Visual Arts and Film Studies - Essay Example

Visual Arts and Film Studies As technology develops to provide room for advanced sound systems in the film industry, the soundtrack has become an integral aspect of productions. Sound is truly on par in relation to film as a significant element to control and manipulate during and after production. Quite often film makers emphasize much on video footage at the expense of sound quality. Interestingly enough, poor audio quality does annoy the viewers more than poor cinematography. Filmmakers often respond to improving sound quality whenever a person posses a question of what the film maker would do different in his upcoming film. The article will discuss several ways in which sound disconnects or connected from the image in “The Conversation” by Francis Ford Coppola. Introduction According to Cowie in his text “Picking up The Conversation,” Francis’ career in film making involves more than twenty-five films all through a forty-year career his acclaims as a film director attribute to his participation with “The Godfather” movies. Such a positive affiliation, indeed, has served Francis well all through the challenges in his career and diminished the effects of his essential work. In 1974, Coppola wrote and was a director of “The Conversation,” which is a scene that went immensely unnoticed because of the immediate release of The Godfather Part 2. Even though, both of the scenes contributed to the nomination of Oscar for Coppola, the triumph of The Godfather contributed to the fading of The Conversation into a level of under appreciation (Cowie, Picking up The Conversation). Nevertheless, in Dec. 2000 Paramount Home Video produced a new DVD of The Conversation. This digital video will enhance the film lovers to praise and see it as it provides the right format for a scene. This is because the film producer invested in attracting not only the visual sense of the viewers, but also their attention. Francis Coppola hardly limited channeling his creative traits towards the scene because he reinvented the utilization of sound. Just the same as Robert Altman did four years ago with MASH, Coppola accomplished his story because of sound application. The utilization of sound by Coppola in the film The Conversation is an aspect that makes the scene a unique and provides the audience with a cinematic experience. The Conversation, although released initially in 1974, it was perfect timing because it was when people had little faith towards the political institutions. The scene addresses, in broad, the increasing sense of people’s mistrust towards the political institutions. Through a creative and masterful sound use, Francis takes a significant advantage of suspicion and apprehension of the audience. Even though, the occupation of Coppola puts him in a high position, his technology use is a cause of skewed perception in relation to reality. While looking for truth in the midst of the conversation in the film, Coppola utilizes self-engineering modern technologies. The technologies aim at eradicating every intrusive noise that might affect the quality of the recording. However, the use of self-engineering technology did harm to the film because it eliminated the realness aspect of the film’s conversation. Harry directs his assistant to pay extra attention towards the recording and little attention to what the characters are talking about. This is similar to the distinction that people draw between listening and hearing. As Harry hears the words from the conversation, he hardly listens to what the words mean. It is not because of Harry’s personality or his achievements that made him a mark; rather it is the sophistication of sound that made his opponents. More so, through the audio maneuvering, “The Conversation” does not only narrate Harry Cauls’ story, but also the American story. “The Conversation” by Francis Ford Coppola The producer of “The Conversation” created sound track separately from images and was inclusive of three elements: music, sound effects and dialogue/voice. The three ingredients of a sound track do work independently and together to form meaning, as well as, produce distinct effects. Music enhances combines and adds to moving pictures in numerous ways. More so, music can refine and heighten emotion and meaning of the scene. According to Kawin’s reading, the ear and microphone are the crucial principles of sound recording. More so, he evaluates the creative utilization of sound in films, placement and nature of a soundtrack and the subject of synchronization. Nevertheless, through the instrument and tone selection, music can provide the audience with the right mood towards the film and characters. In addition, producers use music as a strategy of giving the senses of unity and continuity to sequels and production. Consequently, music provides a sense of place, time and assists in creating feeling or ambience to a scene. An additional significance of music is that it increases/decreases, replicates and creates a sense of a piece and rhythm. Finally, music acts as the right precursor to incidences is a film, as well