Music is an important feature to a movie. It allows the viewers to have a wider understanding of the clip. It can be used for a number of affects in a movie. The most obvious way music scores are used is to guide the emotional response of the audience. They provide clues, or, in most cases, huge signposts, that tell audiences how the film maker wants them to react to a given scene.

In addition to giving voice to the characters dialogue in a movie, two of the more interesting ways the spoken word can shape a movie are through voice-over and by providing subtext to a scene.

Voice-over are tipically used to provide background to a story or to help move a story more from a set of events to another. Used well, they can be unobtrusive. Used poorly, voice-overs can often seem like “The voice of god”.

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(How much is in focus)

Narrow depth of field– Focused on one object or person, the rest is blurred.

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Deep depth of field: Everything is in focus.

Rack focus: A rack focus in filmmaking and television production is the practice of changing the focus of the lens during a shot.

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• Focused direction
• Layered images
• Visual storytelling
• Economic connection

Genre convention

• Common feature that appears in a particular category of film.

Theme song: The principle musical score associated with a TV show or film.

It serves multiple purposes:

• Grabs the viewers attention.
• It helps to establish tone, genre, setting (time + place)

A sting; Music that helps a transition to help change a scene.

• Mystery
• Western
• Crime
• Child

Foley sound– Sound recorded live to add to the track to enhance aspects for the sound, e.g. a door cracking, a wolf howling.

Musical score– music added to the soundtrack.

Diegetic sound– Sound that comes from the film world; those sounds that you would hear if you were a character in the film.

Non-diegetic– Sounds from outside the film world, that characters within the film world would not be capable of hearing.

Anachronisticase of sound/music– The music is from a different period from the visuals.

Categories of ideology

Neutral:

• Least common.
• Serve a purely entertainment goal.
• Escapist viewing.

An example of a neutral ideological film is “American Pie”.

Implicit:

• Most common.
• The hero and villain represent contrasting ideological views.
• Subtle and implies a lot of the meaning.
• Uses viewers understanding of cultural ideologies to further enforce the impact of the message.

An example of an Ideological film is the “Wizard of Oz”.

Explicit:

• Constructed purely to teach or persuade – Message is very obvious.
• Includes most patriotic films.

Hegemony

To understand the context of hegemony within the media industry.

Hegemony is the dominance or leadership of one social group or nation over another. It is the way in which these in power maintain there control. E.g. The way USA dominates other nations.

Subordinate: A person under the authority or control of another within an organization.

Concept of Hegemony

Rhythm – Sound affects have rhythmic qualities.

Fidelity – Realistic sound ( e.g. door closing ) sounds like a real door closing .

Contrapuntal and parallel sound – 1. Goes against our expectation of the sound.

2. Sound we expect to hear.

Timing – Synchronous – sound matches time.

e.g.s – Asynchronous – sound doesn’t match the time. E.g – Hearing a flashback in your head.

Volume – Change of volume – change in sound has a major impact on the scene.

Cut away – (Can be used to get inside a characters head) Cut away from the scene then back to it.

Cross cut – (Flashback) Cutting between two locations at the same time.

Jump cut – Jumping fowards in time (at the same location).

Match cut – Cutting between two shots similar in sound or composition.

Smash cut – An abrupt transition between quiet to loud/violent to calm.

Flashback – A cut to the past.

Cutting on action – a cut before an action.

Invisible cut – A cut that is hidden in dark spaces.

L-Cut – The sound of the second shot begins.

J-Cut – Sound of second shot, begins in the first scene.

Match dissolve – When matching and dissolving are going on (age changing).

Angles:

– Eye level

– Low angle

– High angle

– Top angle

– Dutch angle/tilted shot, Spychological tensions

– OTS (over the shoulder)

Shot Size:

– Close up, – draws attention

– Extreme Close up,- draws attention

– Long shot,- sense of location; shows entire action

– Extreme Long shot,- sense of location; shows entire action.

– Medium

– Single shot / 2 shot / 3 shot

– View shot

Motion / Movements:

– Pan & Tilt ( moving to the sides )

– Tracking shot, Crane

– Random Motion

– 360 degree shot

Other:

– Establishing shot – first show of the new scene

– Point of view shot

– Handheld – adds realism