As the year continues, many of these posts will be philosophical in nature. Some will be in contradiction to previous postings. These are not intended as truths or assertions, they’re merely thoughts…ideas. Think of this as stream of consciousness over a wide span…
I’ve talked about how sound is a physical event. This week, I was scanning through a little notebook I’ve kept of these types of ideas over the past 5-7 years, and I came across another little idea that sparked a thought for this week’s post.
“Sound has mass.”
Sound requires a medium to travel through. Most of the time, that’s air…though it can obviously be water, metal pipes, etc. While sound is in these mediums, it has mass…sort of. The feel of that kick drum when piped through a concert’s sound system is a great example. You feel that pressure wave hit you, rattle your chest. Air has mass, and it moves you. Sound is what moves the air. This isn’t really what I wanted to focus on this week. It’s just a necessary tangent for me.
The question that was bouncing around in my head this week, is how can we represent that physicality of sound in a film or game? There’s the clichéd bleeding ears shot, and there’s also this idea of “contact hearing” that I posted about only a few weeks ago. Those are two, and I’m sure there are plenty of others. The realization came that it’s necessary to have appropriate imagery to support the representation of a sound’s physical nature. This means buy in from the director.
Is there a moment in your project where the story could be bolstered by the display of the physical effects of sound? Have you spoken to your director or game designer about how it could, and what sort of visual would be needed to convey it?
The development of the “rumble pack” by Nintendo 64 that caused the game controller to vibrate was an interesting way to reinforce sounds that were heavy, big, deep or powerful.
Similarly, 4D theaters employ vibrating or moving seats to attempt to enhance key moments in films, often cuing based on the impact of sound.
The problem with both of these examples is of course localization. There’s a discrepancy between the direction of the source and the physical vibration, which in my opinion severely limits their effectiveness.
I always think back to Jurassic Park’s water glass vibration shot that introduces the T Rex when I think about the physical power of sound. A big part of conveying this idea is allowing time in the film for the sound develop. If the water glass shot had appeared in the middle of the chaotic scene or even as a brief coda to it, it wouldn’t have had the same impact because the audience wouldn’t have paid attention to it in the same way.
The most common moments in movies that give me a direct physical association with sound are panes of glass shattering and dogs barking. They are really simple representations of the impact of the sound on the environment. Its a simple example but if a character blows a whistle and no sound comes out yet dogs start barking, it instantly gives that seemingly non existent sound a mass.