IMPORTANCE OF MUSIC AND SOUND EFFECTS IN FILM (RESEARCH)
From the soundtrack to use of foreshadowing, music is an important element of film making, being able to develop the story and to manipulate the audience's emotions, making the film that much more memorable to the audience.
Music is important in a film as it can manipulate the audience's emotions to make them feel a certain way, being a powerful tool in story telling techniques or impactful scenes. 'Music can also be used to portray character's emotions to the audience, provoking the same emotion in the audience as the character. Being able to make the audience feel a certain way about a character or scenario allows much more creative control to the film maker if the music is effective, making what would be boring without music that much more intense.
Setting a tone also connects in with the audience's emotions in a film and is done by the use of score music throughout the film, altering the audience's emotions and the atmosphere to develop along with the story line. It can help the audience determine the genre of the film and what twists and turns the film may follow, managing to hype up the audience for what is to come; positive and negative.
Music can also be seen helping develop characters and story lines throughout films as music can have such an impact on how the audience is feeling, allowing it to also implement into the story telling. Music can develop the characters and story in different ways, either by foreshadowing future characters or arcs in a story or by working along with the scene to create an atmosphere around a character once they are revealed.
An example of this is in Hot Fuzz by Edgar Wright. The music is used to develop the story, 'Village Green Preservation' being the song playing as he greets all of the villagers for the first time on his morning jog and the songs playing in Skinner's car around the deaths refer to their deaths such as 'Romeo and Juliet' and 'Fire.' Four of the songs used throughout the film also have 'Fuzz' in the title, showing the amount of research that went into the music choices of this film to fit to the story line. The music choices are small but impact the story once you pay close attention to them, the music from the cars referring to how the characters died and foreshadowing what will happen to other characters in the future story of the film.
Music is important into creating an atmosphere as it can manipulate the audience's emotions to make them feel a certain way, being a powerful tool in story telling techniques or impacting and memorable scenes; links back to story and character development. Music has been proven to manipulate emotions if used effectively and can also make the scene that the audience are watching more effective, managing to pull on the audience's heart strings throughout. Lack of music can also be effective, having no music making the scene awkward and eerie to the audience as it feels un-natural and strange to the audience.
An example of creating an atmosphere around a character is implemented in the first appearance of Captain Jack Sparrow in Pirates of the Caribbean. This scene is enhanced by the music, making Jack seem much more powerful and mysterious to the audience when they see him for the first time, making the audience want to learn more about him. It helps portray the character that Captain Jack is to the audience without the actor, Johnny Deep, having to say a word. The music is powerful and impactful along with the visual of the character, allowing the audience to connect certain words about his personality quickly without having ever seen the character beforehand.
Matching visuals with the music is a technique that works well with setting the tone to a movie, being able to be visually interesting to the audience and telling the audience the genre of film they are watching. Matching visuals with music has been a technique used in many different kinds of films, making the scene unique to the audience, but has been noted to be most noticed in comedy/action movies, syncing up with the movements of the characters.
Another kind of matching visuals with the music can also be through words being on the screen such as in this example from Baby Driver. Throughout the introduction sequence, you can see the words connect with the music as they are visible on screen, the character also moving with the music and doing some of the actions described in the song. This takes a lot of planning but is unique to the audience and can make the film that much more enjoyable when the music feels natural with the World that the characters live in.
Sound effects are also important to use when the music is lower to enhance the scenario or can work alongside the music. Sound effects can be used in many different kinds of films with many different meanings, the most common genres to use sound effects frequently being action and horror; the third notably being comedy.
Many sound effects added into fight scenes are to create more of an impact to the audience. Some of these sound effects are the gun shots, sword hits, punches, kicks, screams and grunts you hear in a fight scene. The sound effects are mostly to enhance the sounds behind them and to make the fight feel much more brutal and realistic to the audience, although some sound effects can feel fake and sound completely off meaning that they have to be picked correctly. A lack of sound effects in a fight scene makes it feel awkward to the audience, not hearing the natural noises that they would with a fight in real life, this making the audience not enjoy the fight scene and feel like there was lack of effort no matter how good the choreography is.
Sound effects can also enhance the audience's emotions, making the audience feel tension or suspense around a certain character or scene. This technique is most common in horror movies, making the audience feel uncomfortable with ambient sound effects that are natural sounding but hard for the audience to ignore. It has also been scene in action films to make the villains noticeable to the audience, similar use to the Captain Jack example, making the villain seem powerful and mysterious to the audience; it can also be used for superheroes in the same retrospect.
Overall music and sound effects are effective into helping develop the story line and to manipulate the audience's emotions into feeling a certain way about a character or scene. 'Where a score sets the tone, a good soundtrack gives a movie personality.' - Mitchell-Baker, D. (2018)
References
Mitchell-Baker, D. (2018). The importance of a soundtrack to a film. [online] The Edge. Available at: https://www.theedgesusu.co.uk/features/2017/03/12/the-importance-of-a-soundtrack-to-a-film/ [Accessed 20 Mar. 2018].
misterpopband (2018) Hot Fuzz Fire [online] Available at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1uKZEobaMmk [Accessed 18 Apr. 2018]
MishoMGM (2018) Captain Jack Sparrow Legendary first appearance intro scene (Pirates Of The Caribbean) Full HD [online] Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dvdrCPr3gDQ [Accessed 18 Apr. 2018]
No Film School. (2018). What Makes a Film Great? Here Are 6 Elements to Watch For. [online] Available at: https://nofilmschool.com/2016/02/6-elements-great-film [Accessed 18 Apr. 2018].
Robin Hoffmann. (2018). 12. What is the function of film music?. [online] Available at: http://www.robin-hoffmann.com/tutorials/guide-to-working-with-a-film-composer/12-what-is-the-function-of-film-music/ [Accessed 18 Apr. 2018].
Sujay Thomas (2018) Baby Driver - Coffee Run Scene / Opening Titles [online] Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rYv2a_VF328&t=2s [Accessed 18 Apr. 2018]
