Sound Observations

The Bela Balazs article was very informative although a little too abstract for my taste. I found myself lost at times because of Balazs' flowery language, but his intent was a genuine appreciation of sound and an explanation on how humans react to various stimuli. Music is anything that is the absence or presence of sound. I agree with Balazs that sound add an extra dimension to what is seen on the screen, and sound is one of our five senses that helps us process what we are consuming. However, I am frankly slightly confused with the article because in my opinion, Balazs is truly more enamored with the close-up rather than sound. He mentions close-ups almost every other paragraph and emphasizes on how the human face is a bridge to authentic inner emotion. I think the close-up is more important than sound in many aspects. Although hearing sound can create intense emotion, and can change the tone of a piece, I personally find facial expressions and close-ups to be more effective in delivering emotion. However, I do agree that sound is an art in itself and is a great quality to add to a film.

With the Walter Murch article, I also struggled to comprehend what his thoughts were on the subject of sound. I find him too dense to understand at times, and this goes back to the fact that I frankly don't have any interest in sound at all. In fact, I am a unique person who actually prefers her movies to be completely silent, and that includes soundtracks. My past few shorts have been completely silent and I prefer to rely on images to communicate my emotions. Sound does not simply interest me and reading theory on sound goes over my head to easily. From what I could understand from the Murch article, sound can be broken up into layers when it comes to film. Reading about the soundscape of "Apocalypse Now" was actually a little interesting as Murch mentions the layers of which the sound in a particular scene was organized, and what I found interesting was his statement about human voices needing to be the most understood sound in a film. This leads back to Murch's claim at the beginning of the article that references babies recognizing sound and voice as the first notable observation of their lives.

For my first sound observation, I decided to take a seat on a bench outside of my apartment complex. I settled down in some sweat pants in the middle of the night and closed my eyes. I could feel a soft hum in my ears, a mechanical whirring nearby, and the sound of feet hitting pavement. Deep throaty croaks filled the air and surrounded me on all sides. After a while, I could hear my own heart beat in my ears, which was pretty distracting from everything else that I was hearing. The croaking, which I assumed belonged to the complex’s frogs, were of a medium level. The sound of footsteps on pavement were the faintest and furthest away. I had to strain to hear them. I almost fell asleep because of how relaxing it was to just sit and listen. I don’t take a lot of time to myself too often.

For my second sound observation, I went to Carolina Beach and took a seat in the lifeguard's tower. Listening to sounds in the tower were interesting because of the echo it had. The sound of the ocean waves was deafening and amplified. Mixed in with the soft yet loud sound of the water hitting the waves were shrill caws every now and then, and laughter. A few minutes in, a sharp thud in the sand. I couldn’t hear my heart this time because the sounds of the beach were too loud. The echo allowed the sounds to merge around me. To be honest, listening to the beach in the lifeguard’s tower wasn’t as soothing as I expected it to be. I felt sensitive to every snap and caw that I heard.