¿CINEMA WITH OR WITHOUT SOUND?

The silent cinema consisted in the production of an amount of images without synchronized sound, like dialogues. The period before the occurrence of the sound in the cinema was considered as " mute era" or " the silent period" but is better known as " the age of the silver screen".

The first mute movie was filmed in 1888, it was a short film of only two seconds, "the scene in the Roundhay garden" realized by Louis Le Prince, it was about two people walking in a garden.

At the end of 1920 the cinematography reaches it fulfilling maturity before the occurrence of the sounds movies. A lot of people who know about this world declare that the quality of this type of cinema work down during several years even the directors, the personal and the agents of production have been adapted to this new type of cinema.

At the beginning the silent cinema used classic music directly to attend the images. The actors realized actions highlighting in an exaggerated way the gestures and the facials expressions. It results too much exaggerated to the actual preferences.

Gloria Swanson and Rodolfo Valentino, in a film in 1922

At the beginning of 20th century it was begun to introduce the sound in movies, it was considered as global phenomena. Hollywood was consolidated as one of the cultural and commercial systems more important around the world.

Nevertheless at the beginning there were several problems like the synchronization due to the fact that the images and the sounds were recorded and produced with different instruments, there were too a lot of problems with the gadgets of sound that were made of a low quality, the cameras and the production equipment were very noisy so it difficulty more the work.

Some actors of the silent cinema didn´t have attractive voices it carried a serious preoccupation for the vocal quality since they were needed actors, which had talent as singers.

Since the appearance of the sound cinema, the sound has been tied with the image. They were always known as sound the dialogues and the sounds effects.

A part of the strength in the scene of a film is acquired thanks to the sounds effects. They have the capacity to make us perceive the image in one way or in another giving to them different interpretations.

We can stand out several qualities of the sound as for example the level, in the cinema the sound level is manipulated constantly to give more protagonism to some actions or characters, it is used too to cause different sensations like agony, anxiety, happiness or homesickness.

With the timbre, as it describes the texture of the sound giving a tonal quality, the tone was varied so much in the music and in the soundtrack. Finally another of the big qualities of the sound is the tone it is known as the frequency of the vibrations, it is used when we want to difference various objects between them.

This tree qualities act interacting between itself  in the cinema to define the sound texture of the film and with it we can differentiate the sounds in movies.

Sounds effects are a couple of techniques that had been used in the cinema an in the theatre to create audio-visual illusions. As always a lot of the biggest creators don´t revel their secrets but nowadays we know for example that we can get the sound of the fire burning crinkling and smoothing out a piece of thickness plastic, the sound of the wind is caused shaking a table which has a tide rope,  we can get the sound of the rain thanks of an American invention,  it was taken a trunk of cactus, in it were inserted prickles or small wood sticks making a labyrinth, it was enters seeds, and finally the extremes were closed with straps of leather and they were making fall.

To finish we know that the noise of a storm was caused waving a plate of brass or we can get it introducing in a barrel an amount of big rocks and making it roll.

Here I attach a video about the sound in the movies that i think is very interesting.

BIBLIOGRAPHY:

1. ABC. "Un estudio revela que la inmensa mayoría del cine mudo se ha perdido para siempre".[http://www.abc.es/cultura/cine/20131205/abci-cine-mudo-perdido-siempre-201312042119.html]
2. [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ATMBMs05tow]
3. World cinema history. [http://www.cypruscinema.com/article_world-cinema-history]
4. [http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/sound/timbre.html]

What are the technical aspects that we don’t perceive when we see a movie?

“Children of men” is a film of the Mexican director Alfonso Cuarón filmed in 2006 and based on the novel “The Children of Men” of P. D. James.
This film situated in the context of the year 2027 is about the human being in the edge of the extinction, men have lost the capacity to procreate and there is no reason of why all women of the planet have become sterile. At the same time, the entire world trembles in fear when an eighteen years old young man dies, he was the youngest person on the earth. It was a tremendous situation of chaos. In this circumstance, Theo (Clive Owen), a disillusioned activist of London was chosen by Julian (Julianne Moore) to protect the girl most requested of the planet.

Now that we know a little of the film, I am going to analyse the following scene:

The basic elements that conforms the image are: the space, the line, the form, the tone, the movement, the colour and the rhythm.

In this sequence the space is closed, the characters are situated inside of a car, which is moving.
As we can see lines in the composition are straight lines marked by the typical highway and it shape. Nevertheless something that keeps my attention is that just at the moment when the fire car appears the road becomes curved, that symbolize certain agitation and dynamism. This is the same that happens when appears too the police car, the highway seems situated in the middle of the hill, for that reason the inspected car appearance provokes the sensation of a danger situation.

It is used a soft lighting, it is diffuse and hardly ever the excessive contrast exist. It permits to keep the attention on the details. It is likable and it reduces the dramatic part of the scene. However the predominant colours are the ones that are in the dark tone like dark green, gloomy grey and the orange colour of the fire. These colours are characterized for transmit strong emotions, are serious and sober. In general these type of cold colours make the environment more small and distant.

On the other hand we have to talk about the movement, in this case we have two types. On one hand the movement of the characters and on the other the movement of the camera. We can't say much about the movement of the characters because they are in a static position inside the moving car, even so the woman sitting on the co-pilot seat moves her body looking at Theo, but this movement it isn´t too much relevant. What we can surely stand out is first the movement of the crowd getting closer to the car in a chaotic way and secondly the motorway driving in front of it, giving a total draft to the scene provoking action. The movement of the camera is really simple, it is placed inside of the car, therefore at the beginning doesn´t exist movement more than the zoom shot towards each character when they talk. When the action starts the camera makes a panoramic horizontal movement to capture all the views outside the car.

The rhythm is one of the characteristics of the audio-visual element more important for the story. At first the rhythm is associated with the time and the number of the shot used in one sequence. At the same time the rhythm is established by the sound and the movement, in this sequence at the beginning is slow, while the characters have a calm conversation and there is a background music, the car follows a straight direction and there is a sensation of normality. When the car with the fire appears the rhythm changes, we can hear shouts outside and inside the car, this moves going in reverse, it transmits a danger and stress sensation.

In this sequence predominate the narrative shots since only we see the characters from the waist up. It is used to stand out the action of the characters without mattering the environment. For that reason the expression has great value.

A first shot appears when the motorist shoots the woman sitting on the co-pilot seat and the man covers her wound with his hands, with the nearness of the shot the director pretends to highlight the feelings and the emotions of the characters. To finish I can say that of all the angles it predominates over the normal one, at the height of the characters look and we could say too that it exists a little depth of field, only we can see clearly the objects situated near the principal object.

BIBLIOGRAPHY: 

1.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z_MysJsca0s
2. Dargis, Manhola, December 25, 2006. " Apocalypse Now, but the Wasteland a Child Is Given" [ http://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/25/movies/25chil.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0]
3. Ebert, Roger. "Children of men". [ http://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/children-of-men-2007]