as, directs the viewer to a certain image part/s. Kawin continues to discuss the subject of creative synchronization. According to Kawin, synchronization is essential in film especially when sound films aims at making illusions convincing or realistic. For instance, the audience would be interested in hearing how an object on film screen sounds. An element that audiences might not be aware of this relates to the process of mixing sound. More so, most audiences perceive that there is little about the sound that involves time, accuracy and talent. Well, the truth lies in the sense that when a scene lacks proper sound mixing and editing it would not attract viewers. All sound editors must emphasize on certain aspects and procedures such as adding or extracting sound, using silence, manipulating volume and overlapping dialogue. In “The Conversation” by Francis Ford Coppola, the aspect of sound is a significant focus of the entire plot. For instance, the element of recording a conversation between two antagonists in the absence of their consent is both interesting and terrifying. There is a single scene in the scene that remains to be fascinating for viewers to watch. According to Cowie, this relates to Harry Caul when Gene Hackman plays him by trying to record the dialogue between two main characters at the center of the crowd. In order for Gene, to know what the characters were saying, he extracted overlapping conversations, abstract noise and on-location sound. As a result, Harry records a line of the dialogue that states that the characters would be killed when the latter find out. This scene is among the most ground-breaking part in the history of film in relation to sound mixing. Cowie states in Picking up The Conversation that the changing focal distances supply a clear visual similar to sound flow and tantalizing ebb on the magnetic tape. If there is an aspect that this scene by Coppola is full of, is sound: both non-diegetic and authentic. Nonetheless, sound does play a significant role in connecting or disconnecting itself from the image as the viewer notices in the scene. All through the scene there is an abundance of odd and confusing bleep sounds, which seem to appear out of nowhere. The succession of shots is an indication of the bizarre bleeps the viewer hears in the beginning shot. Such bleeps were interference of sound the film maker captured from a microphone. It is apparent that the slow zoom of the camera in the beginning shot was a standing for a microphone. This is a technique that film makers use for surveillance, which plays a significant obligation in the consecutive narrative. At the beginning of the film by Francis Ford (1974), the audience hears, what seems as diegetic sound that is relatively quiet. The producers provided such an aspect to formulate the right point-of-audition audio, where it looks as the characters are interfering on the scene and the park. More so, the audience sees the same emphasize in the jarring sound impact, in relation to the electronic motionless sound. The viewer hears the static sound when the aim of the shot takes a new turn, which attracts the attention of the audience. This sound effect aims at simulating image reality in the film. This sound effect refers to hyper-real sound, which relates to point-of-audition sound. Such a sound effect provides the viewer with an impression that they are interfering on the park. This is the same as what the central characters of the scene do from the beginning until the end. Another instance where sound connects to image according to Cowie’s text Picking up The Conversation where it reaches a point that each character seems to spy on the other, observe and betray. Such a motif as Cowie states surfaces in a visual way and via verbal means. An example of a visual way in Coppola’s scene involves a television monitor revealing to Harry how the assistant director watches him from a far. Alternatively, the verbal means involves the recording of anxieties of Harry that Moran makes through the planting of a pen-mike inside his coat’s pocket. The feet shuffling and talking is a location sound featuring in the film, which the producer uses to create background noise or Walla. Consequently, the Walla does play an obligation of producing verisimilitude and blocking out the discussion between the duos antagonists. As a result, the soundtrack in the scene changes course to other dialogues. This is clear at the beginning of the film when the dialogue that the audience hears eventually shifts until the viewer hears the dialogue between the opponents. This is another example of point-of-audition and hyper-real sound. More so, the sound that the audience hears that is music or diegetic from a park does add realism to the sense. For instance, the scene shows an instance when the profound percussion with African group music hinders the clear dialogue between the two antagonists. Diegetic sound refers to audio within the film that occurs while non-diegetic sound refers to sound that is absent in the scene such as an external music. The common audio is diegetic such as footsteps, door