The Auditory Setting: Environmental Sounds in Film and Media Arts

226 Pages·2021·2.131 MB·English

by  Budhaditya Chattopadhyay

MUSIC & THE MOVING IMAGE Since the turn of the millennium, films such as C
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at the range and scope of contemporary film M
musicals – from stage adaptations like Mamma P
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wildly popular Frozen (2013) and the Fast & S
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THE AUDITORY SETTING
Music and the Moving Image
Series Editors
Kevin Donnelly, University of Wales Aberystwyth
Beth Carroll, University of Southampton
Titles in the series include:
Film’s Musical Moments
by Ian Conrich & Estella Tincknell (eds)
Music and the Moving Image: A Reader
by Kevin Donnelly (ed.)
Music, Sound and Multimedia
by Jamie Sexton (ed.)
Music Video and the Politics of Representation
by Diane Railton & Paul Watson
Contemporary Musical Film
by Kevin J. Donnelly and Beth Carroll (eds)
British Music Video: Art, Commerce and Social Critique 1966–2016
by Emily Caston
The Auditory Setting: Environmental Sounds in Film and Media Arts
by Budhaditya Chattopadhyay
www.edinburghuniversitypress.com/series/MAMI
THE AUDITORY SETTING
Environmental Sounds in
Film and Media Arts
Budhaditya Chattopadhyay
Edinburgh University Press is one of the leading university presses in the UK.
We publish academic books and journals in our selected subject areas across the
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information visit our website: edinburghuniversitypress.com
© Budhaditya Chattopadhyay, 2021
Edinburgh University Press Ltd
The Tun – Holyrood Road
12(2f) Jackson’s Entry
Edinburgh EH8 8PJ
Typeset in 10/12.5 Adobe Sabon by
Servis Filmsetting Ltd, Stockport, Cheshire,
and printed and bound in Great Britain
A CIP record for this book is available from the British Library
ISBN 978 1 4744 7438 2 (hardback)
ISBN 978 1 4744 7440 5 (webready PDF)
ISBN 978 1 4744 7441 2 (epub)
The right of Budhaditya Chattopadhyay to be identified as the author of this work has
been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, and
the Copyright and Related Rights Regulations 2003 (SI No. 2498).
CONTENTS
List of Figures viii
Acknowledgements ix
PART 1: INTRODUCTION
1 The First Sound and the Curiosity 3
1.1 Foregrounding environmental sound 3
1.2 Mise-en-sonore 6
1.3 Ambient sound in films 7
1.4 Ambient sound in other audiovisual media arts 10
2 The Auditory Context and Signification 14
2.1 Film sound research 14
2.2 The audiovisual relationship 17
2.3 Sound studies 18
2.4 Film and media arts 19
2.5 The phenomenology of ambient sound 20
2.6 Digital aesthetics 23
3 Key Concepts and Definitions 26
3.1 Diegetic sound 26
3.2 Mimesis 28
3.3 Presence 29
3.4 Rendering 31
3.5 Soundscape and the soundmark 32
contents
4 Approach and Method 35
4.1 Historical overview 35
4.2 Ethnographic research 36
4.3 Personal inputs 38
4.4 Artistic research 38
4.5 Self-reflective analysis 39
4.6 Structure of the book 40
PART 2: SONIC TRAJECTORIES
5 Monaural Soundtracks and Recording (Sonic) Reality 45
5.1 Mechanical and optical recordings, sound film and direct
sound 45
5.2 The monaural aesthetics 49
5.3 Magnetic recording 51
5.4 Audiographic realism 53
5.5 Dubbing 55
6 Stereo Sound and the Expanded Space 59
6.1 Studio-centric sound 59
6.2 Hyper-real sound effects 60
6.3 Stereophonic space 62
6.4 Sounding media arts 64
7 Digital Surround Sound and the Mimetic Site 67
7.1 The state of the digital 67
7.2 Sync sound 72
7.3 Sound design and deconstruction of the soundtrack 73
7.4 Surround sound 76
7.5 Digital technology, field recording and multi-channel sound
artworks 80
PART 3: ON LOCATION AND OTHER STORIES
8 Land, Field, Meadow 87
9 Forest, Jungle 92
10 Village, Rural Environment 97
11 Indoors 102
12 Riverbank, Beach, Island 112
13 Street, Public Squares, Urban Neighbourhood 119
14 Public Transport 131
vi
contents
15 Airport 135
16 Underwater, Outer Space 139
PART 4: CRITICAL LISTENING
17 Mapping the Aesthetic Choices in Sound Production 147
17.1 Listening through film and media arts 147
17.2 Locating models in sound production 150
17.3 Sonic mediation and expanding the notion of rendering 152
18 Auditory Presence and Better Practice 155
18.1 Comparative analysis: film sound/sound in media arts 155
18.2 Constraints of the sonic environment in film 157
18.3 Challenging best practice in film sound production 158
18.4 Tracing an emergent spatiality 160
18.5 Rethinking the concept of auditory presence in film and
media arts 163
19 The God of Small Sounds 169
19.1 Anthropocenic listening 169
19.2 Environmental sounds lost 170
20 Emerging Trends and Future Directions 175
20.1 Post-digital sound and future listening 175
20.2 Post-immersion 178
20.3 Remoteness 183
Bibliography 187
List of Works/Media Cited 198
Index 202
Listening and viewing examples to support the text can be accessed via the QR
code on the back cover or at https://budhaditya.org/projects/auditory-setting/
vii
FIGURES
5.1 Direct recording outside of Melies Studio 44
6.1 Inside a sound studio 58
7.1 Digital sound recording on location 68
viii