Museum of the Moving Image

The Museum of the Moving Image provided an illuminating glimpse at the movie and television industry. Most interesting, I found, were the demonstrations exploring modern editing. Specifically, the sound editing demonstration revealed how powerful of an impact sound effects and music render for a film. As necessary as the picture itself, the sound of a film creates the appropriate mood and emotion that is to be evoked from the audience. At the demonstration, scenes from the movie The Titanic were shown while manipulating the sound effects using a computer program. One run through of the scene where the Titanic is sinking was shown with only the human dialogue and voice audible, (muting all music or other sound effects) to demonstrate how certain human screams, panting, or thuds were emphasized to evoke panic. Another run through was shown with only the music audible, which revealed that the music is really the main contributor to the emotional aspect of the scene. Further dissection of the sound effects revealed a very interesting component; animal sounds such as lion and elephant roars. The only way to actually pinpoint these animal sound effects was to use the sound-editing program and single them out amongst the chaos of all the other sounds playing simultaneously. Apparently, the editors of the film wanted the ship to appear as a character of the film itself, and therefore appear more alive. The animal sound effects were included to insinuate that the ship was “dying” as if it were actually alive, and therefore provoke emotional feelings from the audience. Each and every sound in the scene was scrutinized over, (what volume to be played at, which thud or bang to emphasize amongst the rest, which splash in the water should be loudest) all for the single purpose of evoking the appropriate emotion from the audience. This demonstration truly enlightened my knowledge of the sound-editing process, and revealed how integral a role the sound effects and music play in the film as a whole.