opening/closing, speech, screaming/shouting, and water splashing, among others. At the last part of the scene is an additional area of concern in relation to analyzing the connection between sound and image. For instance, the location music fades out sequenced by non-diegetic music. The classical sound portrays a dawdling tempo, which makes the viewer develop attention of what will take place in the proceeding parts. The piece suddenly rises at significant loudness, which prefigures that an incident is about to occur – this links it to the significance of sound as the narrative device. The conversation in the scene itself mixes with background noise and electronic static audio. The dialogue between the two antagonists is semi-synced. This is because the audio that viewers hear regarding their conversation originates from the same devices as those that picked up their messages. The series begins with a view park featuring a bird’s eye with a celebration style sound playing at the background. This music play seemed as among the diegetic sounds in the film, which told the viewers the activities that took place in the background. More so, it acts as part of an audition sound, which assists the viewers to locate and engage themselves proximally and geographically within the film’s setting. The celebration music connects the images that the audience sees in the park. In Cowie’s text Picking up The Conversation, it states that Moran manages to keep Harry away from the recordings, but the tape proceeds running as Harry lies on the cot and girl undresses. In the best poignant passage of the film, Coppola overlies the two crucial realities, as if dubbing the passages into one new recording. The use of radio sound is a suggestion that another activity is taking place apart from the relaxed environment in the park. In addition, the fact that the sound coming from the radio is non-diegetic might provide the film senses of enigma. As the antagonists and protagonists talk, the audience hears not only overlays of radio music, but also their conversation. As a result, the conversation might suggest a strong relationship between the antagonists and protagonists. A deliberate cut alongside sound jumps attracts the attention of the audiences to change their perspectives. Starting from comparatively soft ambient sounds to moderately loud ambient sounds do update the audiences in relation to the closeness of the scene’s setting. The fact that most of the audiences do hear irrelevant couples conversing, it clearly improves a significant feeling towards the crowd. Consequently, the camera connects the sound and the image of the protagonists. This is clear when the camera spotlights the conversation between the protagonists and the audiences are able to hear the conversation. As the antagonists try to tap in the conversation of the protagonists, the audiences are able to hear the ambient noise. This exerts the emphasis in relation to the fact that the protagonists in the film do try to fit in the crowd. The soundtrack in the scene “The Conversation” by Francis Coppola adds an enigmatic sense to the film’s sequence. More so, the soundtrack enhances both the still camera location and long shots, which provides an aspect of surveillance. The music suggests the emotion within the audience, which relates to the question of who the observer is, whom people observe and for what reason. Coppola utilized several alienation effects at certain points, which might not be the right or realistic representation of an actual scene. For instance, when the producer utilizes characteristic sound he deviates from Gene’s character goes away from the park and crosses the street to a van’s location. At such a point, his character could hardly hear the words in a conversation between the couple in the park. Nevertheless, the audiences are able to hear it as a certain monitoring gadget. This is a perfect line of the intention of Coppola as the viewer is conscious of the surveillance group eavesdropping to the couple’s dialogue. Such an instance is significant because it represents a marriage between images and sound. For instance, when the images do cut to shots of surveillance group members, it distorts the tones in the voices of the couple. As a result of the distortion, the scene seems as a robotic and metallic quality. The instance of alienation that occurs when the viewer can hear what Hackman cannot is a transition between an interior shot of the van’s surveillance and the couple. Conclusion In a nutshell, music and sound within moving image and films can enhance all emotions involved in the film. More so, sound can radically change the emotions and feelings of the audiences within a couple of seconds. The article has investigated the connections or disconnections of sound and image to address the ability of the scene to suspend realism. According to the article, the use of sound hermeneutic defines the intelligence of the scene’s sequence because the audience wonders about the origin of the sound. The spatial and proximal relationships provide are multifaceted and intriguing as the subjects to the audience. Read More