Tuesday 21 October 2014

Wilhelm Scream



The Wilhelm scream is a sound used in many movies as a sort of running joke. It was originally used in 1951 in Distant Drums. It was given its name from the 1953 film, The Charge at Feather River, named after Private Wilhelm.

Thursday 16 October 2014

Sound

Editing

Editing helps construct a narrative. We are so used to editing that we barely recognise it. The editing is often "invisible". Editing can be used to condense long, boring activities into quick bursts of information.

The simplest and most commonly used edit is the cut. In old fationed film making, when the editor put films together, they find the best bits of footage by splicing them together. They cut the best pieces out and stuck them together.
In the assassination scene in North by Northwest, between the conversation with Roger Thornhill and looking out the window of the United Nations Building. They are most frequent during the conversation so that we can see the reactions on the characters' faces.


The pace of the editing can be used to create excitement and tension, for example: in the shower scene of Psycho and when Marion dies, the pace slows down.

Dissolve: One scene dissolves into another, overlapping for a momen.

Fade in/out: One scene fades to black and other fades in.

Wipe: One scene wipes across the screen and replaces another.

Iris: One scene expands from a pinhole in the centre.

Jump Cut: Two scenes that feature a common element right after one another. Used for disorienting or comedy.

In the shower scene of Psycho, the editing is faster paced during the murder and slows down once she is dead to represent how her life is slowly slipping away from her. There is a graphic match, where one shot dissolves into a similar image, shortly after when the plughole dissolves into Marion's eye.

The pace of editing often increases when things get exciting, most notable in trailers.