Audio-visual Synergy and Opposition - Essay Example

Audio-visual Synergy and Opposition Introduction: Music has accompanied film since before sound was available on the film. It was used to set the mood and give the audience clues as to how they should respond. However, the use of music has evolved over the decades from an enhancement to a necessity. Early romantic music carried its own theme and story, and these were used to enhance films for the first couple of decades of talkies. Many of these films were panoramic in scope and strong symphonic orchestration suited their grandeur. However, music and visuals do not always harmonize. When they don’t, only very simple graphic effects touch on the same level as the music, which reaches the audience on almost a sub-conscious level. Even so, we resond more strongly to the music. I will show how this works and how moviemakers and television producers are leveraging the music for persuasion. Audio and visual can be harmonious or completely in opposition, with the visual and sonic working together or against each other, which sets up a totally different reaction in the audience. (Vernallis, Carol 2004) As the use of music with film evolved, it has become a fine art which is most evident in its use with advertising. I will show how this developed and how and why it works. Music has accompanied image since the times of ancient Greece, when plays and tableaus were accompanied by music, even when dance was not involved. It set the mood, and warned people what to expect. This would increase enjoyment as it increased the audience’s sensory experience. We have an affinity for image combined with music, hence the development of opera, ballet and musical comedy as highly appreciated art forms. Music videos are the most recent development in this genre. The similarities among these are that each contain music, image and text to varying degrees of balance. Opera is story first told with the all important music which carries the text. Ballet is story told via music and dance. Musical comedy is mostly story with the heightened experience of music and dance accompaniment. Music video is mostly music and text (the lyrics) which create story to be followed by the images which are filmed. However, the text is the lyrics and story may be minimal or missing entirely. Opera is the most balanced form with constant music. Ballet has minimal text except as expressed by music and dance. Musical comedy is more text than the other elements, which are used to enhance the story. Modern musical plays, such as Les Miserables and Cats have almost equal balance to opera. Music videos, on the other hand, are all about the music with imagery and text used to enhance the musical experience. Other forms combining music and image included many smaller entertainments around the world in various cultures. Medieval minstrels combined music and text to make their stories memorable and poetic forms allowed them to easily memorize the text. Movies of the golden era of Hollywood enhanced their panoramic heroic tales with huge musical scores and full orchestration. “Film and television, like opera, have most typically been storytelling media, and whatever interest there has been in experimenting with techniques like camera movement, montage editing, music and sound, special effects, and so forth, tends to be subordinated to narrative goals that have not changed in any fundamental way since antiquity.” (Prieto, Eric 2002) When the music is subordinate it is being used to enhance the other art forms, even when the art form is advertising copy or animation. Music began to be used with direction and a specified aim in radio theatre, which was then connected to film and television via intertextuality, that is, a theme which became wll known and came to symbolize a certain emotion or action could be used further to engender the customary reaction in the audience. One example is the theme music from early radio drama could be used in television or film to recreate the original reaction in the audience by virtue of its intertextual connection to the original radio drama. Most of today’s audience has never heard these early radio shows, but the process is still carried on, from one film or television theme to another. The musical phrases may actually carry mood and message with them. One particularly good example of this is the use of the theme from the TV show Dragnet. Any time this theme is used it creates the mood of danger from the original Dragnet. In addition to the communication of extra information, these memorable bits of music can be used to get an opposite reaction by placing them in the wrong context. A sad violin theme was used in early silent films and then in some of the melodramatic talkies after its original use in radio drama, then Jack Benny used the very same music in incongruous scenes and the effect was extremely funny. Music has more power than most people realize. It does far more than announce developments in film, it can also recall them. The theme we attach to the shark in Jaws is a case in point, it became the shark’s signature and this has even been translated to other films and television shows. It has also been used to create humor in much the same manner as the “hearts and flowers” theme on the violin did in the Jack Benny Show. In