Running Down my American Dream

The science behind this is very simple, if an actress holds up a picture of a man on a bicycle, and we hear a bicycle bell fire after she delivers a line, as an audience we think: "Oh that was cool!" then two minutes later we hear Train pulling away as the actress recounts leaving home for the first time. The audience is likely to have the same reaction, "That was cool" Nobody in their right mind would think, "It's like I'm on the train with her." It's a gimmick. Nobody believes we actually have a locomotive behind the set. Everyone knows it's not real.

So now that we can all agree it wasn't real we need to ask the hard question. Why did the director feel that we needed so many sound effects in the first place? The only answer I can come up with is that it was a one woman show, and frankly, the show was poorly written. So these little gimmicks were thrown in to keep the audience awake for 2 hours. That's merely my opinion mind you, I'm not saying every show is like this.

There are many shows with 80 sound effects that work, and the audience buys into the world we create on stage because of that.

So why use sound effects in a show? If everyone is aware that it's nothing more than a gimmick, why should the ever be used in theatre? My answer is this: If it causes the audience to believe the world exists, then it is a good organic sound cue. A punch sound effect, a phone ring, a door being slammed shut, a gunshot, a glass window breaking, all of these sounds the audience would have no idea whether it was a sound effect or if it was real. The general rule is if you see something, and you hear something you're more likely to buy into the world that way.

A strobe light flashes through a window onstage and we hear thunder directly after the fact, the audience knows it's not real, but they buy into it anyways. It can be argued that if the world exists to the audience, they wouldn't treat thunder like a gimmick. The world this whole play happens is having a bit of rough weather. Even more believable is if it actually rains onstage and we see the flash and hear the thunder. Now the audience has bought it, now we believe this entirely fake construct is real.

DisplayPort might be able to carry a DVI/HDMI video signal, but that is a reduction in inconvenience, not an advantage, when using it. Supporters are talking about fewew cables and lighter, thinner, more energy efficient Direct Drive monitors, but the market has yet to see them.