"Sound Bites!" The use of sound in movie production.

Since the beginning of the use of sound in featured films, viewers have been drawn into movies more profoundly than they ever could in the silent film era.

 

 

 

 

In the beginning of the motion picture industry, when still photos were looped together and transformed the frozen portrait into the moving actor, there was no sound accompanying the scene that rolled out before the viewer’s eyes. The silent film was just that, silent. In order to accentuate what was visible, the films rolled to live music performances. The orchestra played a vital role in bringing to life what the director of the film was portraying on the screen.

 

 

Watching a film with no sound feels as if you are missing something. With the addition of the live music, the film gathers depth unto itself.

 

 

With the addition of the music, movies became another world to the viewing audience.

The use of sound in movies can be categorized in three modes: dialog, sound effects and music.

Dialog was expressed by the use of “title cards” (Goodykoontz, 2011 pg 162 para 4) before the addition of sound.

 

Sound effects played a major role in portraying events in films, and were created in most imaginative ways.

 

 

Music has the power to change the mood of a scene, the right music will draw a viewer in and engage their imagination.

 

In Pulp Fiction, the use of sound has different effects on the film. Throughout the film, music is used to transport the viewer back in time. Most of the soundtrack is constructed from songs released many years before the movie was produced, giving the movie the appearance of taking place in the past. Of course this is counter the reality of the film, with the use of cellular phones, the fact that young butch is visited by Major Coons after the Vietnam conflict which occurred after most of the music was popular.

Most of the music used comes from the pure “Rock and Roll” era, Buddy holly, Ricky Nelson and Dick Dale, also known as the Surf music guitar king.

Of all of the sounds in the film, the music is most effective in providing the tempo and feel. Using a different genre of music would have created changes that may have hurt the overall feeling of gritty, earthy and potentially dangerous people that the characters represent.