Unit 16 - LO1 - P1

 

Unit 16: How is sound used in media industries?

 

To Educate:

Sound is used in media industries in many cases to educate the audience about what they may be watching or listening to. An example of this in media is in documentaries via a narration, in this instance sound is used by the media industry to educate the audience about what is on screen at that moment in time, such as in the “Planet Earth” documentary which uses narration to talk about the wildlife that is being presented. Planet Earth is a documentary carried out by BBC 1 that talks about all things nature, it goes into detail about things such as forests and oceans and educates the audience about the world. Narration is the practise of adding a non-diegetic sound of a person talking over a video such as “We begin in the oldest desert on earth – the Namib in South west Africa.” This allows for the audience to give a better understanding of what is happening and allows them to learn things in more depth, and with how much may be happening in an in-depth show such as Planet earth, having a narration to help the audience with what is happening on screen allows them to actually understand how things work with the help of a trained professional. Overall this allows the audience to become more educated about what they’re watching in contrast to if there wasn’t a narration, as for things that are more in-depth, a simple verbal display may not be enough.

 

To Inform:

In media industries sound is also used to inform the audience about what may be happening through reports. An example of this would be how the news industry such as “BBC News” has reports on things that are happening. BBC News is a news outlet made by BBC that uses reports to inform the consumers of their media about things from the weather of that day to foreign affairs that are currently happening. A report is when someone gives a spoken account about something they have investigated and allows them to inform the audience, this can be seen in BBC News’ 6^th of March 2024 episode where it was stated that “Chancellor Jeremy Hunt will deliver the Budget today, outlining the government's tax and spending plans.” This report on the budgeting situation informs the audience that are listening to the news report that Jeremy hunt is going to deliver the budget on the governments tax plans, this gives them information that they usually wouldn’t just come across and allows them to know about something they previously wouldn’t of. Overall, the news industry uses reports to inform the audience of many things that may be happening across the world and acts as a efficient way to tell people about what’s happening.

 

 

To Entertain:

Media industries also use sounds in their products to create a sense of entertainment. They do this through the use of sound effects and jingles. An example of this would be in BBC Radio 4’s “The Archers” which use jingles and sound effects to create a suspension of disbelief for the audience. A jingle is a catchy musical tone or audible slogan that is used to represent your show, The Archer’s use their jingle in order to crate a setting that fully pulls the audience into their show, it acts as a gateway into the episode and prepares their audience for what is going to happen, therefore entertaining the audience. Sound effects are small audio mp3 files that are played throughout the episode to add to the suspension of disbelief as well, they are used by industries to add to the setting such as in the 29.01.24 episode of the archers where at 0:50 of the episode we can hear that we’re outside with the characters due to a bird chirping sound effect that is playing. Overall, the industries use sound to create a suspension of disbelief which helps the audience gets involved in the episode and get more entertained by the actual episode as The Archers treats their audience as characters as well.

 

Sell products:

Media industries that are trying to sell a product also use sound to make users more familiar with their product, which makes them come back to the product. An example of this is how industries will use the same music in their advertisements in order to sell their product. Advertisements are displays of commercial goods that a company is trying to sell, and usually is seen in either written or video form; when a company uses a video advertisement it will usually be accompanied by a catchy tune that plays alongside the advertisement. We can see this in trailers when a film company is trying to sell their movie, the company behind the movie “Skyfall” uses the song with the same name “Skyfall” to promote their movie by making the audience familiarised with the movie through the song that is always played in the trailers. This gets the song stuck in their head and makes them thing about the movie whenever the remember the song.

 

Wild tracks:

Media industries will use wild tracks much similarly as they use sound in entertainment, many companies use wild tracks to create a greater suspension of disbelief in the audience to get them more involved in the media they are taking in. An example of this is the “Block breaking” sound effect used by the games company “Mojang” in their game Minecraft. The use of this sound in their game creates a better form of suspension of disbelief as it adds to the realism of the game. While the game is clearly fictional due to its abstract art style, the fact that we can physically hear the progress of us breaking a material in the game adds to the realism of the game and makes the audience more involved in what they’re doing.

 

Atmospheric Sounds:

Atmospheric sounds are used by companies in order to make the audience more indulged in the media they’re consuming, its used across many corners of media from movies to video games and allows for the audience to fall further into suspension of disbelief as it adds realism to the environment they are digitally being introduced to. An atmospheric sound may be a sound effect that is used to match the environment that a character might be in, or it may be a music score made by a producer to match the emotions that are being portrayed in the media and this allows for the audience to feel as if the environment that their characters are in is more real as if it didn’t have any atmospheric sounds. We can see this used in the Netflix original movie “Spaceman” which uses sound in order to reflect the emotions of the main character “Jacub”.

 

Sound effects:

Many media industries use sound effects in order to convey something or create meaning. We can see this in horror movies when they use sound effects to create tension in their media, an example of a horror movie where they use sound effects in a movie is in the movie “Evil dead rise” where they use the sound effect of wet feet steps to imitate a floor being covered in blood, to reflect the massacre that had happened previously. This creates a more realistic setting for the audience as we see that there is blood splattered which makes the audience more enveloped in the movie they’re watching and creates more tension for the audience.

 

Dialogue:

Dialogue is the use of a conversation in media, people can use this to build character in films or games and allows for the audience to understand whats happening. An example of this being used is in “Deep Blue sea” where Samuel L Jackson gives a speech which builds confidence in the other characters, this conveys to the audience the emotions which is currently happening in this movie such as the panic which can be felt in this movie when he is giving his speech.

 

Music:

Music is used to specifically anchor meaning in media texts, it allows for the audience to build on what’s already happening in the text at that point and builds on whatever is needed, such as emotion or meaning. An example of this would be the use of the song “Dreamer” in the advert for the apple vision pro. The use of this song is symbolic as it allows for the audience to feel as if the product is for people who want to dream big and this song anchors that meaning into the product as it allows for the audience to feel as if the product makes you able to live your dreams.

 

To enhance visuals:

Sound is also used in many cases to enhance visuals, this means that the audio that is played reinforces the visuals of what’s happening in scene through post-production editing. Many media industries may do this as some of the sounds they wanted couldn’t be made in the actual recording and therefore they record the sound exteriorly and add it to the film. One example of this are the hammering sounds in the “Iron Man” movie, by using the sound of a hammer hitting metal gives the effect that actual effort went into crafting this suit of armour, where in reality it probably didn’t sound like that before post production. Another example of  sound being used to enhance the visuals of a media text is in “Star wars attack of the clones” where we can hear the non-diegetic sound of the two lightsabres hitting each other, while we know this is a fictional sound that has bene added in post, the use of it to add to the realism of the lightsabres crashing into each other makes the visuals much greater as we can be lead to believe that they are actually clashing which makes the effect greater for the audience.

 

Use of silence:

Finally, many industries also use the sound of silence to create a meaning in their media text, they do this to reflect not only emotional aspects but physical aspects of the media text; this can be seen in the movie “A quiet place” to reflect the audible impairments of one of the characters. In this movie, making noise can kill you therefore any diegetic sound that can be heard builds suspense for the audience, however the fact that a sound is currently being made but we can’t hear it as the audience is an effective way to build even more tension as the person who is deaf cannot hear what is happening but has to see it in order to understand.