Editing and Sound

We started class by analyzing different views, or focuses, a camera can capture. Close ups have the subject taking up most of the screen. This stresses the importance of the subject and puts the focus on the emotion of the subject in the frame. Medium focus gives you a wider view of a scene, and long shot gives a much larger view of a scene so that the viewer gets the complete outlook of a situation. Also we discussed the use of zoom and dolly panning in. As an example of zoom, we watched an interview scene from Citizen Kane. The camera starts with a medium shot. The interviewee was the main subject in the shot with the light and focus on him, to further emphasize the interviewee’s importance, the background was out of focus and the interviewer was covered by a shadow. As the interview proceeds, the camera zooms in on the interviewee’s face until it is a close focus, and the viewer has no choice but to concentrate on him.

I also enjoyed the scene in Citizen Kane when Kane was talking to his wife at the dinner table. Sound and visual transitions were used to show a change in time and a progression in their relationship. As the movie transitioned into older and older conversations, we notice the couple getting older and their relationship fading. Moreover, the distance between the couple increases after each transition and acts as a metaphor to reinforce the slow deterioration of their relationship. I found that scene to be very interesting.

We learned that there are four main story tellers in movie making which includes: the writer, the director, the editor, and the sound editor. Sound editing is a part of movie making that is very essential but often goes unrecognized by regular movie goers. One of the commentators in the behind the scenes features we watched explained that people would watch a movie if it had good sound and grainy video but would not watch a movie with amazing visuals but terrible audio quality. This stresses the importance of audio in a movie and sound editing.

We watched a feature on the sound editing that was used to make Lord of the Rings and I remember being impressed and awestruck by the ingenuity and creativity needed to “invent” sounds necessary for movie. For example, the sound editors had to think of a sound for a giant spider. They decided combined the sound of a steam blowing out of an espresso machine, the hiss of a Tasmanian devil, and the growl of an alligator to create a very unique, eerie the scream of the spider. I found sound editors to be the most creative and dedicated because they are constantly thinking and listening for ways to manipulate and combine different sounds.