RESEARCH - Why is sound so important

Sound is everything that we can hear around us - music, noises, conversation etc. A soundscape is the combination of sounds to create a sound effect and atmosphere. Sound design is the process of creating and editing audio, making it fit to the film. "Suspending disbelief" is when the audience enjoys something which is not real.

Whilst sound initially appears to be simple - music, sound effects or silence - there are a number of different sound terms which help you analyze and understand sound and how it is used to create a film. Some of these terms are:

- Wild track - an audio recording intended to be synchronized with film or video but recorded separately from picture.

- Ambient sound - the background sounds which re present in a scene or location. Example - wind, water, birds, traffic.

- Diegetic - a sound whose source is visible on the screen or whose source is implied to be present in the action of the film . Example is a character's voice.

- Non-diegetic - a sound whose source in neither visible on the screen nor has been implied to be present in the action. Example is a narrator's commentary.

- Score - Music written especially to accompany a fil

-Song: A short poem or other set of words set to music, meant to be sun

- Voiceover: A piece of narrative in a film or broadcast not accompanied by an image of the speaker

- Dialogue: A conversion between two or more people

- Dubbing: A means of translating foreign language films into the audiences language

- Foley: The reproduction of everyday sound effects that are added to film video etc. to enhance quality

- Synchronous: Soundtrack matched to certain movements in the scene

- Asynchronous: Sounds matches the action being performed however it is not precisely synchronous with the action


- Sound Bridge: When the scene begins with the carry over sounded from the previous scene before the new sound begins

- Sound motif: Accompanies a particular character or elements of a film

Sound provokes different moods and tones in the audience, depending on the context. For example:


A cowboy sits around a small campfire. The mood of a campfire is warm.

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Add an off-scene owl and it becomes lonesome. 

Add a wolf howling in the distance and it perhaps harken danger. 

Cut a gunshot and you are telling the audience that another human is nearby. Is he friend or foe? 

Anticipation, possible danger, fear, joy - all are being evoked and the audience could sense any of them, perhaps all.