In this weeks lecture I was introduced to the concept of sound having two crucial codes. Perspective and social distance.
Perspective ‘hierarchies the elements of what is represented’ into the three categories:
figure – the focus of interest
ground – the setting or context
field – the background/ambient space

While social distance ‘creates relations of different degrees of formality between what is represented and the listener.  For example relations of intimacy/informality and formality.

What really interested me this week was how we as a class were able to breakdown a photograph through ‘perspective hierarchies.’  Even though we couldn’t hear what was going on in the picture we were able to imagine what the figure, ground and field sounds of the scene would be.
Not only did this make me aware of the codes around sound, but made me think of how important sound is in media production as we are so easily able to imagine it and the fact that we are around it all the time.
For example; what does silence do for a film where we as a society are more comfortable with a constant white noise and field sound.