Film Music And The Modern Day

Sunset Boulevard (1950) and Singing in the Rain (1952) both use the transitions from silent to sound movies to help drive the narrative. Director Billy Wilder’s film, Sunset Boulevard and Gene Kelly and Stanley Donen’s Singing in the Rain utilize camera movements and sound to advance the plot.

Occasionally there would be subtitles of dialogue, but they were often short to ensure that audience would not be distracted. Live music played a large role in silent films and conveying the emotions to the audience. One ruinous aspect of the transition from silent films to sound films is the actors lack to transition with them. Important silent film stars such as Clara Bow and Rudolph Valentino faded away with silent films. However, stars like Charlie Chaplin and Lionel Barrymore were able to make a successful transition from silent to sound, and continued their strong acting

When silent movies were beginning to be replaced by movies with sound, or ‘Talkies’, controversy began to surround Hollywood and it stars. Between Fatty Arbuckle hitting an actress at a party

“The most exciting moment is the moment when I add the sound… At this moment, I tremble.” (Akira Kurosawa) Sound is arguably the most important concept in cinema studies, being there ever since the beginnings. It can radically change the way a motion picture is looked at and it can render what the director may sometimes find hard to depict using only his camera. Looking upon silent cinema one discovers an era which wasn’t at all silent, but rich in sound of different forms, from the simple narration of the images shown on screen, accompanied by a piano, to the complex score later composed specifically for that film. An example of that complex score is shown in Sunrise, a film by F.W. Murnau, which lies at the border between silent cinema and sound cinema. Considered to be one of the first films with an actual score, Sunrise is a great example of the multitude of dimensions and effects sound can have.

Silent film has no recorded sound but can include background music and special effects. Since there was no way to record people talking, music was used instead. Music establishes setting, creates mood, atmosphere and may foreshadow. Charlie Chaplin is one of the most famous producers and directors of the silent film era. Not only did he write, he acted and scored movies too. In Charlie Chaplin’s The Gold Rush (1925), the dance of the rolls in the official version was officially composed by Chaplin to help correlate with his actions by using an Orchestra. It was later recreated; however, it was composed using a piano. Although, people of that time period may argue that Chaplin’s version is the best one and more effective because it is an original, the piano version is the best.

Many film producers during the 1970’s and 1980’s didn’t attempt to create films that required symphonic underscoring, instead they produced films that were non-symphonic and utilized synthesized scores. The synthesizer played an important role in the production of Hollywood film music that allowed composers to select a more wide variety of musical colors. The three most common styles that were synthesized included modern, traditional and popular music. A few films that were first produced with synthesized scores were Midnight Express, Halloween, and Blade Runners. In Midnight Express, the score incorporated both modernistic and popular melodies that mimicked musical instruments. Towards the final cue, a ballad is played quietly as Brad attempts

Action, suspense, love, and drama are all the makings for a great film. None of these key features to a film could have any substance or feeling without the help of music. Composers play a big role for setting the tone of the movie, developing characters, moving along or supporting action, and depicting the time and place the movie is taking place. In the movie Heat, Elliot Goldenthal does just that. Goldenthal was born in NY in 1954 and studied music under John Corigliano and Aaron Copeland. His partner is Julie Taymor and he won an Oscar for the movie Frida which Julie directed. Goldenthal has composed for several films as well as concert halls, theater and dance. He also has written an opera

Film came around in the late 1880’s. It at that point was just still images being run in front of a light and projected on a screen. This was done all without sound, save for the sound of the projector shuttering. Though films were just pictures on a screen, it still moved audiences. “One could not only get lost in the crowd, one could also get ‘lost’ in the images, which is one of the primary aims of the spectarorial experience (Dixon, 9). They were not only moved by plain images, but also by the image of sound. Audiences would react to the image of a gunshot or cannon fire by covering their ears. Audiences still experienced sound even though there was none. This was through a process that was referred to as the ‘silent sound sense.’ “This phenomenon, referred to as subception or subliminal auditive perception by psychologist, was exploited by numerous makers of silent films, who peppered their products with visual

The three basic types of music heard in original scores during the silent film era are Adaptations of Classics, Arrangements of tunes, and newly composed music. In most cases, adaptation of classics involves action and dramatic scenes. It is borrowing a large amount of an already existing composition for use in film score. In The Birth of a Nation, Mozart’s music was used for the ending of the movie and also in the scene that showed Lincoln’s assassination. The main use of classical work is during a tense, apprehensive, action or violent moment. Arrangements of tunes are

Have you ever asked yourself how to create music for film? Well, if you are a movie lover that like movie soundtrack, you will find that composing music for film is not as simple as you imagined. Composing music for film requires a series of steps, we sum up the most important and easy steps to encourage you to try .You can end up being the next best world film composer ever.

Music often supplements movies. Even before the age of “talking pictures,” live musicians would accompany films to mask unflattering projector noise. Today, filmmakers typically use music throughout their movies to intensify the action and/or atmosphere. However, throughout the majority of Cast Away, director Robert Zemeckis gives the whispers of nature precedence over a film score; though unconventional, his use of sound efficiently enhances the film.

At the beginning of the 20th century, background music had a significant impact on the film industry. Before, dialogue was introduced to the motion picture, all films were silent. Back at that time, silent films were very popular. This type of film is recognized for not having any sound nor music but, “Silent movies were never silent, and the early projectors were always noisy. Music was a necessary mask and accompaniment to the enjoyment of the early films” (Chihara). However, the actors expressed their thoughts and emotions with their actions and facial expressions because of the absence of dialogue and music. One of the most recognized actors of this era was the one and only, Charlie Chaplin. But, later on musicians were introduced to play,

The introduction of sound films in the late 1920’s was a divisive issue among those involved and interested in the emerging motion picture industry. Even though it wasn’t the sudden breakthrough it is often perceived to be, the addition of sound and voice to mainstream cinema revolutionized movie making and led to conflicting viewpoints as to whether or not this innovation was a positive progression for film as an art and as an industry.

The ability of film to produce such a trick has always been its main selling point. When Szaloky states that “Rick Altman’s claim that ‘silence was in fact a regular practice of silent film exhibition’ appears…to challenge the historical accuracy of the received opinion that ‘the silent film never existed’” (109), she suggests that silent film did not necessarily need the live musical accompaniment that modern audiences so often associate with the silent film showing. On the contrary, it is likely that the silent films themselves often ran silently. In fact, Szaloky makes the point “that the term ‘silent film’ came to denote early cinema only after the coming of sound had turned presound films into ‘silents’” (109). What this means is that silent film as it has been conceived since the introduction of talkies is not the way it was conceived

A man gets a choice between downloading an album for free, with a click of a button or driving down to a music store and paying $15 for the same album, and running the risk of not finding that album at all. What will choose?