Intro to Film 2025 • Professor Gregory Zinman • Emory University

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  • In Praise of Nope’s Sound Design

    This week, we discussed the power of sound design in a film, which Film Art describes as “a world in the background”. Different aspects of sound design can change how the audience interprets a scene. For example, volume can give us a perception of distance, but can also be used to draw the viewer’s attention to a certain sound or dialogue line.

    A film that came to mind while I was reading through the chapter that shows the power of sound design perfectly is Jordan Peele’s Nope (Peele, 2022). A good source to check out regarding the effectiveness of its sound design is Thomas Flight’s video, “How Nope Tricks Your Ears” (https://youtu.be/cWPFMmuagQ4?si=l04q3J3dWclvuuUy). I also felt it was fitting to talk about this video, considering how we’ll be watching Nope as a class later in the semester. Semi major spoilers ahead, so read and watch at your own risk!

    One thing Thomas Flight discusses in his video is how Peele employs a technique he (Flight) calls “sonic ambiguity”. He brings up how Spielberg does this technique exceptionally well in Jaws. In fact, he cites the sequence of Brody keeping watch at the beach, which we actually watched in class. Throughout the sequence, Spielberg adds in sounds that could be attributed to a shark attack, such as a woman screaming or frantic splashing. These sounds, buried in the ambience of a crowded beach, are paired with the observer-esque editing of the sequence to instill a feeling of anxiousness in the viewer.

    Nope does something similar. During a nighttime scene shortly after the first alien attack, OJ sits outside with his horse. He begins to notice strange noises above him and realizes the alien has been circling the farm. The sounds of the alien in the scene are present, just very faint. Instead, Peele masks the screams of the alien’s victims behind the much louder sounds of cicadas, nighttime wind, or a horse’s snort. As Thomas Flight says, though at some point, viewers are able to discern between the sounds of the night and the sounds of the alien, the beginning few moments leave us on the edge of our seats. Is the alien there, or is it just sounds in the night? What’s going to happen?

    Another thing Nope uses sound design for is to trigger a psychological response in the viewer. In the flashback scenes, where Gordy brutally kills his castmates, most of the carnage is obscured by doors, furniture, or tablecloths. Instead, Poole utilizes sound. With every sound of skin tearing, bones breaking, or people crying out, viewers are forced to listen to the carnage and come to a conclusion on what’s happening themselves. The terror of this scene is almost personalized in a way: each member of the audience has a different image of the violence in their head, and to them, that’s the scariest outcome there is.

    If this sounds interesting, I wholeheartedly recommend Thomas Flight’s video that’s linked earlier in the blog. I also recommend going through Flight’s entire channel, as it’s a gold mine for video essays on film and TV.

    I look forward to watching Nope with you all after midterms!

  • The Sounds of La La Land

    It’s always a great day when I get to talk about “La La Land”, so what a perfect opportunity it is to be assigned to talk about a movie that encapsulates different elements of sound. While it obviously has the greatest soundtrack of all time (in my opinion), it uses a plethora of sound techniques to help make that part of the movie come to life.

    The most notable one for me is their use of nondiegetic sound / music, which is sound that comes from a source outside of the story world. In the “Planetarium” sequence, Mia and Sebastian waltz around a building and through the stars and clouds to a song that only seems to exist in their imaginations. I remember showing my mom this movie for the first time, and her immediate reaction to this scene was something along the lines of “this is way too unrealistic, I don’t get it”; but that’s the whole point! Nothing about it is realistic, but that’s what makes us feel all of the unexpected romance of their new connection. By using nondiegetic music, along with them dancing in space, it shows that they are, literally, having an “out of world” experience. It gives a more fantastical, unrealistic touch to the scene, and it helps add to the idea of them being in “La La Land”.

    Another sound technique that they used with the movie’s musical scenes where the actors are singing, is they had them lip sync to prerecorded tracks. Then during the editing process, they put the sound and image together to get the final product. Most movies add the soundtracks in during postproduction, not in the moments of shooting. As noted in the textbook, “even dancers’ footwork, like taps or stomps, will already be on the playback”. That way the sound can be more consistent and clear than if they had people trying to sing on camera during big numbers like “Another Day Of Sun”, when there’s already so much going on.

    During “Someone In The Crowd”, Chazelle uses rhythm and tempo to blend the song and imaging of the dance sequence together. After Mia has her solo moment in the bathroom mirror, she walks out to a slow paced beat of music. She steps with the same rhythm of the song, and the dancers around her also dance at that same pace. As the tempo of the song gets faster, her walking and their dancing does as well, all leading up to the finale of everyone jumping in the pool and dancing and singing much faster. He uses that combined visual and audible rhythm to build up anticipation to that final segment of the song.

