SOUND:

An extremely dynamic means of manipulating an audience, sound can be internal, external, synchronous and asynchronous. Reproduced from any source and synchronized with the film images, it can evoke and intensify emotion, commenting on and paralleling the dramatic content and formal rhythms of the film. Visual CONTINUITY is reinforced by what we hear, so consistent sounds in a scene help to join the shots and sequences together.

We can modify sound and make it function in many different ways, to the extent that it can change our perception of image and meaning. Sound can be simply descriptive, composed entirely of natural sounds identified in the action. It can also articulate space, establishing distance, position, direction of movement, openness and closure by its volume, tone and echo.

COUNTERPOINT permits infinitely variable and subtle shades of meaning by placing one or more unrelated or contrasting sounds with an image, augmenting the filmic tension. Even the simplest contrast between sound and visual image will have the effect of making one the foil of the other, thereby heightening the effect.

The soundtrack can also decorate or embellish a film by adding audible delight to the visuals, a sensuous feast for the ears, whether by sound effects or music. Remove Bernard Herrmann's legendary orchestra music from Hitchcock's Psycho (1960) and the tension disappears in many scenes. In short, when the sound has aesthetic integrity, apart from its space-articulating or descriptive functions, it is decorative.

Sound can also lull a writer into a dull reliance upon dialogue, rather than moving pictures, as their prime channel of communication. Writers tend to over-write, creating talky 'expositional' scenes that lack visual power. In the film Point Blank (1967) director John Boorman cut a whole scene of Lee Marvin's dialogue to intensify his ex-wife's verbal confession.

The actor Lee Van Cleef, who played Angel Eyes in The Good, The Bad and The Ugly (1967) would read the script, redline his dialogue and confer with director Sergio Leone, suggesting ways to deliver the essence of the material (boredom, anticipation, menace) with a mannerism or expression, the result being a series of riveting close-ups, usually of the actor’s eyes.

In film, actions speak louder than words, making dialogue a secondary priority. When disencumbered from the task of sustaining narrative through EXPOSITIONAL DIALOGUE, spoken words can serve more realistic, abstract or poetic ends.

However, dialogue would be ridiculous if it were reduced to muttering only profound thoughts. Some of the most effective human sounds are inarticulate but vividly expressive of grief, rage, joy; e.g. groans, screams, laughter, etc. Words are then no longer simply the vehicle of specific information, but an aspect of characterization, mood and aesthetics.

Some immediately recognizable 'iconic' voices can represent periods in history, like those of Frank Sinatra and Winston Churchill; talented mimics imitate them because their voices are as powerfully suggestive as the incidental sounds of chainsaws or gunshots. Like sound effects, music can be used as a signaling device to create drama, the arrangement of melody and rhythm changing as visual states occur; e.g. the music on the weather channel changes for the seven-day forecast, bringing a distracted viewer’s attention back to the screen.

Sounds and music can establish style, mood and emotions quickly, and are capable of actually influencing the physical state of the audience, enhancing the image's ability to touch the senses.

As a general rule in film and multimedia, if text or dialogue is allowed to persistently overwhelm imagery, the results can be very mediocre. Words and pictures make an uneasy mix, but this can be positively exploited in the form of contrasting elements and counterpoint; e.g. by using a navigational graphic or character, the interactive user may visually 'see the light at the end of the tunnel', quite literally leading from ignorance to wisdom about an actual topic.

For specific information (WORDS) to operate effectively, it has to be translated into images (ACTIONS) in the storyboards. Writers and artists should see the flow of visual information as their principal task. To use text or dialogue as an extension of the ACTIVITY is approaching the ideal.

“The best word is one that isn’t spoken”
Sicilian Proverb