Sound!

It is crucially important to human experience and to sound design in film.

Sound is important in a film production. Different aspects of sound enhance the characters and the story, making the movie a complete experience. In addition, sound is edited into the movie so it is coherent and comprehensible within the movie.

Some sort of sound is always used to enhance the movie experience. Sound in a movie includes 

1. music, 
2. dialogue, 
3. sound effects, 
4. ambient noise, and/or background noise and 
5. soundtracks. 

Music

 Music is a very important element for a movie. In the silent movie period, music was played throughout the whole movie. The film score is the music at the beginning of the movie when the credits are rolling, and it sets the atmosphere for the movie.

Music is also played at critical points during a movie. It indicate  something is going to happen,  some situations have occurred in  a movie, 

Dialogue

Dialogue is defined as a conversation between two or more people in a movie. In addition, a movie could have a monologue where a character is speaking out loud when he or she is alone. A character, for example, may contemplate the pros and cons of talking some form of action in a monologue.

A movie can also have voice-over narration. Voice-over narration is when a character is explaining what has transpired in a movie and why. 100 years ago, there were silent movies with no audio dialogue, but dialogue cards were used, and background music set the tone of the scene. Take a look at the following example of a scene with and without dialogue.

Sound Effects

It defines sound effect as “any sound, other than music or speech, artificially reproduced to create an effect in a dramatic presentation, as the sound of a storm or a creaking door.” An action movie, for instance, is more interesting and bolder with sound effects. With sound effects, the viewer gets more involved with the movie.

Sound effects are most often added into the movie post production.  player. Music and sound effects give an aspect of the character.

Ambient Noises (Background Noise)

Ambient noises are background noises that are in a room, a house, outside, or any given location.  Every location has distinct and subtle sounds created by its environment. Ambient noises are types of sound effects. Background noise gives the movie more realism.

Soundtracks

A soundtrack is an audio recording created or used in film production or post-production.  Initially, the dialogue, sound effects, and music in a film have their own separate tracks (dialogue track, sound effects track, and music track), and these are mixed together to make what is called the composite track, which is heard in the film.

Late in the 1940s “sound track” became one word, “soundtrack.”  A soundtrack or an original soundtrack from a movie became a way of advertising the movie.

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THE LUMIÈRE BROTHERS

Famous for inventing the cinematograph and the autochrome, Auguste and Louis Lumière are among the most significant figures in film and photography history.

With their first Cinématographe show in the basement of the Grand Café in the boulevard des Capucines in Paris on 28 December 1895, the Lumière brothers have been regarded as the inventors of cinema—the projection of moving photographic pictures on a screen for a paying audience. However, they were probably not the first to do this: the Latham brothers in New York were screening boxing films to paying audiences from 20 May 1895, using their Eidoloscope projector.

Nevertheless, the achievement of the Lumière brothers was considerable. Their Cinématographe was the first satisfactory apparatus for taking and projecting films, and its claw mechanism became the basis for most cine cameras.

THE LUMIÈRE BROTHERS’ BEGINNINGS

Auguste and Louis Lumière were born in Lyon, France, where their father, Antoine Lumière, had a photographic business. At the age of 17, Louis invented a highly sensitive photographic plate which the Lumière family began manufacturing. It was so successful commercially that the Lumières built a factory in the Monplaisir suburb of Lyon. By 1894, they were employing 300 people.

Late that year, Antoine saw an example of Edison’s peepshow Kinetoscope in Paris and encouraged his sons to develop an apparatus that would take and project moving pictures. Within a few months, they produced a successful prototype of the Cinématographe, which was not only a camera but a printer and projector as well. It was patented in France on 13 February 1895.

THE CINÉMATOGRAPHE

Compared with other attempts at producing a movie camera,

1.       the Cinématographe was remarkably compact and, unlike the Edison Kinetograph, it did not rely on electrical power, which few premises had at that time.

2.      The Cinématographe could be taken anywhere, either to shoot film or to use as a projector—all that was required was a magic lantern lamphouse with a gas or limelight illuminate.

At the heart of the Cinématographe was the film transport mechanism, whereby two pins or ‘claws’ were inserted into sprocket holes at each side of the film, moved it down and were then retracted, leaving the film stationary for exposure. This    recurrent movement was designed by Louis and based on the principle of the sewing machine mechanism.

MAKING EARLY FILMS

The Lumière brothers’ first film  was shot outside their factory as the workers left at the end of the day. It was shown to the Société d’Encouragement à l’Industrie Nationale in Paris on 22 March 1895: this was probably the first public screening of moving pictures ,the Lathams’ first public demonstration in New York took place on 21 April 1895.