fact, though music does not carry its message in quite the same form as text, it does carry “chunks” gathered from previous uses either during the same film or TV show or in previous ones. Another area in which music becomes important is helping the audience to identify with a character or group. Tan et al talks about establishing empathy. “We all know that it is possible to feel drawn into or borne along by the movement of the camera or the objects in the scene, or by the stream of images created by montage and reinforced by the music; numerous lyrical passages in feature films could be cited as examples. By analogy with the use of music and the visual arts in psychology, it is possible to speak of empathy. Lipps ( 1906) referred to the total immersion ("projection") of the self in an object as characteristic of total empathy. “ (Tan 154) In addition to engendering emotional reaction in the audience, music can represent emotional reactions on the parts of characters. Very light fairly quick themes in the background can signify happiness and joy, while slow somber music represents sadness and depression. The music generally starts before the action, unobtrusively playing in the background. Then as an important moment is reached, the music increases volume slowly increases and eventually reaches a climax. The musical underscore greatly increases both the emotion of the moment and the release felt by the audience as the tension is brought taut and then released. It becomes cathartic. Gehring points out that themes of opposing forces, good vs evil, sophisticated vs simple or cops vs robbers are often painted by the music accompanying the action. (Kane 88) It usually appears just before the character (s) are introduced and recurs several times in key situations. This is particularly true in war movies, historical panoramic films and others where the characters are is strict opposition. He also points out the use of banjo music in car chases and such to increase the parody of the Keystone Cops chases, as in Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid and Bonnie and Clyde. Cat Ballou took this one step further with the minstrel songs and banjo at key points. While we do not pay close attention to the sound track of the films, we do react, and quite strongly. Human are almost wired to react to music. In addition, because familiar themes carry the related information from previous exposures, we get the effect of “chunking” as whole big chunks of information and emotional content are communicated with familiar themes. This is readily apparent in black humor: “an additional commentary on the theme of absurdity. … the mushroom cloud close of Dr. Strangelove is ironically accompanied by Vera Lynn’s sentimental, romantic World War II song "Well Meet Again." And Brazil takes its title from the upbeat, breezy 1930s Ary Baroso song of the same name, a song which frequently punctuates this dark comedy. Kubrick A Clockwork Orange follows this same model by juxtaposing violence and "Singing in the Rain." Consequently, black humor is one comedy genre where formalistic techniques, such as self-consciously elaborate editing and music, reinforce theme.(Gehring 178) In all of these, the themes carry intertextual references and lingering attached emotion, especially for older audience members. Music also signals advances or change in film or TV plot. It usually accompanies scene change, and often signals the fade to black. IT can govern a number of different actions, such as time passage, speeding up of time with accompanying video montage and even changes IN POINT OF VIEW, AS IN THE Three Faces of Eve, when the internally controlling character changed, the music signaled which one was taking control. Bordwell showed how other actions are intertwined with music,"there are several cues for a flashback in a classical Hollywood film: pensive character attitude, close-up of face, slow dissolve, voice-over narration, sonic flashback, music. In any given case, several of these will be used together."(Bordwell, Staiger, and Thompson 5) He points out how music can be used to transmit other types of information, textuality, “narration can in fact draw upon any film technique as long as the technique can transmit story information. Conversations, figure position, facial expressions, and well-timed encounters between characters all function just as narrationally as do camera movements, cuts, or bursts of music.” (Bordwell, Staiger, and Thompson 24) In some films, the music almost becomes a character, as in certain horror films, and classics like Frankenstein. The character has a theme which implies that there is more unseen. The theme may play when anything related to the character is seen. By doing this, the audience attached whatever is accompanied by the theme to the character it represents. Therefore, if the theme of the monster plays every time death and destruction is shown the audience attaches all of these to that character, subconsciously convicting without any evidence. It is this attribute which makes music extremely useful in the advertising industry. In several TV series, pop songs are used in interludes with symbolic action to further advance the story, creating a text of its own. Most television series now use music this way and some is actually written specifically for the