So “Sound” the word of the week, this week in my “Media 1” lecture sound was the main focus, which by the way is great for me. This semesters elective for me is sound design so I felt like a huge smarty pants going into the lecture, I knew about sound waves and auto editing, I’d read the ridiculously long reading set… honestly it was awesome. and even better they started discussing substitution sounds or foley, which is what I am doing in sound design at the moment.

For our first assessment we were required to create a soundscape using noises from the rings around us. One example he showed us was a student creating the sound of an avalanche out of the sound of poured sugar. Apparently these substitutions occur quite regularly in film and animation with one sound substituted for another. In media 1 our lecturer was actually complaining that some editors regularly mess this up and make these substitution sounds obvious. One example of truly amazing sound substitution for animation. For most animation sound designers there isn’t an array of sounds for sound designers to use on set, because there is no set. everything has to be created from scratch. there is an amazing video by the Pixar team responsible for the movie Wall-E.

((2009) Animation Sound Design: Ben Burtt Creates the Sounds for Wall-E, Walt Disney Pictures)

Personally I think sound is one of the most important parts of cinema, music in particular can make a grown man cry in conjunction with a tragic picture on screen. Without a soundscape cinema and television would feel empty, often this can be seen in blooper reels and cut scenes where without the soundscape and music the scenes feel less real, less emotive. One rather extreme example of this is music video’s without sound as generally they rely solely on the music for story.

“We can’t stop- Miley Cyrus” with sound:

(Cyrus.M (2013) We can’t stop, Vevo)

“We can’t stop- Miley Cyrus” without sound:

((2013) Music Videos Without Music: We Can’t Stop, College Humor)

As you can see the difference is extreme. I am so excited to continue learning about sound, though I have little previous experience I truly believe modern media, especially in video form would be so much less without sound.