Film is not a visual medium !

A

aFox

Active member
I guess i just read: "film is a visual medium... etc..." to often lately and how people start with their so called "sounddesign" in post.

So here is a great site about sound in movies. Yes, the other 50% of this visual medium :)

http://www.filmsound.org/

this article by Randy Thom is a really great start:

http://www.filmsound.org/articles/designing_for_sound.htm

Lots of people probably know about that site, just in case someone doesnt. it was really inspiring to me.
 
while i agree that audio is important, film IS visual .. silent films were uhm.. silent and still told their story visually ;) (just playing devil's advocate)
 
The percentage war between sound and picture rages on...

A movie without picture is radio, a movie without sound is a sleep aid (for the record, even silent movies had music played at the theater)

If you doubt sound doesn't make a huge difference in even silent films, mute the TV next time you "watch" your favorite Charlie Chaplin pic (pre-Great Dictator).

Ultimately they are both equally important but picture gets most of the attention because, quite simply, it's sexier.

Cheers
 
forget the percentage war. This site i a great resource for those interested in learning about using sound for storytelling. enjoy! :)
 
Film most definitely is a visual medium.

Plain & Simple.

Does a film need sound? Sure...it also needs costumes and sets. What's the point?

Excuse me now, I've got to go start a "THE SKY IS NOT BLUE!" thread
 
film is an editing medium. Editing is the only thing native to film.. everything else.. photography, sound, writing, is all 'its own thing' already.

Any director who neglects sound is going nowhere. Many times, the best directors plan shots and sequences solely as an excuse to use a cool sound effect.
 
Thats actually a very good point Bennet. Callaghan, i think you misunderstood the point of my thread a bit, because i really dont want to diminish the importance the picture has, just wanted to point people to a really interesting resource about sound. Still i really enjoyed your response, hehe :).

But i think sound is really 50 % of the film, because in my opinion it gives a lot of the emotional impact. Sure a Film needs costumes and sets, but these do not only serve the visual aspect of film, but also the sound. Different locations make different sounds, etc... and things like that should also be taken into consideration and used for emotional impact, right from the beginning of the process, at the script stage. People often scout locations, to see if they look interesting, beautiful, but they should also use their ears. Does it sound interesting, what sound will i be able to use for this location to draw the viewer (and listener) more into my story... same thing with props. Point is, when you only start thinking about sound in Postproduction, you have missed a great opportunity and you are definitely not" sound designing" your film.
 
I think it depends on the movie a lot of time. Some scripts are simply easier to explore with sound design than with others.
Like Fight Club was very subjective and they had more room to play around.
Try doing that much work with a normal Romantic Comedy and it would come out rather odd.


There are some things you can only do with sound and others you can only do with visuals.
 
Well, I guess if the thread title is suppose to mean, "Film is not a ONLY visual medium but, in fact, a mixed medium," then I am on board.

It certainly is true a lot of freshmen filmmakers are so focused on the visuals they completely neglect sound. Even some old schoolers do but to their detriment. Unfortunately I have learned no amount of preaching will change this. Most just have to learn through experience.

Post script: To those interested in really diving into sound design, this book is really excellent: http://www.amazon.com/Sound-Design-..._bbs_sr_1/105-9510771-7406836?ie=UTF8&s=books
 
Silent films always had a piano, organ, or orchestra acompany the film so they weren't a completely silent performance.
 
aFox said:
I guess i just read: "film is a visual medium... etc..." to often lately and how people start with their so called "sounddesign" in post.

So here is a great site about sound in movies. Yes, the other 50% of this visual medium :)

http://www.filmsound.org/

this article by Randy Thom is a really great start:

http://www.filmsound.org/articles/designing_for_sound.htm

Lots of people probably know about that site, just in case someone doesnt. it was really inspiring to me.
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when people say film is visual medium - at least when I've said it - I'm talking about it being image driven as opposed to DIALOGUE driven like a play. The axiom is show don't tell. And the saying "film is a visual medium" in my experience has nothing to due with audio's importance or not. Only that if you have a screenplay where everything is revealed through dialogue or important things are described rather than shown then you don't have a screenplay - you have a play.

In a screenplay the dialogue is a small center section of text. Everything else uses the whole page. In a play the dialogue uses the whole page, and action description - what you see - is relegated to a small middle column like dialogue in a screenplay.

Now, I happen to agree with you on the importance of audio. It's just that the saying you're referencing isn't talking about the importance of audio, it's dialogue vs. images. And yes before someone starts a ticked off thread about dialogue being important - it is. It's just not the primary defining aspect of the medium. Though there will of course be very successful movies with all three elements vying for primacy.

So ... audio is very important. Our eyes will adjust to a low fi image and accept it as an aesthetic - maybe because it is already so different from how we really see. But we cannot tolerate bad audio.

Nintendo did a study to see how much to sink into audio.

Their study found the following

GREAT IMAGE + MEDIOCRE SOUND = POOR OVERALL QUALITY RATING.
MEDIOCRE IMAGE + GREAT SOUND = HIGH OVERALL QUALITY RATING.

And of course GREAT + GREAT = GREAT
and MEDIOCRE + MEDIOCRE = MEDIOCRE.

But the point is that audio pulled the perceived quality up or down a rating independent of the image and the image could not do the same without the audio.
 
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Well, so there was probably a misunderstanding on my side, concerning "the film is a visual medium" statements.

I totally agree with wabbit and thanks for the link. As for my self, i too have to remind myself of the importance of sound. Its not like i am mister sounddesigner, its far from that! Actually sometimes its quite the opposite, but i am trying :)

Jack Daniel, interesting info about that Nintendo study and thanks for clearing it up for me, still i think there is a tendency to rate the picture much higher than sound. BTW liked your "Rekindled".
 
Watch a couple of modern movies you haven't seen without the sound. See how many of them make sense. Even silent films had sections with written dialogue or narration. If a movie plays off with out the sound on, congrats. That one was a visual story. But I think now days you will be hard pressed to find a film that plays well without sound. I can get over a film with bad cinematography and good sound a lot easier then a film with good cinematography and bad sound. If the film has strange pictures you chalk it up to artistic choice. If it has bad sound you just assume they screwed up. I am a sound junky so I may be biased.
 
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