This week we finally get to look at one of the actual components in Media—sound. Two readings focuses on either technical aspect or the function of the sound in Media; while the lectorial mainly went through the basics of that.
Reading #1: “Perspective”
This one focuses on the aural semiotics of sounds, which are the two codes—perspective and social distance. There are layers of sound that can be divided into groups like figure, ground and field, or in two, figure and field, which gives the overall sound in the media a dynamic effect. Immediately, audiences can figure out the source of the sound (being far away or near the subject in frame), allowing the moving pictures to be realistic, the music to be more interesting for hearing. The perspective can also be indicated with the sound “moving away” (quiet down) or “coming near” (louder).
Another code is social distance that a sound can created. Five types of it are intimate, personal, informal, formal and public distances. With the different aims for social distance, the sound is altered in the way that is presented. For example, the sound for intimate distance is usually soft sounds which resembles a whisper in contrast to the public distance having a high volume.
Reading#2: “Sound”
This piece of reading is about the technical side of sounds and recording. I felt like I was reading some physics book while I was reading the first part. Its introduction is understanding what sounds are, listing the elements which decides the sound: sound waves, frequency, and amplitude.
The reproduction of sound decides the final quality of it; so choosing the appropriate microphone for recording is vital. The reading provided us a guide for the choosing:
- What kind of sound?
- Where id the recording?
- What else is going on beside the main recording?
- How will it be reproduced or heard?
- Budget
- Production situation? Crew?
Having the specific guide, what types of micro phones are there? To classify by construction, there are dynamic and condenser; to classify by pick-up patterns, there are omnidirectional, bidirectional and unidirectional; and to classify by usage, there are hand-held, lavalieres and shotgun microphones. It really depends on what the recorder is trying to achieve with the sound.
Lectorial:
Except for going over some main ideas that appears in the reading, we also did a little bit of exercise during the lectorial.
Our answer for it was:
- Figure: fire, explosion, the man shouting
- Ground: people running and shouting, things dropping
- Field: wind, police cars, fire engines and ambulance
It was quite interesting that we should really trying to understand the different layers of sounds; one picture can trigger such imagination towards the possible sounds through our own experiences.
Another thing we did on lectorial was the project brief 3. I quite like the one with the eye looking through a tunnel. The visual effect was quite interesting in emphasising the trait of the subject. Those videos are so good that I was a bit nervous for my quality of work. Hopefully I can do half as well as them!
