Angles.  They can be pretty powerful.  No, we aren’t talking about religious AngELS, we are talking about how a shot is taken.  How the direction a camera is angled can manipulate an audience into subconsciously knowing whether a character is powerful, a stranger, submissive, desirable and many more.  Angles promote the very real idea: media is power.

So, if angles are so important, what do they have in commons with sound?  Obviously visual and audio are vastly different means of provoking emotions and thoughts however, they are both as powerful as each other.  Both sound and visual creates a connection between the subject and audience.  They utilise perspective – a hierarchy of importance, i.e. the foreground, mid-ground and background.  This is very self-explanatory in terms of camera shots but music does also utilise this hierarchy e.g. a soundtrack in the background and a narration in the foreground.   They also both use social distance for example, a whisper can provoke a sense of intimacy as can a close-up camera shot.

I think it’s interesting that sound (specifically background) plays such a vital role in media such as film and television, yet we rarely properly listen to the sound.   If you play outdoor scenes from ‘Gossip Girl’ on mute it’s extremely uncomfortable to not hear the sounds of atmospherical noise: traffic, footsteps, construction etc.  If you play a horror film on mute does it have the same effect?  Most definitely not.

Social distance is very important when it comes to voice.  It can highlight social distances or lack thereof as being presented by the particular sound.  Intimate distance– it can be presented as a whisper (like a close-up camera angle).  Personal distance– how you would imagine friends would converse (sort of like a foreground camera shot).  Informal distance– an informal voice (real or imaginary).  An informal/business like encounter with a higher pitch and louder tone of voice (Maybe similar to a mid-ground shot).  Formal distance– using vocal projection to possibly present a speech or public announcement.  It will sound formal and public. (Maybe like a background shot)  Finally, a public distance– The most loud you could possibly be.  Used to reach some one far away (shouting)– possibly similar to an atmospherical camera shot.

I’m looking forward to diving into these sound concepts in our practicals and lectorials.  This is really spiking my interest, so even though the reading was very long and I dreaded it… I ended up enjoying it.

Reference:

Leeuwen, Theo van. 1999, ‘Perspective’ in Speech, music, sound, Macmillan Press ; St. Martin’s Press, Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire ; New York, pp. 12-34.