Sound and Music

In this lesson we learnt what Diegetic and Non-Diegetic sound is. Diegetic sound is the sounds inside of a scene, such as: dialogue, alarm clocks, door slamming, glass and cups moving etc. Non-Diegetic sounds are sounds that are added to a scene during editing such as: soundtrack/music, voice over,  theme tunes etc.

We also learnt that sound can be either parallel, meaning a soundtrack that fits the mood of the scene, or Contrapuntal, in which the sound contradicts the mood of the video track.  Another type of sound we encountered were 'Sound Bridges' which are sounds that comes from one scene and brings you into another. Effective sound in a scene should be able to: reinforce the atmosphere of the scene, enhance audience's emotional experience, suggest a characters thoughts and feelings and build a sense of continuity. 

We looked at some theories regarding sound as well. One of these was 'Enigma Codes', a theory by Roland Barthes. In this theory Barthes said that all media texts are encoded and have enigmas (which are questions the audience ask that need an answer) inside of them. These questions are often 'what's going to happen' or, the most common one in the crime genre, 'who dunnit'.

Another theory we looked at was the theory of 'Readings' by Stuart Hall. He says that there are 3 ways that an audience can 'read'/understand a text. The first way being Preferred Reading. This is where the audience understand a product in the exact way the producers intended (for example they may hate the antagonist). The second is called Negotiated Reading. This is when a member of the audience only partly agrees with the message of the text (for example they may see the antagonist as a bad person but understands why). Finally, the third is called Oppositional Reading. This is when the audience are in complete disagreement with the text's message (for example really like the antagonist).