    My initial question from the reading is how do we differentiate between loudness and pitch?

  • Rewatching Wicked Pt.5

    Not to see the beautiful visuals but to pay attention to the sound!

    When tasked with creating an entire world out of nothing, although what we see is so important to creating the unique whimsy of Oz, what we hear cements us in the film even more.

    This film beautifully uses the synchronization of senses to help put us into their shoes. As they do their musical numbers and dance, we hear every movement perfectly timed with the visuals and it makes you feel like a fellow student of Shiz University. Sound is an element they have to rely on heavily to help bring this fictional land to life, from hearing the animals, to the loud creeks of doors, to the sound of Glinda tossing her hair. Sound makes these simple movements we would ignore everyday, seem so important and whimsical- making everything in Oz feel alive.

    The movie utilizes diegetic sound wonderfully with the musical scenes. We are able to see how the students of Shiz University react to music and it gives us a better understanding of the whole world they are in and how students perceive Elphaba vs Glinda. Specifically in the scenes during a Wizard and I vs Popular- we see Elphaba singing and her peers reacting to her as she sings, they look disgusted and run away from her, yet when Glinda sings they all flock to her. Because of our understanding that music and singing are welcomed in Shiz, we know it has nothing to do with them randomly bursting out into song and everything to do with how the students at Shiz view them. Diegetic sound plays a crucial role in this movie because it helps us understand how the characters interact and how music plays a key role in their fairytale land.

    Along with this, composer Stephen Schwartz uses timbre, the unique quality or color of a sound used to heighten the experience of the film. In Wicked, this element is used heavily. With Elphaba her timbre is used to show how powerful of a character she is since her singing comes from a more alto and stronger place (sometimes seen as a “Chest Voice”,) while with Glinda her vocal performance is often characterized by a bright light to show her bubbly personality. Timbre is throughout this movie, bringing the characters to life and showing us how sound is important for telling us about the characters personalities and influence on the people around them.

    Overall, sound is one of the most important elements of this film. Without it, we would struggle to understand Glinda and Elphaba’s relationship dynamic or how they fit into the world around them. Sound reveals another layer of the world of Oz, allowing us to experience its deeper nuances. As mentioned earlier, because of these things, the whimsical sounds of Oz help us connect with the movie and fall in love with this magical world.

  • The Emotional Volume of Malcolm and Marie

    The movie Malcolm and Marie tells the story of a successful filmmaker and his lover who return home from his movie premiere and engage in a heated argument about the film’s inspiration. The film focuses on the life of a woman recovering from a history of drug abuse, and Marie believes the movie is based on her life. She feels neglected because Malcolm did not mention her during his speech at the premiere. The setting of the movie is a large, seemingly secluded house, featuring only these two characters, which creates a “close-proximity relationship” between the actors and the audience. Additionally, the movie is entirely in black and white, further reducing distractions and directing the viewer’s attention to what is happening in each scene, and most importantly, to the sound.

    When discussing the sound complexity within this film, it is important to focus on the speech, music, and noise. With the entire setting taking place within the couple’s home, the dialogue between the two allows for deeper understanding, the musical choices convey intense emotions, and the noises (sound effects) reinforce a sense of fidelity. The movie heavily relies on diegetic sound to evoke a sense of realism that places viewers in the position of feeling present within the home.

    The movie opens with an establishing shot of what we assume to be the couple’s car slowly approaching their home. The proximity of the camera to the sound source suggests the use of added sound effects created through the Foley process to imitate the noise of a car inching closer. This opening shot introduces the concept of sound perspective, which is present throughout the film. As the car approaches the camera, the volume gradually increases. The scene then cuts to the couple entering their home. Marie heads to the bathroom while Malcolm goes to the bar and begins playing “Down and Out in New York City” by James Brown.

    With the distance between the characters in this scene, we can observe how the loudness is distributed across the cuts. This scene features a large sound bridge that connects the shots and maintains continuity. The medium shots focused on Malcolm are louder due to his proximity to the speakers in the bar, while the shots of Marie in the bathroom are more muffled and distant, creating a sense of depth and separation. There is minimal verbal communication throughout this musical aspect, however, the addition of automated dialogue replacement (ADR) in post-production helps blend the music and dialogue, illustrating the connection between the two within a loud environment. 

    This scene also effectively demonstrates the manipulation of volume for intelligibility, setting the tone for the relationship dysfunction that unfolds later in the film. Malcolm is portrayed as loud and overpowering, while Marie remains more subdued, yet equally passionate and intense.