episode. Gray’s Anatomy is an excellent example. There is a musical text underlying most of the action, and it takes over once or twice each episode. The text of the song becomes part of the story. It is quite powerful. Music has accompanied ads since the advent of sponsored radio shows. The music is often more memorable than the images, since the audience is often otherwise occupied during commercial breaks on radio and TV. So the audience only really hears the entire commercial. While the music playing may not dominate if the ad is actually watched, it becomes dominant when it is only or mostly heard. The creation of themes is especially important when brand recognition is sought. One of the earliest use of musical themes is the song created for Alka Seltzer: “Relief is just a swallow away.” That little musical theme is still recognized, as are countless others. Some other well known examples include the MacDonalds’ theme, the Rice Crispies song, the theme used in Bankamericard commercials and the music and sound of loons or wolves in commercials for Northern Bell Telephone. All of these were memorable in themselves, and they also enhanced the image of the product. Advertising copy writers have long known the power of music. It touches people on a deeper level without the interference of text. Strong and simple images become easily attached to the accompanying theme. The Bankamericard commercials used classical music with very strong themes to accompany a cartoon conductor who wore himself out conducting the mini symphony. The music was classical and had one theme phrase which was identified with the phrase “Bankamericard”. This introduced the idea that classical music could be more than an elite taste. The musical theme became synonymous with the bank card and recalled fun images of the cartoon. Another extremely well done example of the Doctor Pepper TV ads which had a group of young people dancing and singing the Pepper song. The melody is lightly reminiscent of the old ivy league school themes. The dance is very much along the modern jazz pattern, What really caught attention was the chorus: “I’m a pepper, he’s a pepper, she’s a pepper, we’re a pepper, wouldn’t you like to be a pepper too. The tune was catchy and the message was simple but really reinforced the brand. An example which actually created almost a cult following was the California Raisins. Animated films and cassettes sold like crazy for a while, even though the characters were only used for advertising. Only the songs and the animations were used with a brief mention of the product: Sunmaid raisins. These were possibly the most famous commercial characters ever. Buddy Miles sang the lead in their first recording, Marvin Gaye’s “I Heard It on the Grapevine”. The claymation figures and their memorabilia became instantly famous, and they made several albums and sold all kinds of merchandise. (Fawthrop, Peter 2007) Most advertising never realizes this kind of success. The advertizing media actually became a product in its own right. However, music has tremendous power on its own. Cook defined this extremely well in his book. His well written paragraph illustrates how Cook defines the function of music. “Music has been described as a syntax without semantics. Like language, it has a formal structure, but unlike language this structure cannot be related with any degree of consensus either to the world or to any conceptual representation of it. Arguably, music is also greater in its combinatory power than a language. For, though music moves forward in time, it can also combine notes at any instant on that line as harmonies, and additionally vary those harmonies by using different combinations of instruments and voices. In addition, the degree to which music can vary the pace and duration of notes, and exploit pitch variation, far exceeds that of language.” (Cook 44) This description is extremely pertinent to the value of music in film, TV and advertising. The use of music in advertising is somewhat different than in film or TV, since in advertising the music plays a much more important role. Like poetry, advertising thrives on meaning which is both predictable but unprovable. This kind of meaning is often ineffable, that is, it cannot be completely expressed in words. Advertisers use words to describe their products and explain their use. However, they sell their products with something far more subtle: brand recognition. In order to accomplish brand recognition, advertisers want that recognition to be instilled in a subconscious level, independent of text, just a notion that this one is good. Poetry and music both touch on this level. Poetry does this because its message is not carried by the words, but by the reaction or response to those words. Music, on the other hand, either works much like poetry if it has lyrics, since they are often poems, or there are no words and the message is carried by what the audience remembers and by the audience response to the music. We respond to music based upon remembered cues. If we have never heard the particular music before, we have likely heard something similar. So we react according to the remembered cues. However, we do this without thinking. We simply respond. Often, we have no idea why we like or dislike music. We simply do. This stems from early childhood