#filmsound

As we know, sound is a crucial aspect to film making and film editing. Many times, sound is something we don’t necessary thing about until after the fact. In this week’s reading, we discuss Mary Ann Doane’s “Ideology and the Practice of Sound Editing and Mixing”. While we mainly focus on the movie’s soundtrack other things such as dialogue and sound effects come together to make film scores great.  This week we watched “Singing in the rain” directed by Gene Kelly and Stanley Donen which gave us an inside glimpse of what sound editing is like.

One scene that stood out the most to me was when they were trying to record Lina. They had just recently transitioned from silent films to the talkies. This showed us how important sound is to a film and even the acting.  This scene showed us how the sound effects and dialogue play together to create an aesthetic picture. Mary Ann Doane states “The image and the soundtrack are both subject to an ideological overdetermination. Nevertheless, what sound adds to the cinema is not so much the intelligibility as the presence of speech” (pg 56) which is evident in this scene because of the importance of getting Lina’s dialogue right.

In this week’s reading, Mary Ann Doane speaks of sound as an integral part of film and the way the audience views a film. She says of sound, “Its realm is that of mystery-but mystery sanctioned by an ideology which acknowledges that all knowledge is not subsumed by the ideology of the visible.” By this, she means that not everything can or will be conveyed by the image alone. Sound is necessary to move the narrative along and to immerse the audience in the world of the film. A good example of this from Singin’ in the Rain is of the final scenes in the theater at the premier of their musical talkie film. The audience in the theater react to everything that happens onstage; they clap and cheer when they see Lina and Don walk out, they murmur in disbelief and incredulity when Lina begins her speech, they laugh when it’s revealed that Lina has been lip synching this whole time, and they cheer when Kathy is introduced as the singer they love. Had the audience been silent, these moments would have been at best chuckle-worthy. However, the sound from the audience immerses the viewer into the narrative as an audience member themselves. We laugh along with the audience, we understand how they feel because we feel like a part of it.

Mary Ann Doane thoroughly expressed how important the different aspects of sound were in her writing Ideology and the Practice of Sound Editing and Mixing. I would agree with her that sound is important and through out time, has been overlooked and overshadowed by images and other elements in film. Sound has the power to guide your imagination and guide your mind such as in scenes where there is deep menacing music, you can feel the suspense build up because you know something bad is going to happen. Without that music/sound, you would not be affected the same way. My focus from the film Singin’ in the Rain is the scene where Gene Kelly (Don Lockwood) famously sang “Singin’ in the Rain.” Through the elements of the sound in this scene, you experience the same joy and relief that Don does because he is in love and also figured out a way to save his career. Doane wrote “The frequency with which the words "mood" or "atmosphere" appear in the discourse of sound technicians testifies to the significance of this other truth. Most apparent is the use of music tracks and sound effects track to establish a particular "mood." ” This scene has very famously become a staple of happiness and that “walking on clouds” mood due to the accompanying music. The upbeat pace, mellow happy tone, and the very idea of singing in the rain which is repeated throughout this scene in the song, pushes this atmosphere of worry-free joy into the audience in a way that a singular image could not. This musical number has been replicated and sampled many times since the movie was released leaving an unforgettable soundtrack that evokes the same response it did all those years ago.

In this week’s reading, “Ideology and the Practice of Sound Editing and Mixing” by Mary Ann Doane, went over the different sound editing techniques and how sound was overlooked sometimes in film. Sound plays a key role in film making, without it the audience wouldn’t grasp the implied meaning in certain scenes. For instance, “most apparent is the use of music tracks and sound effects track~ to establish a particular "mood” (page 55).” The scene from Singin’ in the Rain (1952) where Don is skipping and dancing in the rain is enhanced through the soundtrack that is playing. The parallelism in this scene makes Don’s mood impervious to the rain pouring on him. With help from the soundtrack it is easily understood that Don was completely lovestruck by Kathy. The soundtrack is nondiegetic sound that influences Don’s dancing in the scene, and is also considered postsynchronous sound. Without the editing of postsynchronous sound the scene would not feel complete, and would be more offputting if the sound of rain was the most prominent. In this way Doane’s theory of how “music is used to create an atmosphere which would otherwise be impossible“ (page 55) is proven.

For those who enjoy comedy as well as a musical film, the 1952 classic Singin’ in the Rain is the perfect movie. With Gene Kelly, Debbie Reynolds, and Donald O’Connor as the main leads, they save their old film and dub it with words and musical scores. While the songs play a major role in this film in relation to sound, the small techniques of a sound mixer can include the added bonus of importance within a film. 

According to Mary Ann Doane’s “Ideology and the Practice of Sound Editing and Mixing”, “...in the sound technician's discourse synchronization and totality are fetishized and the inseparability of sound and image is posited as a goal.” (p. 56) This can be applied for the opening scene for Singin’ in the Rain. The reporter is announcing everyone on the red carpet, and explaining everything through a microphone. While the shots are not on her, her voice is echoing, like through a microphone and then on a speaker. But when they camera gets a close up on her, the echo fades softer, as it as not as prominent. This is done this way because the audience can only hear the echo from the speaker from the Chinese Theatre of her voice, but when the camera is facing her, it’s similar to a one-to-one interaction. This inseparability is important when remembering the contrast between the interaction on the screen verses the voice off that is off screen.

In “Ideology and the Practice of Sound Editing” Mary Ann Doane describes the importance of sound in a film by arguing that for the audience there is no separation between the picture and the track. She also argues that the use of music tracks and sound effects helps to establish a particular mood. Kelly and Donen’s film Singing’ in the Rain relies heavily on sound to set a particular atmosphere. For instance, the scene where Cosmo is singing Make ‘em laugh is filled with sound effects to set a comical tone. Cosmo’s impacts with walls sound incredibly loud. Every time he falls, there is a synchronized sound of a drum. Additionally, after he crashed with the wall and tries to ‘fix’ his jaw, the sound of a broken bone is synchronized. All the sound effects mentioned before are precisely placed to make all of his actions seem exaggerated and unreal thus creating a comical atmosphere. Finally, the moment Cosmo starts singing the background is filled with a music track that matches the rhythm of what Cosmo is singing enhancing the unreal atmosphere. In conclusion, as Mary Ann Donne argues in her essay even though sound effects and music tracks might go unnoticed by the spectator, they are essential to set the particular mood or atmosphere in the scene.