V

Sound is half of modern cinema. The visual is the dominating half, but without the sound the audience losses the context for the images they are viewing. Just like a shot in a film has composition, the sound of a shot has a similar composition. Sounds have directions, where they came from and where they’re going. While a shot is limited by its frame, sound encompasses all that is around the camera. It helps show was the frame leaves out. Sometimes a person’s voice, or a struggle. And this action we cannot see but hear causes our brains to construct what took place. Often, to our surprise, the action we imagine is far different than the actual event. Maybe the filmmaker knew he or she could not create something dramatic or visually, but aurally they knew the audience was smart and could show the audience with their ears a better show.

For example, we see murder scenes everyday on TV. A robber walks in to a bank and shoots a few people and runs away with the money. We could see him walk in and then each victim being shot and then his exit. Or, we see the robber enter the bank, with the shot frozen on the entrance, we hear the robber’s demands and then hear s few shot fired and screams. Then the robber runs out the door fleeing the scene. In the first example, the audience knows exactly what happened inside the bank and the sounds are present just because they are expected to be there. There is less suspense in this first sequence because the audience sees everything as it happened, and the sound neither adds nor subtracts from the experience of the event. However, in the second sequence with the shot of the bank from outside, the sound is cueing the audience to what is happening inside. They hear gun shots and screams and are left to interpret what happened inside. The suspense and drama are heightened because the audience is not entirely sure what is going on, they are only receiving half the information.

Therefore sound is a neglected piece of cinema which is often forgotten, but is easily as important as the visual image itself. Both are used by an audience to formulate the action of a scene and construct the mental and physical space of a scene and define the interacting elements of that space.