Sample Music Project Evaluation

I chose to write, research, and report on the powerful media entity SoundCloud. SoundCloud was established in Berlin in August 2008 by Swedish sound designer Ljung and Swedish artist Wahlforss. The founders aspired to allow musicians to share recordings with each other, but the concept later transformed into a full publishing tool that also allowed musicians to distribute their music track. Sound cloud is one of the world’s largest music and audio platform, SoundCloud lets people discover and enjoy the greatest selection of music from the most diverse creator community on earth.

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.

Even though the film is essentially a visual experience, the use of sound has become extremely important in modern film. The modern viewer hears a complicated soundtrack that is as meaningful as the image on the screen. Three elements comprise the film's soundtrack: the dialogue, the sound effects, and the musical score. The proper balance and mix of these elements produced the essential emphasis required, which created the desired effects. As explained by Joseph Boggs and Dennis Petrie,

Music also plays a key role in reminding the audience that this movie took place in the past.

Jukebox musicals began in film and later shifted to theatre. They had begun to make theatre more popular with the public, which had begun to gravitate towards film and music. By combining the two, they gain some of the same as well as a whole new audience. I will discuss how this came to be by speaking of the shift that occurred.

Once all the sounds were known it would be the time to “determine what objects are appropriate for each specific sound effect” Hibbard (2015) to match the ones in the video. This meant experimenting with the sounds items could produce. As this was for the sake of research and did not require professional equipment, it would be recorded with a phone to see if the recording matches the sound in reality. If the sound was approved it would be noted for later use, and if it was not another one would be found instead. After learning how to use the recording studio, items could be brought in and recorded with professional equipment to ensure that the sound has the best quality possible for this project. Other recording equipment was available for booking and could be used as well. Knowledge on how to use those was provided during the earlier lessons and further guides could be found online if needed. Finally, after all the sound effects, ambiences and vocals were created, they would be imported in Soundtrack Pro, “application that gives audio and video professionals the easiest and most flexible way to create, control and fix audio” Apple Inc. (2005), where they are then fixed if needed and synced to the

Along with background music, sound effects play more of a role on the way we feel than many moviegoers think, and "although the function of sound effects is primarily atmospheric, they can also be precise sources of meaning in film" (Giannetti, 225). When the

“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.

Before watching “The Jazz Singer”, I had no idea of its cultural or historical significance. I learned that it was the first motion picture to have synchronized dialogue and words. It set the precedent for cinematography, live voice recordings, and real-time dialogue. The film was based on a short story written only a few years prior. The story was called “The Day of Atonement” and was authored by Samson Raphaelson. The short story was then adapted into an onstage musical in 1925 before finally becoming a full length feature film in 1927.

The musical film has always held a special place for me. From my time as a drama student in high school, my eyes have been opened to the amazing world of the musical and especially the musical film. The musical film is a film genre in which the characters sing songs that are integrated into the overall story. Since musicals first began in theaters, musical films usually contain similar elements. These elements often simulate that there is a live audience watching. In a sense, the film viewers become the audience members, at a theater production, as the actor performs directly to them. Due to the popularity of musicals in the theater, the style was quickly brought over into film. In 1927, the musical film genre began

A musical film is a genre of movie where songs sung by characters are added into the storyline, occasionally complemented by choreography. The musical numbers in these films do not always develop the plot and characters, but they do give the films a more exciting quality. The primary difference between musical theatre and film musicals is the use of extravagant scenery that would be extraordinarily unreasonable for a stage performance. While making movies, the individuals involved have the luxury of being able to shoot multiple takes and have the time to move backgrounds around or change their entire location. Stage performances, on the other hand, must have scenery that can be easily and efficiently moved on and offstage when it is needed. In order to be able to thoroughly comprehend this relatively recent- in the grand scheme of things- form of entertainment, one should understand the history behind these musical films, be aware of some of the “big names” that are well-known, and recognize major titles that revolutionized musical film forever (Scaruffi, P., 2005).

The first film that showed early signs of a rise in the quality of technology was the Western “The Great Train Robbery.” When this film first came out the audience were so amazed at the fact that they could watch something on a TV or at the cinema. Although this film was very good for the 1900s it still lacked some key features that make films much easier to understand such as dialogue, sound and camera shots. The one feature of a film that developed the quickest over the period of time was sound. Sound was introduced in October 1927 in the film “The Jazz singer”, which had three song numbers and a few lines of spoken dialogue. Apart from these few songs and words, the rest of the movie was silent, but the audience still thought that it was amazing that words had been spoken in the film, they used to call it “the movie that talked”.

There are types of music that you can use in a movie scene. Some different genres can be used in different ways. However, there are many types that can be used for only one type of scene. For example, if you wanted to intensify a scary scene, it would not make that much sense if you put a happy melody. You could call these types of music as ‘music as the background’. Today, we are going to look at two different types of Music as the Background. One type is called ‘Spaghetti Western’ and the other type is called ‘Silent Movie’. These two types are seen in Charlie Chaplin’s ‘Modern Times’ and the melody created by Ennio Moriccone in ‘Once upon a Time in the West’. First we will

The use of music to elevate the cinematic experience began early in the history of film. In 1912, Max Winkler became one of the first to catalog music to pair with silent film, leading to an industry of matching canned music to the mood and action of a film (Prendergast, 1992). Winkler’s efforts are one of the first examples of the film industry recognizing the power of congruent music and image. Clearly, music could serve a much more important function than simply quieting the audience (Buchanan, 1974). In his book, This is Your Brain on Music: The Science of a Human Obsession, Daniel Levitin (2006) explores the ability of music to evoke emotion. When an individual listens to music, there is a cascade of activity in brain areas associated with pleasure, such as the

The music selected for silent films is an important process that can affect the audience’s experience. Many films rely on music to enhance the action on screen and assist in telling the story. Emilio Audissino places music selection into two basic categories for silent film music: the first being “cinema music,” which acts as a silence filler for the viewer, and the second is “film music,” with the goal to assist the film’s narrative. For many silent films. the music is primarily cinema music. However, there are some silent films that rely heavily on music to help convey the action on screen. Metropolis (1927) is one such film, which used music scored specifically for it.