    As we approach the halfway point of the movie, the dynamic characteristics of the characters truly come to life. When another argument is introduced into the sequence, we hear the reintroduction of the song “Down and Out in New York City” through Marie, who expresses, “As if a song written 50 years ago about a different f****** girl would somehow make me feel better about our relationship.” This suggests that the song initially served to engage the audience in the opening scene, but its later reappearance provides a foundation for understanding the emotional complexity between the couple. While Malcolm uses the music to uplift his spirits and celebrate his accomplishments, Marie perceives it as boastful and dismissive of her feelings.

    After reading chapter 7 on sound, I can say that I viewed this movie in a completely different light. Placing my attention on the little sound adjustments and music choices make me appreciate the time that was put into creating this film. Also, it invites a deeper level of understanding and love for the characters once analyzing how these things not only serve the audience, but how they play a role in character development.

  • The Zone of Interest, The Sound of Interest, And The Importance of Children In Holocaust Movies

    The Zone of Interest will probably be a one-time watch for me; not because I didn’t think the movie was good, but on the contrary, because it was too well done. That was truly one of the more chilling films that I’ve ever seen, but it was also just so original and wonderfully made, I couldn’t keep my eyes off of it even though it was about such a hard topic.

    I thought that it had to be an exaggeration that the sound would have such a large impact on the movie, but to my surprise it actually did; it made the entire film. The movie itself and the sound in it are two stories in complete opposition of each other. What is mostly shown on the screen is just a regular seeming family in a regular looking home. Emphasis on mostly, as there are obviously wide shots and quick moments where we see the horrors happening next door too. The sound however, leaves you with a sick, scary feeling as soon as the movie starts. I like the way that the director chose to leave the screen black at the beginning of the film and have just the sound playing, because it sets the tone and creates that eerie feeling right off of the bat for us. This way, even with the most regular and simple of scenes, you always feel aware of the presence of the camp, even if you can’t see it. That’s what I think I liked most about this whole movie – it reminded us that it’s always going to be there, even if we don’t want to see it or acknowledge it. When we talk about an artist’s responsibility to history and making artwork about events like the Holocaust, I think this film did a beautiful job of it and left an important impression. It’s an ugly part of history, and we don’t want to see it or even think about it at times because of how horrible it was; but even if we don’t want to see it, it will always be there. Even when we couldn’t see anything happening in the camps throughout the film, we could hear it, and worse, we could feel it. They couldn’t have done a better job approaching it in my opinion, and the sound is what keeps you with that feeling throughout the entire thing.

    During the film, I also saw a scene that reminded me of another one of my only-one-watch favorites, The Boy In The Striped Pajamas. Both scenes are of the family’s children in their rooms with Hitler / Nazi symbols present. For The Zone of Interest, the son is wearing an outfit with the Swastika on it, and for The Boy In The Striped Pajamas, the daughter had put up posters with Nazi propaganda on it. It always feels like such an interesting part of these movies to add in scenes with children, because it shows how negatively those beliefs can spread to the next generations, especially in households where their families were involved in running the camps. However, the one scene with children that stood out in this movie from every other Holocaust-related one that I have seen, was the garden room scene with the two brothers. The older brother in his usual outfit picks his screaming little brother up, throws him in the garden room, and locks him in as he’s begging to get out. Meanwhile in the background, you can see the smoke coming out of the camp, where literally that exact same situation is happening, but in a much more serious sense. Seeing them doing that playfully, repeating what their parents have done, with it occurring in real time only a couple yards or so away, spoke volumes. It was a perfect parallel and honestly, one of the most terrifying scenes out of the whole movie for me.

    In terms of lingering questions, I’d love to figure out more about the significance of the Hansel and Gretel story in the film. It’s been a while since I brushed up on my fairytale knowledge, but it was clearly a very important part of the movie that I have yet to fully understand.

  • The Second Zone of Interest

    How Diegetic Sound Shaped This Film

    This film opened with a piercing sound sequence that set the stage for this film. At first, I watched this scene thinking that the screen in White Hall 105 had failed us and that we weren’t seeing the visuals, because of course, for a sound this intimidating there had to be visuals. However, I was wrong and for about 2 minutes the room was pitch black and filled with this horrifying siren noise that then, turned into the sounds of birds singing. The sound in this film is impossible to ignore, horrific to hear, and hard to talk about. It’s hard to call the depictions of such a horrifying event “a well done piece of work,” it feels wrong knowing these were the sounds of real people. However, to pick apart this movie we must acknowledge such a strong piece of it and the fact that they managed to paint a completely vivid image of something we never saw.

