Week 8—Soundscapes

Sounds, like colours, come in a variety of forms. Arguably, a soundscape is a collection of sounds not dissimilar to the way a visual landscape is a collection of images. It is ‘paintings with speakers’ according to Steven Pool while quoting Chris Amey (Poole, 2001).

A trip to the movies can have a lasting experience in more ways than just visually. In fact, that same trip would be rather un-remarkable without the addition of a soundscape. Early movie technology was too primitive to record film and sound together, but it seems that a movie still needed some form of sound to help drive its story. In those early days of silent films, most of what people experienced, in general, had some form of sound that was added while the film was being shown. These sounds ranged from a humble pianist playing in the background at the local ‘theatre house’—as they were termed back then—to a full orchestra-pit for larger theatres in major cities. This was the nature of films in the 1920s, which has been covered in elucidative detail in Bill Bryson’s One Summer: America, 1927. A lot changed, however, with the advent of ‘talkies’, dawning a new era that took moviemaking to the next level with various modes of capturing and recording sounds. Interestingly, as we will see later, the process of filming with and without sound would come full circle.

This week we looked at what a Foley artist does, and how it fits in with making a movie, which is also one of the tools available to us for use in our story-remediation projects. Although I hadn’t heard the term ‘Foley’ before, I did have some understanding of the process, due to a visit, some years ago now, to Movie World on the Gold Coast. There’s a lot to see and do at Movie World. One of the attractions was to go on a guided tour of the moviemaking process which were conducted at set times throughout the park’s opening hours. The group I took part in consisted of about 40 or so people. I’m not sure if they still do it these days, but back then Movie World was also a small production studio. The studio tour was designed to demonstrate other aspects that existed at Movie World aside from the usual candyfloss and blood stirring rides. Part of the tour was to reconstruct, via a live demonstration, how sounds were incorporated in a movie.

Movie World on the Gold Coast

During the production of a movie the sounds are often recorded independently. The reasons for this vary. In some cases it is due to the actual sounds the actors make during filming that ‘didn’t get recorded when they shot the original scene’ (Moore, 2017, 0:45 seconds). Another reason is because background noise was too loud, as in the case of a road trip scene (pre-1970s cars were notoriously ‘musical’, especially those with front-seat quarter windows) where any background noise made it difficult to hear the dialogue (Rout, 2020). It appears that even though a director can get many angles while filming, the same can't be said about the audio. The role of the Foley artist is to recreate the sounds that exist in a movie but they do it independent of the filming. The recorded sounds are as close as possible to that of the original sound. Importantly, because the Foley process needs to correspond with the actions in the film, timing is the key ingredient for the purpose of authenticity (Moore, 2017).

Seguing back to a time when the term 'couch potato' might have been received with blank looks, whereas, the actual act was well practised; when growing up and watching television movies, I tended to believe whatever the film director wanted me to see and also hear. But one thing used to stand out like proverbial umm, well, most people can't help but notice them, because what stood out was rather obvious: Even without any understanding of Foley, I just couldn’t believe how high speed chases by speedboats that included tight turns on water could possibly make the exact same screeching noises that cars make during their high speed chases that take place on bitumen/sealed roads. It took some years to finally see through the cloaked veil of deception, but finally the truth remained hidden no more thanks to a visit to Movie World. The following link will open a YouTube video that demonstrates a couple of Foley artists recreating the sound effects of a film scene: What is Foley. It’s a great example of the process in action, but also, the video displays a split screen which shows the artists working in time with a video. The Movie World demonstration, on the other hand, showed the video firstly without any sound at all; as though someone had pressed the mute button. Following that the video was played back a second time, but this time an actual ‘Foley’ sound technician recreated all the sound (except dialogue) effects which were performed live, in real time for the benefit of the tour audience. The resulting effect was instant. The video took on a whole new dimension and metaphorically brought the movie to life! I feel the method employed at Movie World impressed the practice of filming without sound. Another point is the use the 'clapper board'. Its purpose is a point-of-reference for adding in sound after the filming is finished.

Director's clap board roadside Jakob and...

In summary, soundscapes have played a large part in the movie making process. In the early years of filmmaking, movies were recorded as video-only and had a soundscape added later, albeit during playback; and then as technologically improved, video and sound were captured simultaneously, but even this still had its problems. Then in more recent times there was a shift back to filming video separately, only to have a soundscape added later; which, ironically, is not too dissimilar to the way movies were first made!

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As an aside, I just wanted to share a song that was recorded in 1969. The thing about this song is that it could quite easily fit into our current COVID-19 period some 50 odd years later; in a time, now, that seems to signify a need for social reflection. The point of the song may also be an interesting comparison of what some (not all) people were thinking back then, and representative of living in uncertain times then and now due to the abundance of various concerns either ecological or political. Politics notwithstanding and for pure hedonistic purposes, it's a great song by an amazing artist, and if you do watch the recording, pay attention to how much sound comes from just one voice accompanied by a steel-stringed acoustic guitar—amazing! The song is Big Yellow Taxi by Joni Mitchell and can be viewed, thanks to YouTube, here:

Big Yellow Taxi by Joni Mitchell

Joni Mitchell also wrote the iconic song-of-a-generation Woodstock. Interestingly she never actually attended the festival the song depicts. 

 

Works Cited

Moore, C. M. (2017, December 22). "The Hunger Games" & "Frozen" Foley Artists Turn the Sound of Junk into Miracles | Art of Sound Ep.3. Retrieved May 7, 2020, from YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EB6Wjty-MNk

Poole, S. (2001). Prick up you ears. Retrieved from The Guardian: https://www.theguardian.com/education/2001/nov/17/arts.highereducation1

Rout, D. J. (2020). Monday's FedUni lecture/tutorial. Online. (Kudos to you for noticing this attribution)