosen a clip, write a discussion post about the following:

In your discussion, analyze at least three elements of cinematography and editing by evaluating the dramatic impact of the scene. Interpret the scene based on your analysis. In your view, what mood, symbolism, or meaning results from the scene’s creative editing and cinematography? Support your claims with examples from the required material(s) and/or other scholarly resources, and properly cite any references After watching the movie clips reviewed by your classmates, compare how the scenes would be different had the editors or cinematographers chosen other options. Each response should be a minimum of 125 words

Sound

There are three categories of sound: 1. Dialogue Dialogue refers to the written, printed or spoken conversation between two or more individuals; in a script, dialogue means any one or more spoken lines, even by an actor appearing in a scene alone.

If you’ve never looked at an actual film script, you will be amazed at not only the detail regarding visual elements, but also the limited amount of dialogue. Here is a link to the full movie script for Django Unchained. Check out the use of dialogue! 2. Sound Effects This includes all artificially-created or natural sounds (other than music or dialogue). These sounds, such as a door opening Creaky door, a bird chirping Robin chirping glass breaking Glass breaking, are recorded separately (wild sound) or transferred from a library of sound effects.

The foley artist is the individual who specializes in creating ordinary, synchronized sound effects, such as footsteps, door slamming, keys jingling, glasses clinking, etc., in a soundproofed foley studio. The studio is equipped with various types of sound-effects producing materials and a large screen fro watching the necessary film tracks. These types of sound effects, called foleys, are named after Jack Foley (1891-1967), inventor of this process of custom-designing sound effects in a specially equipped sound studio.

3. Music When we discuss the “music” of a film, we are referring to the score and the soundtrack. The score refers to all the music heard in a film, TV show or stage play. As a verb, to score the film, means to compose or provide a score.

A little survey for film score fanatics. I wonder how many of the following you would agree with, it makes interesting reading!

In 2005, A jury of over 500 film artists, composers, musicians, critics and historians selected John Williams’ iconic score from the classic film STAR WARS as the most memorable film score of all time. John Williams is additionally noteworthy as the most represented composer on the list with three scores making the top 25.

The full nominations of 100 film scores can be viewed 100 Years of Film Scores

An interesting top 25 was chosen, the most modern score being from ‘The Mission’ (1986) Ennio Morricone. I wonder if the same survey was done today if any more modern scores would creep in to the top 25.

The top 25 scores voted for were:

#

FILM

YEAR

STUDIO

COMPOSER

1

STAR WARS

1977

Twentieth Century Fox

John Williams

2

GONE WITH THE WIND

1939

MGM

Max Steiner

3

LAWRENCE OF ARABIA

1962

Columbia

Maurice Jarre

4

PSYCHO

1960

Paramount

Bernard Herrmann

5

THE GODFATHER

1972

Paramount

Nino Rota

6

JAWS

1975

Universal

John Williams

7

LAURA

1944

Twentieth Century Fox

David Raksin

8

THE MAGNIFICENT SEVEN

1960

United Artists

Elmer Bernstein

9

CHINATOWN

1974

Paramount

Jerry Goldsmith

10

HIGH NOON

1952

United Artists

Dimitri Tiomkin

11

THE ADVENTURES OF ROBIN HOOD

1938

Warner Bros.

Erich Wolfgang Korngold

12

VERTIGO

1958

Paramount

Bernard Herrmann

13

KING KONG

1933

RKO

Max Steiner

14

E.T. THE EXTRA-TERRESTRIAL

1982

Universal

John Williams

15

OUT OF AFRICA

1985

Universal

John Barry

16

SUNSET BLVD.

1950

Paramount

Franz Waxman

17

TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD

1962

Universal

Elmer Bernstein

18

PLANET OF THE APES

1968

Twentieth Century Fox

Jerry Goldsmith

19

A STREETCAR NAMED DESIRE

1951

Warner Bros.

Alex North

20

THE PINK PANTHER

1964

United Artists

Henry Mancini

21

BEN-HUR

1959

MGM

Miklos Rozsa

22

ON THE WATERFRONT

1954

Columbia

Leonard Bernstein

23

THE MISSION

1986

Warner Bros.

Ennio Morricone

24

ON GOLDEN POND

1981

Universal

Dave Grusin

25

HOW THE WEST WAS WON

1962

MGM, Cinerama Releasing

Alfred Newman

The soundtrack is the audio portion of a film divided into three or four separate tracks or channels: dialogue, music, effects and a spillover track for additional sounds. An optical sound track is made from the mixed tracks before it is printed onto the side of the film in the lab. It is not uncommon for many separate units (there can be hundreds) to be individually edited and then mixed, to produce the final sound track. The soundtrack can also refer to the recorded version of a film’s musical score, available to purchase.