when we do favor some types over others. This taste also changes over time. It is influenced by our culture, as we tend to favor the familiar, but in addition, different people like different music and few like all kinds. Advertisers know that music enhances experience and conveys impressions and messages that cannot be expressed in words. While a memorable slogan will help with brand recognition, a catchy tune will be remembered much longer and it creates its own emotional reaction. Even more important, by attaching the memorable music to symbolic images the advertisers double the impact. The symbolic images will recall the catchy tune which reinforces brand recognition. Even major retail outlets are adding musical scores to their commercials. “If 2006 was the year of music in cellphone commercials, then 2007 would be the year of ad music for clothing retailers. Big store chains have made use of popular music in TV commercials before, but this year saw a sharp increase. There was a time when you could only count on Gap commercials for catchy songs. Now every major retail company follows the song-centric TV commercial model: Old Navy, Sears, JCPenney, Macys, Kohls, Target, and even Wal-Mart have all featured music in TV spots.” (Adtunes 2007) Many people noticed that TV shows have been more and more featuring musical interludes showcasing new songs by both popular and unknown artists and bands. In many ways this is a win-win situation, since placing their music is great for the artists and the new and interesting music gets the attention of the viewers. Now the same thing is happening in advertisements, where new music is being featured as part of the commercial. The advertiser gets a bit more out of this and do the artists, but we can assume that they are also being paid residuals, so if the commercial becomes very popular then it can lead to considerable income. The lines between image and music are actually beginning to blur as we become so used to the combination that we simply expect music to accompany image and video. Music videos have led us to expect the converse also, video to accompany music, but as said earlier, in music videos, it is all about the music. The videos are created specifically to enhance the music. Any text is in the lyrics, but the action in the video expands upon that text, enhancing the images. So we see that the enhancement can move in either direction, even though it has been the music which was subordinate in the past. What is actually true is that it is really all about the text, and always has been. That text may be in any form, in actual text or dialog, song lyrics or poetry, or it can be contained within the music or the imagery or video. There is always a text, always a message. Whether music is used to enhance the text of a story or a persuasive advertisement, or images or video are used to enhance the text of a song, music and imagery interact, influence each other. In most uses, one increases the impact of the other, unless they are used on a third manner, to point out the incongruity of a situation for humorous or other reasons. The effects upon the audience are dependent upon the music and imagery used, the intent for using music and imagery and the text with which they are used, wherever it is found. Sad music can reinforce a sad story or point out the odd things of our lives. Happy music can push glee into joy. Strong rhythmic music can increase the power of a movie scene. There are endless variations. However, it is just as easy for imagery to be used to intensify the musical experience, as is done in music videos. In any case, the combination of music and text creates a very powerful medium. It is used in movies, television shows, music videos and advertisement. In advertisement, sponsors are changing their usage of music. Not only is the use of music increasing, but the type of music has also changed. Advertisers seek now to entertain in order to get people to watch. Modern technology can nearly eliminate commercials from TV, so advertisers have to be quite clever to get attention. Often the audience will only be listening, rather than watching the commercials, so the sound has become far more important. The interaction of the brand image with memorable portions of contemporary music are more often used than are catchy jingles in order to appeal to a wider audience, and sometimes making the audiovisuals materials as desirable as the products they support. This use of contemporary music in advertising has been called a sell-out by some, since the sponsoring companies often actually license the music for distribution, but it has also enabled the distribution of more obscure independent artists and bands. From one indie band, “With the commercial radio airplay route getting more difficult for many bands (including Wilco); we see this as another way to get the music out there…It can be puzzling when some music fans are quick to repeat the "music industry is evil" mantra, but then turn around and criticize their favorite musicians for trying to make a living from their own music while that same music industry is in such turmoil.” (Adtunes 2007) The music has become as important as the text and the images, as the music continues on to be sold as a product in itself. 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