Chion’s ‘Added Value’

Alice Rose Asbury / / Research

Music as Added Value

At this stage of my research I decided to research ways in which music can be used to help me decide which way to go with the overall sound design of ‘George’. When looking into what music adds to a piece I found Michel Chion’s ‘Audio-Vision’(1990) very helpful. He talks generally about how sound, describing it as ‘added value’, touching on how it can transform the visual not only by adding to story, but to create links between scenes, stories and characters and the emotive factor it adds to the piece.
He then goes on to discuss music alone and describes two different effects music can have on a piece: Empathetic and Anempathetic.

“music can directly express its participation in the feeling of the scene, by taking on the scene’s rhythm, tone, and phrasing; obviously such music participates in cultural codes for things like sadness, happiness, and movement” (Chion, 1990, 8) 

He describes the above as Empathetic music “the ability to feel the feelings of others”. What I can take from this idea of Empathetic music is that it makes you feel part of the audio visual experience in an affective way. It takes the emotions on screen and furthers them, this will be especially useful within my film as the story line isn’t particularly obvious. In ‘George’ the visual displays some signifiers to the overall plot and a very small amount of dialogue; therefore it’ll be important that the progression of the story is displayed clearly through sound and music. More specifically we want the audience to feel the emotions of the character George, his life story isn’t revealed to the end of the film, so it will be important to make the music emotive; with this it will guide the audience as to how to feel about George when the plot is revealed.

He then goes on to discuss what he describes as ‘Anempathetic’ music. He discusses how this is a more progressive type of music that is ‘indifferent’ to the on screen action. This creates a more intensifying effect, quite often blending with ambience sounds and foley. For me this is something that can make the music more interesting. It allows the music to feel less obvious in the sense of that it blends well with the sound design around it, allowing it not to stand out so prominently but to still be there and intensifying what is going on.

I think looking at music from both of these views has taught me where to go with the music within George. In some scenes empathetic music will be vital in helping develop the story and make the whole piece come together through linking scenes and shots smoothly. However in other scenes for example the dream sequence an anempatheitc approach will be much more relevant; this will help intensify the scene and also blend with other sounds we wish to put in like atmos and footsteps. For me a main objective for the music is for it to blend well with the overall sound design, not taking away from the ambience layers and dialogue we have put together but adding to it.

Chion, M. (1990) Audio-Vision: Sound on Screen. New York: Columbia University Press.

Jez Riley French

Alice Rose Asbury / / Guest Lectures

‘The more you listen to something the more it allows you to here’

Jez Riley French works as a field sound recorder going around the world collecting interesting and different sounds. What makes Jez’s work extremely interesting is how he finds objects/places/living things and captures there sound in a way that perhaps hasn’t been heard before. His work allows us to have an idea of how much more sound there actually is out there rather than the obvious sound which we perhaps hear every day. He differs from other sound recordists as he prefers the unpredictability about field recording; of how sound can change to it’s environment and how other aspects like nature around it may change the shape of the sound. Other field sound recordists try to prevent this from happening through trying to block out sounds and movements that may effect the sound they are trying to capture; Jez likes the mystery of it all.

He continued to discuss the microphones he used to capture these sounds, my particular favourite was the way he uses contact microphones. He uses them to capture fascinating sounds which you could never imagine came from the object. For example the recording of the ‘Telefrica’ which is a cableway in Italy used to transport goods down a mountain, through a contact microphone this sounds like something out of a science fiction film. He also spoke about how stairwells are a good place to find interesting sounds through a contact mic. My favourite piece he showed us with his contact microphone was the recording of the orchestra with the microphone attached to the stage, this created a really harmonic atmosphere audio (‘Salt – Adagio’). He also spoke of other microphones he used such as hydrophone microphones – to pick up sounds under water. Ultrasonic detectors which pick up ultrasonics and pitch them down so they are audible to the human ear. Geothermal detecters which collect infra red sounds below our hearing. VLF detecters which detect space sounds.

I found Jez’s talk very useful; it certainly opened my eyes up to different ways of getting sounds that you wouldn’t expect to find. I think we will be able to apply a lot of this to our project. Although we don’t have the range of technologies Jez uses we can use some of his techniques. We have now discussed as a group how whilst we are recording we will play around with the positions of our atmos microphones; try explore with the sounds we are getting with the hope that some of them will be able to fit into post. I also want to try using a contact microphone whilst recording the music; this will be perfect for our scenes where the main character is dreaming. I also think we could use contact microphones to create base layers for our atmospheres.

Bryan Rudd Lecture

Alice Rose Asbury / / Guest Lectures

In this Lecture with Bryan he discussed an example of his own experience with working for a client on a radio drama. This specific project was for a BBC radio 7 drama on William Wilberforce to celebrate an anniversary of Wilberforce ending slavery across Britain. Bryan spoke about his steps in problem solving and research into the project. He spoke about how he wanted to make it as close to what it would have been in that era (this also including using locations that Wilberforce was actually present). Due to joining the crew on this project late Bryan had to re-plan a lot of the schedule as it was not efficient for the transmission date. He also had issues with location so had to quickly sort other locations so the recording could go ahead.

From Bryan’s talk I have taken more thought into what could go wrong on our project. Thinking more carefully about what issues may arise when we are filming and how we will be able to fix them quickly and efficiently so our job is easier in post. I have also taken more thought into authenticity of our sound; we are going to try and get as many extra sounds on location. This will help us build the atmosphere’s and foley when the time comes in post and for it to be as realistic as possible. He also spoke that in hindsight he would have shared out the responsibilities more. When everyone has more specific roles to the project it allows everyone to examine there area carefully. This will be very useful in our project to make sure we don’t miss any important details in our sound design.

Music Cue Script

Alice Rose Asbury / / Film Process

Here is my analysed script with my original music cues. However due to the script changing and the scenes not turning out as originally planned the music cues have changed drastically. When creating this I knew there wouldn’t be this much music needed and it would be cut down. What I have learnt from this process is what signs to look out for when creating a music cue script. Although this music cue script didn’t go completely to plan I did learn from it and I will know a little more when creating a list of music cues for the next film.

You can see exactly how the music cues changed in my later posts about the music itself and in my music evaluation.

Orignal Music Cue Script