At the Paris meeting, Louis met the engineer Jules Carpentier, who undertook to refine and manufacture the Cinématographe for the Lumières.

Later that year, the Lumière brothers made a number of other films, all around a minute long, showing scenes such as

Auguste and his wife feeding their baby;

a train arriving at La Ciotât in the south of France;

and possibly the first film comedy, L’arroseur arrosé, in which a mischievous boy tricks a gardener into being soaked with water and is chased and spanked.

Another public demonstration of the Cinématographe was given to the French Photographic Congress held in Lyon in June 1895, when the delegates were particularly impressed at seeing film of themselves taken the previous day.

THE PUBLIC LAUNCH OF THE CINÉMATOGRAPHE

Against his sons’ wishes, Antoine Lumière decided to launch the Cinématographe publicly in Paris on 28 December 1895. The screening was organised by Antoine and Clément Maurice, with three members of the Lumière staff in charge of projection. The Lumière brothers and Carpentier were not there. The first show was given to an invited audience of journalists, theatre directors (including Georges Méliès) and friends. Thereafter, the public shows commenced.

Each show comprised ten films and lasted about 15 minutes. There were twenty shows a day, starting at 10.00 and ending at 01.30 the next morning, with breaks at 12.00–14.00 and 19.00–20.00. Admission was one franc.

There was little public interest at first—the few papers that reported on it criticised the name ‘Cinématographe’—but news soon spread. On some days, queues extended a quarter of a mile, and the takings amounted to 2,500 francs (more than £42,000 in today’s money).

THE CINÉMATOGRAPHE IN BRITAIN

The first public screening of the Cinématographe in Britain took place at the Malborough Hall of the Royal Polytechnic Institution in Regent Street, London on 21 February 1896. There had been a press show the previous day when, coincidentally, the British cinema pioneer Robert Paul had demonstrated his Theatrograph projector at Finsbury Technical College

The opening performance attracted only 54 customers but, as in Paris, the Cinématographe’s popularity soon increased. Cinema quickly became part of music hall programmes.

Lumière Cinématographe, c.1986 © Science Museum Group Collection

THE CINÉMATOGRAPHE GOES GLOBAL

In the first years of the Lumière film operation, cameramen were sent all over the world to record scenes in locations such as Russia, Japan and the Holy Land.

In America, the first Cinématographe show took place at eith’s Union Square Theater, New York on 29 June 1896.

In November the Lumière brothers established their own agency in New York, selling equipment and films. This was very successful for a few months, but the Lumière brothers had fallen foul of the American customs by importing apparatus and films illegally—their manager had to escape the country—but mainly because films sprocketed in the Edison format were becoming the industry standard.

The Lumière brothers began to issue copies of films in both their original and the Edison format, but the ubiquity of the latter signalled the obsolescence of the original Cinématographes. Before the end of 1897, the Cinématographe had largely been superseded by the Lumière Cinématographe Model B, a projection-only machine designed for film with Edison perforations.

THE LUMIÈRE BROTHERS MOVE AWAY FROM CINEMA

Auguste and Louis continued to work on technical developments, and in 1900 devised a camera which took large-format 75mm films. By 1905, however, the Lumière brothers withdrew from the cinema business. They worked instead on inventing the first successful photographic colour process—the Lumière Autochrome—in 1907. Louis also worked on a process of stereoscopic cinematography.

The two brothers lived long enough to be famous as pioneers of the cinema within their lifetimes.

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History of film from 1830-1910

 

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A schema theory

Schema is a mental structure to help us understand how things work.  The term schema was first introduced in 1923 by developmental psychologist Jean Piaget. Piaget proposed a theory of cognitive development that utilised schema as one of its key components.

 

Piaget defined schemas as basic units of knowledge that related to all aspects of the world. He said that different schemas are mentally applied in appropriate situations to help people both comprehend and interpret information.

 

To Piaget, cognitive development hinges on (to depend on something completely) an individual acquiring more schemas and increasing the nuance and complexity of existing schemas.

The concept of schema was later described by psychologist Frederic Bartlett in 1932.  Bartlett conducted experiments that tested how schemas factored into people’s memory of events.

He suggested that schemas help people process and remember information. So when an individual is confronted with information that fits their existing schema, they will interpret it based on that cognitive framework. However, information that doesn’t fit into an existing schema will be forgotten.

 A schema is always connected to other schemas in a web of associations Although schemas can vary in their accessibility, they are long-term, relatively permanent structures that are capable of being searched, retrieved, and stored again.

Types of Schemas

There are many kinds of schemas that assist us in understanding the world around us, the people we interact with, and even ourselves.

