Sound in a movie plays a huge roll in how the crowd is presented a scene or situation that is happening or about to happen. Many motion pictures have sounds tracks and are given awards for various aspects of sound or composition of those sounds. When it comes to movies there are three basic categories of sound. They are dialogue, sound effects, and music. Each of which play a vital role in making the movie. Below I will break down each a bit further.
Dialogue: Characters talking to one another (Goodykoontz & Jacobs, 2011). This of course is a simple way of explaining it, but it much more than that. It’s about creating a natural interaction between characters throughout the film. Whether their part is large or small it must seem seamless to the viewer and natural to the point that it could happen to you.
Sound Effects: These are the noises whether natural or not that you hear throughout the movie. It could be an explosion, door bell, or an opening door.
Music: Music in a film is often thought of as the soundtrack. But there is also the score of a movie. These of course are not the same thing. The score is the music that plays in the background of the movie and is generally composed, and performed by an orchestra (Goodykoontz & Jacobs, 2011). The soundtrack is songs played throughout the movie. This is usually most popular because people associate music with some of their favorite movies, i.e. Eye of the Tiger, Somewhere Over the Rainbow, and etc…(Goodykoontz & Jacobs, 2011).
In Saving Private Ryan you have all three sounds being used throughout the film. In the opening scenes of the movie, there is the elderly gentleman walking through the cemetery. As he walks you hear score playing and it is setting the tone of the scene.
As the movie transitions to the boats and during the storming of the movie the dialogue begins to pick up with the cast of the movie. And the sounds effects are consistent throughout the movie. From the water crashing to shore, the bullets noises zooming past, and the explosions throughout remind you that this is a war movie.
A sound in a movie can let you know everything about what is going to happen or lead you in a direction to assume something is going to happen. Sound can make a scene hilarious or suspenseful, magical or sombering. It can also allow you to associate with various genres of movies. For instance horror or suspenseful films use creaking doors or floors, wind blowing a curtain, or that Friday the 13th Jason is coming sound that lets you know what is about to go down.
The sounds throughout Saving Private Ryan give a realistic and authentic representation of the period it was being portrayed in. If the sounds would have been changed to say more modern weapons like that from Blackhawk Down I don’t feel you would have gotten the same feel for the period.
References:
Goodykoontz, B. & Jacobs, C.P. (2011). Film: From Watchdog to Seeing. San Diego, CA: Bidgepoint Education, Inc.
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