After watching this documentary during our lecture I decided to watch it again when home. An extensive look into the timeline and development of sound in film, it really put into perspective how much I have personally taken sound for granted when watching films, for without it, those moments would’ve been an entirely different experience.
Starting somewhere around the invention of the phonograph, the documentary shows us, not only how sound has evolved, but how its role was given increasing importance as time went on. Interestingly enough I learnt that the phonograph, and its groundbreaking ability at the time to capture sound, was in fact invented before the motion picture camera, which was initially created by Thomas Edison so that he could put images to go along with the sounds from his phonograph. Sound came first, image came second… A stark contrast to the way in which the films of the following couple of decades were made.
A SHORT HISTORY
Giving context to the origins of sound effects and foley, the documentary touched briefly on the syncing issues of sound and image in the early 20th century. This meant that films were projected and scored with full live orchestras, as well as people talking and making live sound effects in real time behind the screen. When I think of this I imagine that the experience of such films were much more theatrical in nature.
As these issues were solved with evolving technologies, films were eventually recording dialogue on set by 1927. Whilst Hollywood had developed a way of shooting movies without sound up till then, giving them the freedom to not have to worry about noisiness on a set, they were now required to entomb the productions in sound stages so all sound was blocked out from the outside world. However this disadvantage paid off as audiences of the time were in awe of this newfound marriage of image and sound as it brought about another level of emotional dimension to the film in question.
From here, the addition of voice lead to the increasing importance on the practice of making sound effects. It was quickly discovered that it was not feasible to get all the sounds needed for a scene just by hanging a mic over the set. Which brought about the birth of the song editor, sound designer and foley artist.
SOME KEY FIGURES IN THE DEVELOPMENT OF FILM SOUND
Not long after, in 1933, Murray Spivack was one of the first to revolutionise the early ideas of sound design and many of the techniques we use to manipulate sound today were pioneered by him on the original rendition of King Kong. By slowing down the roars of lions and combining it with tigers growling in reverse, Spivack formed the basis of both King Kong’s and the dinosaurs sound signatures.
Walter Murch, who went on to be a pivotal figure for modern sound design, found his love for sound through a tape recorder on which he would splice, rearrange, reverse and use other techniques to manipulate recordings he’d made. Unlike others, he was initially turned off by the idea of making sound for moving image, finding that the sound in many of the films he’d seen growing up were underwhelming, overused stock restricted by the factory mindset of Hollywood, and second place to over-emphasised scoring. It was the ‘Musique Concrete’ works of sound innovators, Pierre Henry and Pierre Schafer, that validated his love for sound manipulation and showed him that what he was doing had a much broader application. And so at university he decided to pursue film sound, where he met George Lucas and Francis Ford Coppola, with whom he went on to work with on films such as The Godfather and Apocalypse Now.
Films like the Godfather, however much praise it was given, was still made and broadcast in mono, utilising a single speaker behind the screen. Taking cues from the music industry, people such as Barbara Streisand on ‘A Star is Born’ saw the value of a stereo sound system and eventually Dolby started to provide this on a wide scale for the film industry.
Francis Ford Coppola took this a step further in the film ‘Apocalypse Now’, ultimately changing the way cinema was presented from then on. Inspired by a 4 channel rendition of Gustav Holst’s classical piece, The Planets’, by composer and electronic musician Isao Tomita, he requested the sound department that the final listening experience was to be likened to a speaker being in each corner of a room, with the listener in the middle (essentially a quadrophonic format). This opened up a world of possibilities with spatialisation, such as the panning of helicopter blades around the room, increasing the immersion and degree of reality in an already vivid film. The film ran in a six track surround format and as things have evolved since, that format is now the standard of how we mix films today.
SOUND DESIGNERS AND THE IMPORTANCE OF EXPERIMENTATION
Another person, by the name of Ben Burt was hired to do the sound design for the American epic space-opera, Star Wars, directed by George Lucas. Recording the sound of a bear seems dangerous, yet it was these sounds that Burt manipulated to create the famous sound of the beloved Wookie. This process lead to him recording sounds for every other sound effect in the movie. R2D2’s signature robot language underwent many trials and errors until Burt found that using a vocoder on a synth allowed him to give the robots speech verbal expressiveness that ultimately allowed the audience to connect with its character on a deeper level.
What I think sets apart Star Wars from its other sci-fi counterparts of the time, such as ‘War of the Worlds’ and the ‘Forbidden Planet’, is that it moved away from the typical sound conventions of synthesis and utilisation of electronic music technology found in such films. Most of the sounds were created from real recordings, which perhaps made them more relatable but also unique.
We can see this relatability again in the well known Pixar mascot, Luxo Jr, that now graces our screens before every Pixar movie. The sound design for this seemingly sentient lamp was created by Gary Rydstrom. I learnt that he would take countless recordings of things, most of which he had no idea what they’d end up being used for. Using his Synclavier, an early digital synthesizer, polyphonic digital sampling system, and music workstation, he would manipulate these sounds and found that some of them had an almost human-like emotive vocal quality. We can see in his later work on Toy Story that he continued to make sure that the sound he used supported the emotional intention of the narrative, such as the difference between Woody and Buzz Lightyear’s sound effects.
We can find emotion in the most unassuming of sounds and this humanisation of it, in a way, makes me feel closer to the art-form of sound design. Bringing soul into what might be initially perceived as mundane, is a very revitalising notion.
Nowadays with the intimacy we get from a boom mic, the capabilities of our softwares and the vast multichannel sound systems that are available it is easy to forget the journey that sound as a medium in film has taken to get to the point it is at now. This documentary has not only shown me this but has also introduced me to several sound designers whom have demonstrated that it is okay to be brave with sound design and recording, and not to follow convention. A very inspiring documentary that has given me plenty of inspiration for techniques and experimentation that will surely keep me busy for a while.