 Types of schemas include:

• Object schemas, which help us understand and interpret inanimate objects, including what different objects are and how they work. For example, we have a schema for what a phone is and how to use it. Our computer schema may also include subcategories like editing, gaming, and working with computer.
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• Person schemas, which are created to help us understand specific people. It help us such a way that how the way an individual looks, the way they act, what they like and don’t like, and their personality traits.
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• Social schemas, which help us understand how to behave in different social situations. For example, Social schemas relate to social situations and relationships, and they shape our understanding of how individuals interact with one another. For example,the schema for "friendship" could include expectations for how friends treat one another, such as being supportive and trustworthy. 
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• Event schemas,  which include the sequence of actions and behaviors one expects during a given event. For example, when an individual enter into class room,  they can wear an identity card, on time attend the lecture selecting a seat, silencing their mobile phone, observing  the class carefully, and taking notes.
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• Self-schemas, which help us understand ourselves. You can focus on what you know , who are you and what is your history and future,
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• Role schemas, which incorporate our expectations of how a person in a specific social role will behave. For example, we expect a professor to be intellectual, commanding and clam. While not all professors will act that way, our schema sets our expectations of each professor we interact with.

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Functions Of Schemas

Schemas can help us efficiently learn and understand new information, 

With regard to media effects, schemas have three main functions 

First, they facilitate the processing of information because they enable individuals to organize and retrieve information in a structured manner.   Schemas lend a sense of order to our understanding of the world. 

  Second, schemas determine which bits of information are perceived and processed by individuals. Schemas structure the way in which we perceive the world: when a message is matched against a schema, elements of the message are ordered in a manner that reflects the structure of the schema. Ex. Women issues

 Third and last, schemas help individuals to fill in the gaps when information is incomplete. Individuals are likely to go beyond the information that is presented in the media because they draw inferences that are congruent ( having the same size and shape ) with their pre-existing schemas.

 According to schema theory, people are cognitive misers because they strive to process the incoming information economically. 

Therefore, people do not attend to all the information they are exposed to. When confronted with new, incoming information, people draw on their existing schemas to understand and to assimilate the message. 

eg Murder of women

When individuals cannot identify a schema to understand the message, either they can attempt to establish a new schema, or the information cannot be integrated. 

In fact, schema theory posits that schema-irrelevant information tends to be ignored, and will therefore not be memorized.

  A Schema Theory Perspective On Media Effects

The most extensive application of schema theory in communication research concerns news reception and news effects. 

 As Graber (1984) observed, people would not be able to tame the information tide without their schemas. 

Schema theory helps to explain how people represent the public agenda, learn from the news, resist media information, and change their existing attitudes.

Schemas And Agenda Setting

From a schema theory perspective, issues can be understood as individual schemas. These schemas are stored in long-term memory; they can be retrieved and made salient by media coverage.

Agenda-setting- Schema

Agenda setting and framing studies show that news media influence how people develop schema and place priorities on issues.  An agenda-setting effect can be described as an interaction between individual schemas and the amount of media coverage.

According to schema theory, this effect depends on two crucial features.

1. First, the more frequently a schema is activated, the higher is its accessibility and the more likely are agenda-setting effects.

2Second, however, the amount of schema activation depends on the fit between the issue schema and the individual schema. 

Schema learning: 

Rumelhart (1980) suggests three broad processes of schema learning:  accretion, tuning, and restructuring.

Accretion refers to the accumulation of new information into an existing schema, following the schematic structure that is already present. This kind of learning allows the acquisition of large amounts of specific knowledge about a given topic. With regard to media effects, the process of accretion explains why prior knowledge is associated with greater learning.

Tuning of an existing schema 

 Tuning involves the gradual modification of a schema. This can occur by continuously upgrading it in the direction of the current experience, for instance by adding a new slot to the schema or by generalizing a schema to other situations 

Cognitive restructuring is a technique that has been successfully used to help people change the way they think. When used for stress management, the goal is to replace stress-producing thoughts 

 

SchemaResistance To Change

Information from the media becomes subject to a schematic filtering. Rarely do individuals process the new information in a neutral and unbiased manner.  Individuals mainly extract personally relevant information that suits their personal schemas. News of Tax, Tax for media equipment. 

Resistance to schema - three other major factors

1.     the level of initial schema development, 

  This idea corresponds to persuasion theory, which suggests that more knowledgeable people are more difficult to persuade .For example, it is more difficult to change an expert’s schema than a novice’s.

2.     the ambiguity or consonance of the incoming information, The ambiguity of the incoming information also impacts the resistance to schema change. 

3.     the frequency of the inconsistent information. The simple frequency of inconsistent information is a crucial predictor of schema change.

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