We live in a world that fills with sounds. Some people believe that Sound is more important than image because the human can see one picture at a time but they could hear at least few sounds at the same time, and be able to separate each of the sounds. It is one of the most important keys to making the film successful, and it could cause audiences to the extreme emotion such as fear, anger, sorrow, and joy. So, the four main factors that could be used to generate meaning sound (diegetic and non-diegetic) through Human, Genre, Setting, and Narrative.
Diegetic & Non-diegetic
Diegetic sound refers to dialogue and sounds that created the film’s world by characters or objects, and the actors can hear the sound. Examples of the diegetic sound like: someone plays instrument and the radio on the scene, the punch of an actor…
Non-diegetic sound refers to sounds in the background such as music from a distant, voice over and sounds that are not created by characters or objects within the film’s world.
Synchronization/Non-synchronization
David Neumeyer described that when the sound is naturally coordinate with a moving image, then you have timing phase, and when it fails to correlate with the movement, so non-synchronization occurs.
Human's factor
The sound that associated with human will define the actor’s role as hero, victim or villain.
The human could have a soundtrack for their character called character theme. The play could prove their presence at the scene, and define the role also.
Genre's factor
The sound that associated with Genre will describe what type of film that you are going to see. The sound of gunshots, punching, screaming, broken glasses or the background music with suspension notes and intensify volume, all that could make the audience know the film is action or horror film.
The music in a comedy film is fun, enchanting and enjoyable than the music in the horror movie for a reason.
Setting's factor
The sound that associated with setting will describe it is a safe or dangerous scenery, whether it is contemporary or stable, country or city arrangement. Examples of those are the sound of high wind or the sound of machine works on the farm.
Narrative's factor
The sound that associated with narrative (non-diegetic) will define what the story is about such as voice-over in a documentary film, background music and commentary in sports.
That equals compelling as the sound created in the movie’s space because it could tell the story as well.
Green Lantern
Green Lantern is one of my favorite movies, starring Ryan Reynolds and Blake Lively. A master piece about people with the super power when they have the Lantern Rings. There are nine colors to define the ring, white is for life, pink for love and green for will and so on. The scene that I chose to analyze the sound is on YouTube: (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mbn7Ag-1dQ0, 2:11min). Hal Jordan shows Tom the suit.
Hal and The Green Ring
Hal got the ring on his middle right finger, and he shook his body, right there, you can hear the clear sound of body shaking which made you pay attention to his movement. This diegetic sound was timing with the action, which is perfect for making the narrative more interesting because of its pitch and intensity.
Hal took The Green charger and put it on the table. You can hear the sound of the charger when it touched the table. He put the ring on the green charger, and at that point, you can hear the clear, and intense, distinctive friction sound between the ring and the charger. That sound was synchronization when it touched the charger, creating great interest for the audience.
He shook his body again, and now he was in his green suit. The diegetic sound added at this point was terrific because it enhanced the narrative of the scene.
The music score in the film
The theme music is fantastic for me, sometimes it is more memorable than the movie itself, and I can link the music back to the scene at times without much thought.