    “I wanted viewers to realise that they’re submerging,” the director, Jonathan Glazer, told Rolling Stone about the intro of this film, “It was a way of tuning your ears [in] before you tune your eyes to what you’re about to view.”

    Sound shaped how we all viewed this movie, if it weren’t for the sound we would believe that this film was about a happyish family who just got a nice new house. However, the message becomes clear to us in the scenes where we are showed a pretty flower but the background audio is people screaming or when we would see the family going through daily actions and the sound would be replaced by an overwhelming sound of pain. This movie made it impossible to feel comfortable with anything that this family was doing, it made their ignorance apparent and made it clear that despite the “happy” atomic family imagery, there was a true horror happening across that wall.

    While watching it, it also felt like the director was almost making a commentary on the viewers as well, it felt like I was complicit. I was sat there, watching a family go through mundane actions, while people were genuinely suffering, and all we could do was listen. It added onto the overall feeling that this movie was a massive political commentary on how we as people often excuse horrors simply because we do not see them first hand. We too are complicit in horrors when we become indifferent to blatant pain and suffering, and this movie felt like it was screaming that in our faces. Because as these people were being burned alive across the wall, despite breathing in their ashes constantly, this family remained disgustingly indifferent.

    Throughout this movie there were 2 other scenes with the overwhelming sounds we heard in the intro, except they weren’t black outs- they were a red and white out. Although these scenes were also used to direct our attention back to the sound in these moments, they were also used to symbolize the atrocities happening off screen. The white out was used after they talked about expanding the camps so they could burn more people, and the director noted that it was supposed to be used to direct our attention back to the sounds of people screaming. Then they used the red out after a close up of a red rose, this seemingly beautiful thing is actually born out of misery. In this garden we are shown a scene of a boy using ashes to fertilize the garden, so even a simple thing in nature we would normally look at and enjoy- is a genuine representation of blood and suffrage. So when the scene goes to the red out, we hear the screams of these people, we hear the pain.

    The sound is the movie, The Zone of Interest pushed the boundaries of how to portray something historically devastating and still managed to leave viewers with a feeling of deep reflection. Are we doing this everyday? Do we too sit in a nice house while ignoring the blatant suffrage of others across the walls?

  • What We Don’t See in The Zone of Interest

    I found The Zone of Interest upsetting, not for what we see, but for what it doesn’t show us. Although Holocaust movies generally face us with horror, Jonathan Glazer’s film creates much of its tension through absence or omission. The mise-en-scène is dominated by the family garden that has neat flower beds, a swimming pool, and bright summer light. It appears bucolic, almost rural advertisements for a country retreat. However, just beyond the wall of the garden, and out of view but heard, the machinery of Auschwitz operates. Perhaps the wall is the single most important “prop” in the film. It turns the setting into a “space of denial”: everything inside of it becomes a performance of normality, and everything outside of it becomes an unasked truth. It invites the viewer to divide attention between what is seen and what is only imagined.

    The cinematography really elevates this experience. The camera usually remains distant, presenting the Höss family in wide, static compositions. These extended, sweeping shots allow us to take in the entire composition, unlike the quick edits that usually direct or engage our focus, with our gaze wandering between, for example, the children and then the barely-there smoke in the back. The smoke stays in the distance, but we can’t escape its presence.

    The editing, or the lack of it, is just as remarkable. Several scenes play out in long takes, which invites a much heavier sensibility to time than we might expect from typical Hollywood filmmakers, who usually give us some rhythmic ‘relief’ by cutting scenes. When we do come to the cuts, they feel, and are, really jarring. For instance, consider the nighttime sey-gogging sequences, captured in infrared. The tonal shift creates a ghostly, documentary feel. These interruptions make us hyperaware of the film’s structure, like the director is forcing us to question how we are watching. Are we complicit, sitting comfortably on the inside of that wall?

    What struck me most in this movie was how ordinary the scenes inside the house felt. A mother selecting wallpaper, children splashing in a pool, a father leaving for work. The horror is how effortlessly those images are drawn into “normal” living, and how those same images coexist with mass murder. That is the film’s success: it doesn’t visually allow us to “see” the atrocity, but returns us to consider the comforts that enable it to happen.

