When I read this chapter and it told me to close my eyes and listen to my surroundings, I was surprised by how much I could hear from my dorm at night. There were crickets, my roommate typing, cars driving by, and doors opening. But once I opened my eyes again and continued reading, those sounds felt more present than before. The brief moment closed my eyes and lost my vision, the sound stood out so much more.
Reading how sound and visuals can work hand in hand in cinema to offer this unique viewer experience made me think about the art of Gibson and Recoder. I’m not always immediately drawn to such avant-garde work such as theirs but I thought their use of the Sandin Image Processor and hiring of a sound engineer for the Off the Wall project was really cool (cause I’m more of an audio person). It’s obviously not a clear cut narrative sort of exhibit but a sensory experience with sight and sound. It took me a second but once I understood to look at it viscerally rather than literally I could understand that to appreciate the art of it I would be forced to interpret it for myself rather than receive everything (which most ‘good’ art should motivate us to do) and that made the viewing experience better. And I thought the soundtrack and visuals would simply mirror each other but it felt more like a complex dialogue (without actual dialogue) which was fun to take in.
What I found really interesting in this chapter overall is the idea that dialogue isn’t always the most important sound in a film. Sometimes music and sound effects are given more emphasis because they are going to tell us a lot about the story. When the sound is mixed in a way that doesn’t prioritize dialogue, editing has to play a bigger role in connecting scenes and this often happens through cuts that match the rhythm of the music or sound effects. Music helps make sense of alternative editing styles, like a montage or the Sandin Image Processor which seems to offer the operator little to no direct control of the on-screen image (and it was like a split screen times like 60), where the visuals aren’t always explained. For example, in Rocky, the upbeat music (Gonna Fly Now composed by Bill Conti) in the training montage shows us he’s getting stronger and confident about the fight, even without dialogue.
