Understanding of Sound 

By: Victor Scarabelli

Sound

Moving image or sound can be found everywhere nowadays either on TV, in Film, in games or in animation, on the Internet, in advertising and on hand-held devices such as mobile phones and tablets. Sound can be broken down into three categories: voice, music and sounds, such as ambient sound and sound effects. Each of these kinds of sound add something to the Image and change the feel and the meaning of it.

Diegetic&non-diegetic

Sounds nowadays can either be classified as diegetic or non-diegetic. The Diegetic sounds are those that link to something visible on the screen such as a picture being shown on screen, and that can  also be heard by the characters. Diegetic sound can include dialogues and sound of objects on screen. On the other hand a Non-diegetic sound are all the sounds that the audience hears but the characters cannot, for example  narration, ambient sound, “mood” music and some sound effects.

Dialogue

An example of dialogue is the scene in the film Harry Potter Deathly Hallows Part 2

In this scene the dialogue that the characters are having helps the audience to understand the shots are seeing. Without the dialogue the audience would be confused and wouldn’t understand the conflict which both characters are having. The dialogue helps the audience understand why the Character Ron is so frustrated, also without the dialogue the audience would never understand the crucial discovery the character Harry and the character Hermione made in order to destroy the ‘Horcruxes’. This scene is a good example of Diegetic sound as the character can hear the same sound as the audience is hearing.

Narration

Narration is sound which is added over the scene of a film or video which belongs to a 'third person'. Narration is a method which in a way the 'third person' recount the scene or the events to the audience. An example of narration is the Tim Burton's short Film 'Vicent'

The narration used in this video is a non-diegetic sound as the voice that the audience hear does not belong to anyone that appears in the scene. In the video there is a dialogue added into it but it still a narration as the voice dont come from the characters but from the 'thrid person' that sees the actions and explains it to the audience.
The benefits of narration is that it provides further information which the audience can not gather from the visuals alone such as when the narration tells Vicent's age, the type of person Vicent is what is his interests.

Interviews

Voices can also comes into a interviews form. Voices uncounted in interviews are diegetic sound because the sound that the audience is hear is from the person which is been interviewed and and also the person itself making it be diegetic sound.

In the video above the interview used in this video was an diegetic sound as when they start the interview the audience can see from where the voice is coming from and who its belong to.

SoundTrack

Soundtrack is the word which refers to the music that was specifically created to be combined with a specific video. The use of soundtrack in videos which the music is kind of related to the themes help the video to set the tone and reinforce that message that its being given to the audience. An example of soundtrack is the song "Skyfall" created by the singer Adele to be the main sound of the film series of James Bond which the film also carries the name of the song.

In the video there are several symbols which are shown that give clues as to what happens later on in the film, but the audience can not  understand it without the music accompanying the video. the video is an good example of non-diegetic sound as the person who sings the sound isn't presented in the video.

Sound effect

Sound effects are an important part of a video production. sound effect can be used to enhance an existing sound, added or to create a sound that did not exist. For  example Sherlock Holmes fight scene.

In the video above you can hear the sound of punches, kicks and slaps. that was done with the reason to draw the audience's attention to a specific actions that the audience might miss or to make it more interesting. The sounds used are all diegetic sound as all the sound's origin are presented on the screen and the chacarters can also hear the sound.

Ambient Sound

Ambient sound are the background sound that the audience hear, ambient sound helps the audience to understand where is  taking  place and also help to  set the tone. One example is the film 'The pursuit of Happiness' the subway scene.

In the video above the ambient sound hep  the audience to identify  the scene location, the audience easily identify where the location is because the familiar train sound. The ambient sound on this video is diegetic sound because we can see the origin of the sound which is the trains and the character can also hear  it.