  • The Role of Hansel and Gretel in The Zone of Focus

    Watching The Zone of Interest for this week, I was so drawn to the scenes of a girl under an x-ray, night vision filter placing apples and pears into the ground. These clips were so separate from the typical cinematography of the rest of the film. Jonathan Glazer maintains his pattern of long takes, but the difference in color is more than notable. What I also noticed in one of these sequences is that the audio is a continuation of Rudolf reading the story, Hansel and Gretel, to his children before bed. Then I was like–Woah. Is Hansel and Gretel Nazi propaganda? Here’s a link to the fairytale again for those who need a refresher. I had to look into this, because I had never heard about it being used in this way. There is no journalism focused on the use of Hansel and Gretel in the movie past a couple of Reddit posts, so here come some articles that touch on its usage:

    Proximities of Violence: The Zone of Interest

    Embedded above is an article from Film Quarterly. It mentions that, “When crosscut with Höss reading Hansel and Gretel to his children, the scenes of resistance take on an ethereal, fairy-tale-like quality that seems at odds with the film’s overriding resistance to sentimentality” (Amy Herzog, Film Quarterly). I thought this was an interesting thought, and likely mirrors Glazer’s direct intention of including the fairytale. The act of resistance being leaving a trail of apples as a parallel to the trail of bread crumbs in Hansel and Gretel is such an interesting choice. In Nazi propaganda, Hansel and Gretel were made to represent two blond German children, and the witch a Jewish person who is ultimately burned alive in the oven she tries to cook the children in. By including this trail of apples, Glazer mocks that propaganda and creates an entirely different, benevolent narrative.

    Here’s an article from Vanity Fair. In this interview, Glazer reveals that the girl with the apples was a real person, whom he met when she was 90 years old! Although the film does not explicitly disclose what is based on a true story and what isn’t, there are many characters that are based on real people, including this hidden hero.

  • Zone of Focus

    The film Zone of Interest opens with a long black screen accompanied only by background noises. The extended black screen at the start left me momentarily confused, thinking, “Professor Zinman should check if the site is working,” until the image of a family sitting in the grass appeared. That was the moment I realized the film demanded a deeper level of attention to be fully understood.

    Much of the movie consists of wide long shots, often framed in the same setting from different angles. With minimal sound, the only noises come from the subjects within each scene. With prior knowledge of the Holocaust, the silences felt overwhelmingly loud. Everyday details, the greenhouse, white picket fence, and breakfast on the table, revealed the unsettling coexistence of ordinary life with unspeakable horror. What seemed silent was never truly silent. The depth of realism within this film creates a space for the viewer that refuses to acknowledge the events happening around them. One scene shows an older woman lying in bed as the entire room becomes submerged in a red tint, followed by her sitting at the window, looking out at the camp located in the backyard of the home. All that could be heard was the noises of misery in the distance.

    Making Zone of Interest: Framing Holocaust Through 21st Century Lens:
    not the scene mentioned in the paragraph***

    Do you believe that individuals without much prior knowledge of the events of this time period would still be able to understand the severity of the quiet moments?

  • Under the Skin’s use of Non-Actors

    As we began to explore in class, Jonathon Glazer, to the best of his ability, implements a level of attempted reality in his films. In The Zone of Interest, Glazer used secret cameras and microphones to keep actors from acting in a certain direction, worrying about their positioning, etc. The sense of realism is extremely effective in the film, as it allows us to understand the fact that the Höss family, and especially Rudolf, were real people and not just puppets of the system following orders. Rudolf was a real individual who understood the implications of his actions and carried them out anyway. I believe that although some people criticize the film for being too sympathetic towards the family, the hidden microphones and cameras actually contribute to the better understanding of their atrocities. Glazer’s desire to attain a real, untouched feeling that distances itself from “acting” extends past The Zone of Interest, as his 2013 film Under the Skin actually takes it a step further. Under the Skin is an unsettling horror film starring Scarlett Johansson. The reason that the film is so unsettling is that many of the characters were being played by people who didn’t know they were being filmed. The film follows an alien (played by Scarlett Johansson) as she seduces and captures unsuspecting men (played by non-actors)

    This 1 minute 38 second long interview (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S8MbvKqHWM0) with Jonathon Glazer breaks down an individual scene in which Scarlett Johansson interacts with real people walking down a Glasgow street. Glazer describes his reasoning of using non-actors as to show “human kindness and how we help each other up when we fall”. However, another reason for his use of non-actors is to show human temptation and how easily we are willing to give into it. This is interesting to me because it is clearly mirrored in The Zone of Interest. I think a large part of why Glazer used similar techniques in The Zone of Interest was to establish an unsettling sense of kindness and family values that exist within the Höss family, but then at its core, the realism that exists within the Höss home also shows how unforgiving their actions are. So the realism that Glazer implements in both films demonstrates the double-edged sword that is humanity.