Sound Design

For the first day of Sound Design, we were revised on the basics which we covered with Joe last year in Experimental Sound. By looking at various examples of sound work in different forms of media, I was able to acknowledge how sound is used as a means to create an environment, often being a seamless part of the scene.

We were shown a scene from the 2003 film Elephant, in which the camera is following a boy through a school. The scene contains long shot with the camera following behind him, whilst the music playing in the background is Moonlight Sonata by Beethoven. We acknowledged the fact that the music was dominant, however whenever the character looks away to focus on something, the sounds from whatever he was looking at would play, almost as if this was showing us what was going on in the boy's mind.

The soundwaves that are displayed on an audio track determine how loud or quiet it will be. In addition, it shows the pitch of the audio track, with it being either deep or high. Waves that appear short will ultimately sound lower than waves that appear high, whereas longer waves will have a deeper pitch (giving us more of a bass sound) than waves that are squashed together (giving us a high pitched sound).

Soundwaves are processed by the tiny hairs in our ears which pick up frequencies of sound (vibrations). 

Similarly to film storyboarding, sound design requires careful planning in order to create a sense of immersion within the scene. 

Music Concréte is a technique created by (Pierre Schaeffer), in which a musical Composition is created through use of recorded sounds. These sounds are then edited (reverb, cutting, pitch shift, reverse and distortion). (http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/399309/musique-concrete)

Symphonie pour un homme seul(1950; Symphony for One Man Only) This is one of Pierre Schaeffer's musical compositions which uses the technique of music concrete. The concept of this Is to use various Noises in order to create a new type of musical symphony. The example shown below contains one of the movements (erotica), in which several different bits of audio of orgasms/laughter of a female are rearanged in order to create an almost melodic/soothing tone.