This weeks activity from Contextual Studies: Read a Guardian long read and critically evaluate your chosen source
Chosen article: Rain is sizzling bacon, cars are lions roaring: the art of sound in movies
Skip Livesay adopts a unique approach to his work as a sound editor for film he once studies architecture but soon quickly discovered an interest into sound and how different realistic effects can be transformed and used for un-relevant sounds. The article discusses how sound is a central principle and how 'people hear what they are conditioned to hear, not what they are actually hearing'. For example the sound of bacon sizzling can be used as rain, lion roars as the sound of engines. 'To be excellent, a sound editor needs not just a sharp, trained ear, but also a gift for imagining what a sound could do, what someone else might hear.' I thoroughly enjoyed reading this article and found that Livesay is well known for approaching each piece of work objectively, selecting the best sound and technique to express the image being expressed on scene rather than using their literal sounds. This makes him vastly different to any sound editor resulting in a long and highly successful career. 'His job is to make you feel things without ever knowing he was there.'
Furthermore, throughout the sound editing process, there are different processes which exist within. 'Design and editing have more to do with the creation and selection of the sounds that make up each scene, Mixing involves taking sounds created by the designers and editors and integrating them in each scene so that everything sounds “natural”'. This goes to show how sound editing goes beyond the natural world sounds taken from realistic everyday objects and instead opens up a whole new world, listening and diving deeper into a parallel world where one sound can be used to illustrate a whole new visual. However, the problem with this is that the sounds can be misinterpreted if not displayed with the visual image. This could imply that Livesay was highly talented and skilled as he successfully was able to make the audience believe what he wanted them to see and hear.
During 'no country for old men' 'There are three distinct sounds of broken glass tinkling to the pavement from the shattered window, the chug of his boot heel finally connecting with the asphalt'. All of which are further examples of how sound can be taken from non-literal examples and used to create believable sounds to mirror the image being shown on screen. 'None of these sounds are there because some microphone picked them up. They’re there because Livesay chose them and put them there, as he did for every other sound in the film.'
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