The Role of Sound and Music in Modern Cinema - Essay Example

Modern film is not just a visual medium. Apart from our eyesight, the only other sense that is able to absorb a movie is our hearing. While we watch a film we don't just absorb visuals on the screen, but also the sound that is coming out of the speakers. Everyone has made the following experience while watching a film on the TV: As we had to turn away from the screen while something else needed our attention, we were still able to follow the action even though we didn't see it. In other words, you can watch a film without looking at it because of the sound design, score, music and dialogue provide crucial information regarding a film's narrative.

The sound designer can use real sounds of people, objects and actions. He can also modify them by enhancing, reducing or mixing them with other sounds. But he is not tied to natural sounds, for example, he can create ambient sounds of environments and locations from scratch, according to Sonnenschein (2001), thus creating his own sound landscape. Similarly, the composer is able to create and enhance audiences emotional reaction, by writing a specific and unique score for a movie. Hence, just as the cinematographer is a creative and versatile artist who makes conscious decisions about framing, lighting, angles, filters and movement to create atmospheres and to provoke emotional reactions, the sound designer and the composer are equally important and influential artists.

They use location sound, sound effects and music for exactly the same purposes as their colleagues responsible for the visual design of a film.It has to be noted that aforementioned films are examples of how sound design and film music (meaning both a score that is specifically composed for a film as well as published music) are used as a storytelling tool. Indeed, it is hard to identify just one film that doesn't use sound design and music on its soundtrack.